"Just placing students in groups does not guarantee collaboration... The incentive to collaborate has to be structured within the groups." Kreijns, Kirschner and Jochems (2003)

"Collaborative learning environments, whether virtual or temporal, are developed on the assumption that knowledge is a complex entity that is shaped by social context, not a simple product to be transmitted or shared." Daniel, B. (2003). Social Capital in Virtual Learning Communities and Distributed Communities of Practice. Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology. Volume 29(3) Fall 2003

Click on the subsections of the index to explore various conceptual and theoretical issues in collaborative learning or browse the introductory resources below to get a feel for current thinking in the field:

• The 12 principles of collaboration
• What is a community of practice? 
• Informal Learning � the other 80%
• Creating the conditions for collaborative learning

Collaborative learning has gained in prominence with the rise of elearning. For a succinct overview of elearning and how collaboration fits into it, see George Siemens' categories of elearning.