Resources

Microcosmi’s design is based on the  assumption that a  learning community hinges around discussions  i.e. the interaction among members, the exchange of questions/answers/statements which take place within a community. Obviously the discussions refer to a main theme (an issue, a problem, a subject, a topic, etc..) which the community has gathered around. The discussions can be generated by the members themselves or by subject matter experts with the aim to "animate" the group. Facilitating exchange of messages among users is the major aim of the "Community" area of Microcosmi. 

Learning communitites can be the consequence of a training/educational activities (a course, a seminar, etc..) to guarantee continuity to the learning process beyond the "borders" of the formal activity or the consequence of specific professional needs to be approached with a non formal or informal learning approach. In both cases usually the need of access/distribute didactic resources arises. The "Course" section of the Microcosmi environment fulfills this need, allowing participants, subject matter experts and community "animators" to publish documents, papers, exercises, bibliographies, and other.

The reference or working  documents used/produced by the community members or by a course participants can be published in a specific section of the environment called "Library". This area is accessible directly by a menu item always displayed in the left hand-side of the screen.

Within the Course environment a section called "Study Lab" may be present. If the menu item appears it will have a corresponding page where the course managers/authors can publish, collect and give feed back to the students about exercises, project work, assignments, etc..

If the standard menu items described above are not enough for  the course/community manager, new menu items with the corresponding pages, named  by the author, can be created, giving the opportunity to create specific user menus.