Most learning takes place in communities. People continually learn through their participation with others in everyday activities. Such learning is important in contemporary society because formal education cannot prepare people for a world that changes rapidly and continually. We need to live in learning communities.

This volume gathers together all of the scholarly materials directly emanating from a workshop held in August 2005, when a multidisciplinary group of scholars met at Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology to discuss ‘learning in communities’. Initially, a sectioned report on the workshop was published as a special section in the Journal of Community Informatics in 2006. Subsequently, a special issue of 5 full papers was published in the Journal of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, and a special section of 2 full papers was published in the International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning.

This collection of papers is not the definitive summary of learning in communities. It is assuredly more prolegomena than coda. Learning is increasing recognized as a critical facet of lifetime activity, one that must become better integrated with all that people do. At the same time, community structures are increasingly recognized as a critical category of social organization – flexible and adaptable, capable of innovation and development, and yet just as strongly nurturing and supportive. The promise of learning in communities lies ahead of us. This set of essays hopes to propel us all along that path.