Interest and activity in the use of C&IT in higher education is growing, and while there is effort to understand the complexity of the transition to virtual space, aspects of development, particularly clarity about the nature of the learning community, may only be lightly theorized. Based on an ongoing action research study involving postgraduate students studying in the UK and USA, this paper will identify some theoretical roots and derive from these six conceptual areas that seem to the authors to have relevance and significance for behaviour online. An exploration of these forms the basis for a two‐dimensional model which can account for what happens when groups come together to learn in cyberspace. In depicting this model, there is acknowledgement of the existence of third and fourth dimensions at work. However, the explanatory power of taking these extra dimensions into account is beyond the scope of the analysis thus far
