Component exchange community: A model of utilizing research components to foster international collaboration

One-to-one technology enhanced learning research refers to the design and investigation of learning environments and learning activities where every learner is equipped with at least one portable computing device enabled by wireless capability. G1:1 is an international research community coordinated by a network of laboratories conducting one-to-one technology enhanced learning. The concept of component exchange community emerged as a means of realizing one of the missions of G1:1 - speeding up researches through exchanges of research components. Possible types of research components include software, subject matter content (learning objects), and methodologies. It aims at building a platform for fostering international collaboration, providing a novel way for the research work by an individual or laboratories to be accessed by the wider research community and users, and, in return, increasing research impacts of these researches. Component exchange community motivates maintenance of good quality documentation. This paper describes the concept and its model of component exchange community. Related models are compared and, as an illustration, a scenario of using component exchange community is given.