Facilitating collaborative learning in distributed organizations

Increasingly, organizations are geographically distributed with activities coordinated and integrated through the use of information technology. Such organizations face constant change and the corresponding need for continual learning and renewal of their workers. In this paper we describe a system called PHelpS (Peer Help System) that facilitates workers in carrying out such ìlife long learningî. When a worker runs into difficulty in carrying out a task, PHelpS provides a list of other workers who are ready, willing and able to help him or her. The worker then selects a particular helper with PHelpS supporting the subsequent help interaction. The PHelpS system acts as a facilitator to stimulate learning and collaboration, rather than as a directive agent imposing its perspectives on the workers. Keywordsópeer help, collaborative learning, user modelling, workplace training