A Collaborative Lecture in Information Retrieval for Students at Universities in Germany and Switzerland

Zusammenfassung Résumé K3, work in progress, is an acronym for Kollaboration (collaboration), Kommunikation (communication), and Kompetenz (competence). K3 provides a platform in the context of knowledge management to support collaborative knowledge production in learning environments. The underlying hypothesis states that collaborative discourse conciliates information as well as communication competence in learning contexts. The collaborative, communicative paradigm of K3 is implemented by asynchronous communication tools as a means of constructivist learning methodology. In this paper we will describe a K3 course. The lecture was organized and carried out at two places in two different countries (Germany and Switzerland) with students from different universities in the context of Library and Information Science. The paper informs about the management of the lecture and about the problems we had to run the lecture at two places. The circumstances in coordinating the presentations, the exercises, the examinations and evaluation, and the time schedule are presented. The conclusions of the lecturers and the results of a questionnaire for the students are explained in detail. Zusammenfassung K3 ist ein aktuelles Projekt zu Kollaboration, Kommunikation und Kompetenz. Mit K3 wird eine Plattform im Kontext des Wissensmanagement angeboten, welche die kollaborative Wissensgenerierung in Lernumgebungen erleichtern soll. Die zu Grunde liegende Hypothese besagt, dass der kollaborative Diskurs sowohl Informationsals auch