Introduction

Available under Creative Commons-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

The digital age evolutionary advances have provided humankind with infinite educational opportunities. The greatest challenge to education in a global knowledge society is not how to effectively help learners acquire a well-defined set of knowledge and skills, but, rather, to help them learn how to work innovatively with ideas, and contribute to knowledge creation. Knowledge innovation in e-learning is a process where learners produce new perspectives, find new problem solutions, change the selections of existing knowledge structure and levels, and ultimately create new meaning via interaction and collaboration. A resulting central element is the emergence of new understanding of the original cognition. It follows that knowledge produced through analyzing, synthesizing, and appraising belongs to knowledge of innovation. As an educator, it is the author’s conviction that one of the greatest contributions academics can make is to help students develop, and master the competency of “Learning How to Learn”.

The utilization of collaborative virtual environments in e-learning is one of the most promising uses of virtual reality technology. Despite the existence of a vast literature covering e-learning system architectures, the author has found that most of the studies are focused on re-creating traditional education, and the use of new technologies serving traditional learning models- rather than an environment giving clear insights into the innovative knowledge generation and articulation. While considerable research has been undertaken in the area of networked virtual environments corresponding to sharing of events, very little research was done on specific services and functionality, (Montoya et al., 2011; Hamalmen, 2011).

In this chapter, e-learning is viewed as an educational paradigm referring to the utilization of web-based technologies to deliver learning activities with the aim of enhancing knowledge and performance. However, current e-learning efforts continue to put heavy emphasis on content delivery and technology (Lin et al. 2010; Chatti et al. 2007). This requires changes of orientation and focus from “content-driven” to “innovative knowledge-driven”; and from “technology-driven” to “learner-driven” e-learning models. This transformation requires creating an e-learning architecture based on knowledge innovation, while providing learners with an innovative learning environment.

This research focuses on exploring, understanding, and developing paths towards a viableframework for collaborative learning in dynamic group environments. Collaborative learning can be defined as a core mechanism embracing a variety of educational approaches to motivate learners to work closely in joint intellectual efforts. Hence, it refers to a situation where a joint solution to a problem is made synchronously and interactively. This means that dialogues will result between collaborating parties in the process of task engagement. This approach yields many positive benefits. This is due to that fact that interactions and deliberations among learners have remarkable beneficial impacts on their learning aptitude (Wolf et al. 2009). The central point here is that, in collaborative learning, participants engage in sharing information, brainstorming, and learning from each other. Therefore, their joint accomplishments would considerably exceed the sum of their individual contributions.

Based on the preceding discussion, the objectives of this chapter can be identified as follows:

This chapter has been organized into eight sections. Following this introduction, Review of the literature: A critique and an assessment of current e-learning systems presents a detailed review of the literature providing a critique and an assessment of current e-learning systems. Conceptual definitions along with features of collaborative e-learning (CEL) are discussed in Conceptual definitions and features of Collaborative E-Learning (CEL). Achieving transformation from “technology-centric” to “learner-centric” models of CEL addresses the question of how the transformation from “Technology-Centric” to “Learner-Centric” models of CEL can be achieved. The design features, elements, and the strategic issues of CEL are discussed in Design features, primary aspects, elements, and strategic issues of collaborative e-learning. Design principles for virtual spaces for collaborative e-learning: Towards designing an innovative architecture for an Educational Virtual Environment (EVE) describes a prototype as a guide towards designing an innovative architecture for an Educational Virtual Environment (EVE). This is accomplished through a presentation of the design principles for virtual spaces for CEL. A set of action strategies and critical success factors that can be utilized by educational developers in designing and implementing an innovative architecture for enhancing educational virtual environments are provided in Action strategies and critical success factors: Implementation of the principles. Finally, the conclusions, implications, and future research directions are presented in Summary, conclusion, implications, and future research directions.