About Us

Our interdisciplinary European Research Team (ERT) combines expertise in educational sciences, psychology, and computer sciences from Germany, Finland, Switzerland, France and Greece. Drawing from the conceptual work of its precursor JEIRP MOSIL, our ERT is establishing a joint research agenda on the specification, formalization, operationalization and implementation of computer-supported scripts. In order to foster a sustainable shared scientific policy, we plan to realize a platform for joint research and publications as well as PhD training activities, longer mutual visits of junior researchers, and co-supervision of their PhD work.

Scripting Interaction

Computer-supported scripts aim at facilitating social and cognitive processes of collaborative learning by shaping the way learners interact with each other. Being embedded in the user interface, computer-supported scripts can optimally structure interaction as well as support the learners with the very activity they are engaged in. Scripts assign functional roles to learners and define the specific learning activities to engage in, as well as the sequencing of these activities. A typical computer-supported script could, for example, assign the roles of case analyst and critic among the learners, specify the order of interaction and the cases to be worked on, and rotate the roles so that each learner gets to play each role at least once (fig. 1). Computer-supported scripts can be applied equally well to a distributed, mobile, or face-to-face (joint use of a computer) learning setting without need for prior training or instruction.

Figure 1. A typical script for a joint discussion of two cases assigns complementary roles to two learners and defines the order of role-specific activities as well as the rotation of roles.