Studying Virtual Math Teams -- now available

The latest volume in Springer’s CSCL book series is: Stahl, G. (2009) "Studying Virtual Math Teams", Springer, 626 pages.

It is a comprehensive, integrated report on a major CSCL research effort, including chapters by 29 authors from the project team and 10 collaborating centers.

It includes sections on project philosophy, pedagogy and technology; interaction analysis; methodology; software design; interaction representations; and theory.

This is a follow-up to Stahl, G. (2006) "Group Cognition: Computer Support for Building Collaborative Knowledge", MIT Press, 510 pages—carrying out the kinds of development, interventions, analysis and theory building proposed there.

You can download the book’s table of contents from http://GerryStahl.net/vmt/book/svmttoc.pdf or a flyer with order form from http://GerryStahl.net/vmt/book/svmtflyer.pdf.

The book is available in hardback and ebook (including as individual chapters) from Springer Press (http://www.springer.com/education/learning+%26+instruction/book/978-1-4419-0227-6) with a 25% discount for ISLS members, or order from Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Studying-Virtual-Computer-Supported-Collaborative-Learning/dp/1441902279) to save shipping and tax.

ijCSCL in Web of Science

As it enters its fifth year of publication, ijCSCL has learned that it has been selected for coverage in Thomson Reuters products and services (formerly ISI). Beginning with V. 3 (1) 2008, ijCSCL will be indexed and abstracted in the Web of Science under the following categories:
• Social Sciences Citation Index®/Social Scisearch®
• Journal Citation Reports/ Social Sciences Edition
• Current Contents®/Social and Behavioral Sciences
Since the journal was accepted starting with 2008 the first Impact Factor will be calculated for 2010, which will be published in June 2011.

This is the most prestigious form of indexing for academic journals. Universities and other institutions in many countries consider journals indexed by ISI to be top-rank publications in matters of tenure and promotion. It is rare for new journals to be accepted for indexing so quickly. ijCSCL has been considered the logical place to publish major contributions to the field of CSCL ever since it was founded by the CSCL community in 2006. However, now, the decision by ISI should mean that scholars working in the broader field will—even more than in the past—consider ijCSCL to be a premier publication venue.

ISI’s announcement is not only a tribute to the Editorial Board and many other reviewers who have worked hard to guide authors to meet high standards of academic publication. It is also due to the authors who took the risk to publish in a new journal and the readers who have subscribed through ISLS and supported the journal.

More than anything else, the journal’s increased stature is a clear and direct reflection of the maturing of the field of CSCL. The history of the field can be traced to a workshop in Maratea, Italy, in 1989. The establishment of a regular biannual CSCL conference in 1995 defined a persistent research community. With the 2001 conference in Maastricht and the 2005 conference in Taipei, as well as the founding of ISLS as a supporting institution, the community became self-consciously international and permanent. The Springer CSCL book series and the Springer ijCSCL journal provide crucial publication outlets specifically founded for this field.

ijCSCL Issue for March 2010

International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (ijCSCL)
Volume 5, Number 1, March 2010

The CSCL field matures
Gerry Stahl * Friedrich Hesse

A framework for conceptualizing, representing and analyzing distributed interaction
Daniel D. Suthers * Nathan Dwyer * Richard Medina * Ravi Vatrapu

Computer-supported argumentation: A review of the state-of-the-art
Oliver Scheuer * Frank Loll * Niels Pinkwart * Bruce M. McLaren

Exploring whether students' use of labeling depends upon the type of online activity
Eva Bures * Philip C. Abrami * Richard F. Schmid

Towards a dialectic relation between the results in CSCL: Three critical methodological aspects of content analysis schemes
Marc Clara * Teresa Mauri