The CMC enables asynchronous discussion groups formed around learner cohorts and specific content areas, as well as informal social interaction. The CMC is much more than a threaded discussion on steroids. It deploys advanced knowledge management and learner relationship management system tools. The CMC is an essential ingredient in USQs academic enterprise system (AES). The most thoughtful interactions from the AES are structured, synthesized, tagged, and stored in searchable databases. Eventually, the insights in these databases, including differences in the responses from students in different settings, form a rich pedagogical resource.

Content and Knowledge Management Are Central. In 2002, USQ selected WebCT as a strategic partner for several reasons, including WebCT’s strategic commitment to progressively introducing content and knowledge management tools and competencies into learning management systems solutions. Content/knowledge management capabilities have been used at USQ at several critical junctures in developing, experiencing, and supporting learning to:

• enable faculty to develop new learning objects, klogs of what works in particular learning settings and other learning-related knowledge bits;
• enable the interjection of just-in-time knowledge, reflecting new development, into existing learning objects;
• support learners during their learning experiences with AES-facilitated access to explicit and tacit knowledge resources; and
• keep track of knowledge that learners have experienced, competencies demonstrated, and patterns of interactivity with faculty, mentors, and other sources of expertise.

The following descriptions and supporting schematic illustrate how content/knowledge tools are used in developing learning objects and course materials.

1. USQ faculty, mentors, and other experts create:
   a) learning objects that are contained in learning object repositories and whose metatags are managed through associated content management systems; and
   b) knowledge bits containing insights on context and application, and on the skills and interests of individuals, which are available through knowledge management systems (KMS).
   
   The KMS also contains syntheses from dialogues from past courses.
   
   
2. Knowledge editors organize this knowledge.
   
   
3. Instructional designers structure learning experiences embedded in courses.
   
   
4. Learners access all of these resources through the AES, learning explicit knowledge directly and using guides to tacit knowledge to contact faculty and other experts.

Focused Interactions with Learners. Professor Jackson has few conversations with his students that are trivial, fundamental, or out-of-context. Student “reflections” are posted on the AES and result in discussions that are typically complex and energetic. Selectively using AES tools, Professor Jackson jumps into the flow of ongoing conversations, guiding the discussion through a AES-provided synthesis of past insights and his own insights. He also uses AES tools to prod and encourage individual learners and to intervene when automated records show learners have not been engaging in the interactivity.

Communities of Reflective Practice on e-Pedagogy. USQ uses communities of reflective practice on e-pedagogy to link its faculty, tutors, mentors, and related experts in advancing their knowledge and the application of effective learning.