The Net Quality Project was awarded a grant from the European Commission (EC) to develop innovative knowledge management packages for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) associated with tourism. This paper reports on a study that tested three modules of the project’s learning platform. The modules covered communities of practice (COP), and addressed three types of learning: situational learning (SL), situated action (SA), and distributed cognition (DC). The case study was conducted in May 2001, and included a small cohort of ten distance learners who were either involved in tourism-based microenterprises, or who intended to start such a business in the near future.

An “ethological learning template,” designed by the Net Quality consortium and based on five phases appropriate to cooperative work and learning, is discussed in the paper. The phases are organized around the concepts of goals, activities, and the tutor role, and progress through individual introduction and involvement, paired learning, group learning, and evaluation of individual and group learning. A table picturing this organization is provided in the paper. The paper also provides a glossary of terms in the study of learning, group learning, organizational learning, and other related areas.

The report on the case study is a useful contribution to the literature on experiences in learning by doing, product-based learning, collaborative learning, and the ethology of learning new practices and procedures while producing workplace products.

As a practitioner of product-based learning (PBL) in my teaching and learning of computer science, I found this paper appropriate for that area, putting such work in the broader context of teaching and learning. Those who work with computer machinery, and who are practitioners in other areas of extreme programming or agile methods, would probably also find the paper appropriate or significant.