what was studied
This case study examined the pedagogical effectiveness of creating a distributed learning community via computer supported collaborative work. Two groups of education majors (6 members in each group) participated – one group at the University of Padua, the other group at the University of Florence. For three months, each group designed and implemented a website on "Instructional Design and Constructivism" (a perspective in which instruction is conceptualized as cognitive apprenticeship and the establishment of learning communities) that incorporated the summary and analysis of 22 articles on the topic. Students were assisted throughout their work by remote experts (authors of the various readings they were to analyze), their local instructor (of their course), their remote instructor (of their partner group's course), and technicians (who provided technological support). Throughout their three month collaboration, the two groups communicated by email and never met face-to-face.

how effectiveness was measured
Effectiveness was measured in terms of the difference between the actual and desired fulfillment of the instructional, cognitive scaffolding, and affective scaffolding functions that the various actors in the distributed learning community were to serve. Videotapes of all local interactions (including work on the computers), students' personal portfolios and concept maps, and transcripts of the email interactions between participants were recorded. In addition, students completed attitudinal surveys in which they rated (on 1–5 point Likert scale) the desired and actual function fulfillment of the various actors involved.

what the findings were
At the local level, students became so enthusiastic about their projects that they wanted to work beyond the three months allotted; however, the effort to establish a distributed learning community via computer supported collaborative work failed. Students found their local relationships more satisfying than their remote relationships, and expressed dissatisfaction with the electronic community on both the attitudinal measure and in conversation with their local peers. Students wanted their local and remote instructors to provide more effective cognitive scaffolding than actually occurred. Experts (authors of the articles used for the project) provided more direct instruction than the instructors, and students neither expected or received affective scaffolding from them.

Excerpts from the transcripts indicate that the two student groups developed different goals and understandings of the project, creating obstacles to the construction of intersubjectivity and leading to "informatic opportunism"⁴³ – students attended to only those pieces of information and suggestions presented from their remote peers which were considered relevant to the local community's goals rather than working to develop shared meanings and shared goals. The authors conclude that distributed decision-making via email is difficult because there is no common reference point in the communication process beyond verbal description; they recommend the supplementation of such communication with means for sharing diagrams, images, and conceptual maps.