Knowledge sharing in computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) requires
intensive social interactions among participants, typically in the form of annotations.
An annotation refers to an explicit expression of knowledge that is attached to a
document to reveal the conceptual meanings of an annotator’s implicit thoughts. In
this research, we develop a Semantic Web and Web services-supported multimedia
tool to facilitate collaborative annotation sharing in the context of CSCL. Our
experimental results demonstrate that our tool can facilitate knowledge sharing and
improve participating students’ reading comprehension: it helps participants raise good
questions and provide proper answers through the practice of reading, commenting,
reviewing, and discussion.
