Peer-to-peer technology in collaborative learning networks: applications and research issues

As organisations struggle with how to develop and use individual expertise, the importance of Collaborative Learning (CL) has grown in both academic and practitioner communities. Although organisations have a large amount of individual expertise, their ability to aggregate and share it has largely eluded them. A review of educational literature points out that academic organisations' learning strategies are shifting towards a more active and group-oriented learning, referred to as cooperative or collaborative learning. Educational and business organisations are currently searching for best practices and technologies for implementing CL. This paper explores how Peer-to-Peer (P2P) computing fits in the collaborative learning paradigm. P2P has great appeal for CL because it allows people to work and learn in a more natural fashion. The paper explores the existing collaborative P2P applications, identifying those most relevant to CL. The paper also compares P2P tools with client/server tools for CL within various organisational learning networks. The paper identifies key research issues concerning the use of P2P applications for CL.