FYI.

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Date: Sat, 3 Apr 2010 17:01:22 +0200 From: Jaldemark Jimmy <Jimmy.Jaldemark@miun.se> Subject: Special Issue "Participation in Online Learning Communities"

I trust this e-mail finds you well! You are receiving this e-mail because of your expertise and interest in participation in learning communities and their applications in online education. Therefore, I would like to cordially invite you to consider contributing your expertise to a special issue of International Journal of Web Based Communities edited by, Dr. Jimmy Jaldemark, Mid Sweden University, Sweden, entitled Participation in Online Learning Communities.

Participation in educational communities may be conceptualised in different ways. One common way is to discuss participation in terms of agents interacting with the features of the surrounding environment. Such conceptualisations build on dualistic foundations where mind, body and environment are discussed as being separated from each other. In these conceptualisations analyses of online participation deemphasises influences on agents participation from for example cultural, historical, or physical aspects. Another way is to conceptualise agent’s participation in terms of transactions that embrace agents, the environment and features involved in human action. Such conceptualisations treat participation of human beings and the features involved in human action as being inseparable from the surrounding environment. Understanding of participation in online learning communities will be different depending on its conceptualisation. Moreover the consequences for designing online education will be different depending on how human action is conceptualised. Subsequently, how we conceptualise human action will affect the conditions for agents’ participation in online learning communities

Traditionally, much of the published research on online participation has been built on interactional dualistic foundations. However, the concept online learning community in itself is a transactional conceptualisation of participation. While this concept build on an analysis of the intersection between learning, online, and participation in a community of other agents. Research is needed that challenges the prevailing interactional paradigm of online participation. This research should analyse participation in terms of intersections of human action.

This special issue aims to gather a collection of high quality papers that reflect transactional analysis of participation in educational communities. Papers that focus on intersections of participation in online learning communities are welcome.

Participation in an educational community is a social interplay between the agents that belongs to the particular community. Agents participate in such communities by using different tools: tools that have cultural, historical, physical, psychological, and social aspects. Moreover, tools mediate their participation and make it possible for them to create a shared meaning of their participation. This understanding of participation builds on a transactional analysis where features such as actions, agents, tools and the community is discussed in terms of being inseparable from each other. Thus, from a transactional analysis, the participation of the agents is only understandable in the intersections of such features. Agents’ tool-mediated online participation in educational communities could therefore be discussed in terms of participation in an online learning community. Overall, such transactional analyses based on different intersections could widen understanding of participation in educational communities. This special issue calls for papers that analyse participation in educational communities in different intersections.

Contributions are expected to answer some of the following questions (among others):

• How could intersections of participation in online learning communities be classified? • What types of intersections could improve our understanding of participation in online learning communities • What types of intersection are of special interest for the educational domain? • How could different intersections influence the design of education? • What approaches are suitable for transactional analyses of participation in educational communities

Suitable topics include but are not limited to:

• The role of socio-political classifications such as age, class ethnicity, gender • Affordances and constraints of different agents in educational communities • The circumstances for participation • Cultural analysis • The impact of different tools • Educational design approaches • Analysis of educational settings • Evaluations of the use different intersections

Submission Procedure Should you accept this invitation, I would like to kindly ask that you, on or before the 15th of June, 2010 submit an extended abstract (1-2 pages) explaining the mission and concerns of the proposed article. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by the 1st of July, 2010 about the status of their proposals and sent guidelines. Full papers are expected to be submitted by the 1st of October 2010. All submitted papers will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me. I appreciate your consideration of this invitation and hope to hear from you soon!

Best wishes,

Dr. Jimmy Jaldemark Department of Education Mid Sweden University, Sweden S-871 88 Härnösand, Sweden jimmy.jaldemark@miun.se