From using contents to common creativity. Analysis of the internet community Letopisi.ru

Abstract

The main direction of changes in virtual learning in recent years is related to the increase in the importance of the student’s independence. A few years ago it was the students’ joint use of digital data collections that received most attention, while the collections were created by institutions and professionals. Now it is web cooperation and joint creative eff ort that are considered most important. The article analyzes the development of the web community of collective hypertext developers in the WikiWiki environment, http://www. letopisi.ru, in 2006–2008. Participants of the training project add new articles to the encyclopedia and link articles together. The analysis uses the most successful projects carried out by the community, data on the internet activity of the audience, and numerical characteristics of the connectedness of the hypertext and of stability of the web community.