Supporting Collaborative Learning in the Architectural Domain

This chapter discusses the use of technology in supporting the study of architecture and design in Higher Education. Digital (often open) educational architecture resources are widely spread throughout a number of repositories that do not interoperate with each other. This means that no single point of access or support for potential collaborative learning exists. The potential impact of these barriers on education in architecture, in terms of its availability as a series of digital objects through the Web, is strongly limited. The authors introduce Metadata for Architecture in Europe (MACE), a Web based support system for architecture education that has been designed as a means of creating a collective external memory of architecture content that reduces those barriers to knowledge-sharing in architecture. After introducing MACE, the chapter presents the results of an evaluation of the MACE system that was carried out in architectural design courses in four European universities by a total of around 200 students. Much of the analysis focuses on the collaborative learning aspects of the architectural design courses.