EU-project DUNES

Projectleader Utrecht: Dr. Jerry Andriessen

Project acronym:  DUNES

EU-Project Reference:   IST-01-7-1A

Project full title:  Dialogic and argUmentative Negotiation Educational Software

DUNES goal is to design, implement and test – in a large-scale experiment - an environment for collaborative learning (CL) through electronic discussion. More specifically, DUNES will develop (1) innovative "argumentative maps" for modeling and supporting discussion among participants; (2) didactical scenarios for CL, including CL of specific topics, competitive negotiation and debates, collaborative decision-making, etc.; (3) methods of intervention by the instructor/moderator or by intelligent agents; (4) methodologies for evaluating activities with DUNES and their contribution, like (a) Quantitative measures of informal reasoning; (b) Quant. methods for evaluating products of collective work; (c) Methods for describing interactions between participants and the mediating role of the tools; (d) Ethnographic approaches for describing global aspects of argumentative activities with DUNES; and (e) Assessing the required characteristics and new role of the teacher in DUNES environments.