A design for effective support of inquiry and collaboration

The Collaboratory Notebook is a shared hypermedia database designed to provide a scaffold for students as they learn to conduct collaborative, open-ended investigations. Through its structure, the software provides students with a genre for communication about scientific inquiry. In this paper, we examine the design goals for the Collaboratory Notebook in the context of an example of its use. We analyze Notebook use through student characteristics including gender, previous experience with technology, and attitudes and beliefs about science.