Supporting collaborative learning by matching human actors

Learning platforms focus often on content presentation. Collaborative aspects are mostly dealt with by providing functionality to annotate parts of the content or discuss with other learners about the content. Nowadays learning platforms do not support systematically match making processes among those actors who are able to support their individual learning process mutually. We assume that next generation learning platforms will include functionality to make colearners aware of each other, match learners with complementary competencies, and allow for the generation of expertise maps. Design principles, a general architecture, and a system providing these functionalities are presented. Future challenges in the field of expertise matching are discussed.