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------------------------ CALL FOR CHAPTERS ----------------------
	
MANAGING LEARNING IN VIRTUAL SETTINGS: THE ROLE OF CONTEXT
A book edited by Antonio Dias de Figueiredo and Ana Paula Afonso
and published by Idea Group, Inc.
Submission Deadline: September 15, 2003

You are cordially invited to contribute a chapter to this coming book.

INTRODUCTION

In spite of massive technological progresses, the practices of education
have remained almost unchanged for the last two centuries. Inspired by
the machine paradigm of the Industrial Society, education was viewed as
an industrialized way of "delivering" knowledge. Now, as learning and
education extend into cyberspace, and the dawn of the Knowledge Society
is announced, we seem to be unable to break away from those outdated
practices, into practices that value community, interaction, context,
organic processes, variable geometry, complexity, flux, change, and
many other attributes that radically distinguish our era from that
of our industrial-age ancestors. Attempts to improve education at
the distance through the use of technology, namely e-learning, suffer
from the absence of sound educational paradigms that could, indeed,
support genuine renewal.

OVERALL OBJECTIVES OF THE BOOK

The book attempts to contribute to this renewal by pointing out that
beyond the delivery of information, that is, of "content", we need to
take systematically into account interaction and activity, the learning
"contexts", the completely renewed social and cultural environments
that education is calling for and technologies are now capable of
delivering. The general goal is to discuss the basis of a broad
framework for the development and management of virtual learning
communities, enriched with contributions from domains as diverse as
flexible cognition, situated learning, communities of practice,
computer supported cooperative learning, organizational learning,
knowledge management, and many others. We expect to place emphasis
on the role of context in building environments for e-learning and
to open up new avenues in understanding the influence of contextual
issues on learning.

Our main interest lies in the interactions among members and between
them and the learning context itself: how they relate and co-develop,
how they influence learning, how their creation can be fostered. The
challenge underlying the project is that of achieving a balanced
combination of all the dimensions and components of the learning
architecture, where the need for one dimension cannot be fulfilled
at the expense of the others. A framework for the design of learning
contexts, with contributions from a broad range of spheres of human
activity, is needed to provide a deeper understanding of how a
specific design serves the different requirements of the learning
architecture of a learning community for e-learning.

POSSIBLE TOPICS

We envisage the publication of an interdisciplinary work that rests
strongly upon the views of experts coming from different scientific
domains, such as education, information systems, psychology,
sociology, anthropology, management and organizational studies.
To this end, recommended topics include, but are not limited to:

- Development and management of virtual communities of practice.
- Key dimensions of learning contexts.
- Educational platforms for contextual learning.
- Business models for e-learning.
- Affective behavior in virtual environments.
- The social structure of communities of practice.
- Scenarios for web-based learning.
- Contextual assessment and the role of peers.
- Quality management in learning contexts.
- Knowledge management and learning communities.
- Managing organizational learning.
- Motivational factors in the deployment of virtual communities.
- School resistance to the adoption of web-based learning.
- Ethical issues in the management of learning in virtual contexts.
- Case-Studies.
- Research in Progress related to the subject.

THE TARGET AUDIENCE

University educators and educators in general; university
administrators; researchers; e-learning system managers;
instructional designers; e-learning based professional
companies; corporate training organizations and departments,
general audience with an interest in e-learning. This book is
expected to raise the scholarly recognition that content makes
little sense in the absence of well designed contexts.

SUBMISSION PROCEDURE

Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before
September 15, 2003, a 2-5 page manuscript proposal clearly explaining
the concerns of the proposed chapter and how it relates to the
mission of this book, including a tentative contents table. Authors
will be notified by October 1, 2003 about the status of their proposals,
and authors of accepted proposals will be sent chapter organizational
guidelines. Full chapters are expected to be submitted on or before
December 15, 2003. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a
double-blind basis. The book is scheduled to be published by
Idea Group, Inc., publisher of the "Idea Group Publishing",
"Information Science Publishing", and "IRM Press" imprints by
early 2005.

WORLD WIDE WEB

For this book project, a website has been established which provides
the Call for Chapters and all announcements and additional information.

http://www.dei.uc.pt/context

IMPORTANT DATES

- Chapter Proposal Due: by September 15, 2003
- Proposal Acceptance Notification: by October 1, 2003
- Full Chapters Due: by December 15, 2003

CONTACT INFORMATION

Please send all inquiries and submissions to the Editors:

Prof. António Dias Figueiredo
Department of Informatics Engineering
Polo II of the University of Coimbra
3030-194 Coimbra, Portugal
Tel.: (+351-239)790021
Fax: (+351-239)701266
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
http://www.dei.uc.pt/~adf/adfeng.htm

or

Ana Paula Afonso
Centre for Informatics and Systems - UC
Department of Informatics Engineering
Polo II of the University of Coimbra
3030-194 Coimbra - Portugal
Tel.: (+351-239)790022
Fax: (+351-239)701266
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
http://www.dei.uc.pt/~apa