The monograph presents the results of designing a web-based learning environment of the university as a type of online-based learning environment. It provides registered participants of virtual learning communities with access to the functions of knowledge-oriented information exchange using the latest communication tools of social software with imposed pedagogical conditions in the form of the concept of adaptive pedagogical influences on the part of teachers and moderators.
The suggested model of a web-based learning environment combines both asynchronous social software tools, where communication takes place in the relevant forums and subforums in an asynchronous mode, and purely synchronous tools that provide live personal communication in real time.
The considered and presented schemes and models of social communications in the learning community of the university make it possible to claim an increase in the level of students’ activity in forums where all potentially possible ways of knowledge transferring and exchanging at the level among communities are activated. Activity in the forums has a higher frequency of manifestations than on the threads of the forums, where communication interaction is provided only within the selected community with the main process indicator in the form of the frequency of the students’ voluntary contributions. In turn, it determines the level of implementation and deployment of the predicted learning communication channels within the selected means of social communication in the structure of contributions in the form of messages and posts.
In the context of real application, there are many opportunities to accompany and support the learning process using online discussion forums. Such typical discussion forums provide participants with opportunities for free information exchange on the topic of discussion within thematic forums or thematic sub-forums with possible document support. The means of discussion forums can be considered as an effective supplement to lectures in asynchronous or synchronous mode when conducting online lectures. Students have the opportunity to ask relevant questions on the topic of discussion, get consultations, exchange their own expert experience, etc.
From the point of view of the topic of the relevant direction, the broad functionality of pedagogical conditions for the use of discussion forums can be considered: from identifying certain training problems, eliminating problems with understanding training material and external relevant content to the content of learning material in general and the problems of filling the training course, in particular. The asynchronous nature of the discussion forums also plays an important role, allowing discussion and communication to proceed without and outside of strict time limits, even after the formal completion of the training course.
In general, it is a situation in which the initiation of the discussion is possible through an initialization message of both teachers and moderators and students, which makes it possible to achieve the defined goals and objectives of the learning process through the most relevant initialization. It also gives an opportunity to reveal the real state of active profiles of the zones of students’ proximal development and allows the manifestations of initiative and voluntary contributions which positively affect the development of relevant professional competencies and skills.
Teachers and moderators can use the forums to receive feedback messages about the content of learning material, highlight the most frequent types of questions with the help of aggregation tools, arrange them according to the use rating, perform appropriate generalizations and form complex and structured answers to them.
The aggregation procedures suggested in the work were applied in the step-by-step differentiation mode, which is commensurate with the actual number of active community participants at the forum, sub-forum, group, and subgroup levels.
On the one hand, the larger the community is, the more saturated and active the processes of information exchange will be on the relevant threads of discussion forums. At the same time, it is obvious that the size of the community will directly affect the stratification level of such a community concerning active and passive participants. Moreover, the larger the community is becoming, the more inert and conservative such a passive component will become. Teachers and moderators will find it increasingly difficult to control the focus of participants’ activation and their profiles of zones of proximal development. Accordingly, in small groups it is possible to achieve the effect of full activation of all participants, however, the intensity and saturation of information exchange will be quite high as well as the number of active threads and focuses.
