Business School,

ABSTRACT The concept of time is a key issue incorporated in most educational theories, and the notion of time has been considered in different ways in diverse approaches, such as behaviourism, genetic epistemology, cultural psychology and didactic. In research leading to the development of a nine-stage Transnational Framework for E-Learning Technologies, Stage 6 involved the employment of a computer-supported cooperative work approach – explicitly the application of a time/space matrix in addition to a cooperative work framework to e-learning – thus visualising the characteristics and dimension of time in e-learning processes, and enabling the concept of time in educational phenomena, specifically in e-learning processes, to be understood. E-learning is demonstrated to be essentially another form of computer-mediated communication. This article introduces the concepts of computer-supported cooperative work, computer-mediated communication, a cooperative work framework and a time/space matrix. It proceeds to describe the application of these concepts to e-learning through the Transnational Framework for E-Learning Technologies, analysing the findings with respect to e-learning and time; summarising the pros and cons of synchronous and asynchronous communication for digital media; and, finally, classifying learning (data, information and knowledge) in relation to time and discussing the findings in the light of some of the many questions posed – for example: What implications do the e-learning characteristics of time have for the nature of learning and teaching