is for informal usage, where readers can easily compare versions in different languages. The English version is a pre-publication version without the final editing, layout and pagination. The translations were undertaken with the written permission of Cambridge University Press. Please refer to the official version of the English original (Stahl, Koschmann & Suthers, 2006) when citing excerpts and pages.

The three authors

have promoted the field of CSCL for many years. They have attended and presented at virtually every CSCL conference since the conference series began in 1995. They have worked—individually and together—to promote the field, to build institutional supports for it and to extend it globally. Koschmann was involved in organizing all of the early CSCL conferences and edited early books on the field. Suthers has been particularly involved in reaching out to Asia. Stahl edits the CSCL journal. All three have been involved in the CSCL book series and in the International Society of the Learning Sciences.

* * *

The field of

CSCL is a loose, constantly evolving network of researchers, publications and ideas. The researchers come from many different backgrounds, the publications correspond to diverse genres and the ideas represent a variety of theories. To present a concise introduction is necessarily to pick a particular perspective on the field and to try to make sense of that view for people who have not followed the history that lead up to it. In our essay, we tried to make it clear that we were giving our own perspective not only on what CSCL is, but also on where it came from and where we think it should go. We took an historical perspective, arguing that the field was emerging from the past disciplinary context into a distinctive view of reality, and that this specific view that we were promoting suggested a path for future work.

To be involved

in an emerging scientific research field like CSCL is not merely to

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