Learning about knowledge management through enforced collaboration using web-based repositories

Traditional teaching often consists of presenting and expanding upon material found in the prescribed text and related readings, and setting the academic levels and the assessments to test students’ understanding of the material taught. Studies have confirmed that students learn more effectively when they can discuss the material with others, that is, treat learning as a collaborative process. Collaboration between students does not necessarily happen spontaneously, and one tactic that can be adopted is to include some form of enforced collaboration as part of the syllabus. This paper reports two such collaborative learning environments, wherein the students were required to share ideas, concepts and understanding amongst themselves.