A virtual learning environment is a social space.

A book can hardly be described as a learning environment. But, reading a book in a seminar, discussing with other students, writing a summary for the tutor, ... do constitute a learning environment. Similarly, a set of Web pages does not constitute a virtual learning environment unless there is social interaction about or around the information. This includes synchronous (e.g. chat, MUDs...) versus asynchronous (e.g. electronic mail,
forums,) communication, one-to-one versus one-to-many or many-to-many, text-based versus audio and video, ... (see section 2.3). This includes also indirect communication such as sharing objects.

What is specific to virtual environments compared to any information space is that it is
populated.The users are inside the information space and see a representation of themselves and/or others in the space. As soon as students see who else is interested by which information, the space becomes inherently social. Researchers have introduced the notion of «place « to emphasize that space as a social impact. Places are “settings in which people interact.While spaces take their sense from configuration of brick, mortar, wood” and glass, places take their sense from configurations of social actions. Places provide what we call appropriate behavioral framing”.


The notion of social space opens interesting possibilities that are only explored for a few years. Here are a few examples:


• If a student looks for a book, he/she may go to the library and use standard search techniques. A library is a well-structured information space. Besides the library, the set of university offices, in which each professor has its own books, does also constitute an information space, but socially structured. This type of information architecture may be more useful in some cases, for instance if the student does not know much what he/she is looking for.
• Social space can be represented explicitly. For instance, students may leave trace of their presence in a room or on a page. Viewing which area has been visited by other students is an indirect mode of interaction (see section 2.3.3).
• The social space can be represented per se, for instance by drawing a graph in which students are the nodes and the thickness of the link between two nodes represents the number of e-mail messages between two students.