 Dear students, now we are going to talk about another form of online community network which is called virtual learning community. Let's see first the definition of virtual learning community. We can define virtual learning community is a form of community of people who come together online to learn a particular subject matter and we can also define it as a community of people who are interacting with one another through technology to learn. So these two definitions are very basic definitions in which two things are common. One is that the members of the community will interact through online platforms and the other thing is their goal which will be learning. So these virtual learning communities have a particular purpose of development which is learning. This is not a social purpose or a political purpose or a personal purpose. This is just a common goal which is learning and it is made up of it. So if we talk about types of virtual learning communities then basically there are two types of virtual learning community. The first type is formal course-based community and the second one is peer-help course support community. So as we talk about formal course-based community, you get a lot of online web platforms on which you do online courses which have two big examples, Corsia or Udemy which are made for this purpose on which you go online and join that community and learn a particular subject matter and can do a course. So these types of communities are called formal course-based communities. And the second type of community is peer-help course support community. This can be informal and formal as well. Its formal example is that as we create a group in the online mode of education on Google, the work is that students interact formally and they participate in their discussions and assignments. And the second type of informal example can be related to a course that the registered students of that course create a group and share their discussions and ideas with each other. So that is an informal peer-help course support community. So what are the features of virtual learning communities? The first feature of the virtual learning community is that membership is explicit and identities are generally known. So unlike those other online communities in virtual learning community, your membership is the explicit one and your identity is known to others. That is, you cannot hide your identity and your identity will be public and explicit. Presence of an instructor is the second feature of the virtual learning community. So in virtual learning community there must be one instructor who guides you on the topics on the subject matter and who supervise and monitor the performance of the students as members of the online learning community. The third feature of the virtual learning community is the participation. And in virtual learning group community, participation is often required and it is not voluntary, it is involuntary teacher of the virtual learning community. So if you have any other, like we talked about, physical-based virtual communities, we were seeing that some members of the community group are members of the online platform and some are not members and their participation is zero. But the members of the virtual learning community are compulsory and it is not voluntary. The fourth feature of the virtual learning community is that explicit set of social protocols for social interaction. So the interaction occurring in a virtual learning community is not an informal one. It's a formal one and formal one and this is why you need to follow certain protocols to interact with your instructors and to interact with other community members. So another feature of virtual learning community is the formal learning goals. You become the part of a particular learning community to achieve certain kind of learning goals. You do not become the part of any learning community without having any learning goal. That is, if you are doing a course or a course, then you develop your skills on a particular subject matter. And if you feel that you are not required to do that, then you will not join that course. You will join the courses that require your skills. This is your formal learning goal that you become a part of that community network to achieve certain kind of learning goals. Another feature is possibly diverse backgrounds of individuals. So in physical-based virtual communities, we saw that the people who were located on a particular geography had a particular socio-economic background and for that socio-economic background that network, online community network was created. But here it is entirely different. You can, from any social background, can join the virtual learning community and you have low shared understanding of domain. And the other feature is that strict distribution of responsibilities. So in virtual learning community, you as a student and the other one as an instructor has to perform particular set of responsibilities as well. Another feature of the virtual learning community is the lifespan. So lifespan of the virtual learning community is determined by extent in which goals are achieved. Once your goals are achieved, you cannot be more, you cannot more be the part of that particular virtual learning community and pre-planned activities and fixed goal. So in learning, in virtual learning community, you have pre-planned activities and fixed goal and you have to achieve those goals within a given time period and your membership to that learning community is also bonded to achieve those goals. And virtual learning community can easily disbanded once established. So it is not a kind of thing that cannot be disbanded. It can be disbanded once it established or achieved its goal.