The Open University of Catalonia (UOC) is a new university model that provides distance learning through a Virtual Campus. With the application of new information and communications technologies, the "virtual campus" becomes an alternative to traditional correspondence education. Students are in permanent contact with University services, professors and other students from their own home, via a Virtual Campus and a personal computer. In the distance learning system that UOC offers, students have a wide range of institutional elements to stimulate, guide and help them during their process of learning: counsellors, tutors, and support centres. They also have other common virtual spaces where to pose and solve doubts: the community forum, a space for debates and a classroom forum. In this context, one of the student's critical problems is the feeling of isolation. Lacking every day's feedback, contact with other students and teaching staff, student's motivation level can decrease substantially. Moreover, not having someone with whom to share impressions, difficulties, and projects around the studies, can diminish the desire for learning. During their studies, students need a considerable amount of support. They need aid with the understanding of study goals, clarification of doubts, problem resolution, evaluation activities, and keeping up the level of motivation. From this point of view, collaborative work could be considered as a strategic tool to improve the study conditions and the quality of the learning context. In addition, collaborative work can be an important element of support and motivation front of the challenges students face at the beginning of theirs university life. In a broad sense, through a process of collaboration, students could share the discovery of a new virtual environment and build together a new reality that will surround them along their studies. This support between equals will allow the construction of social interactions and cooperative networks that will be basic to break the isolation that often implies distance learning systems. In this particular scenario, our research focuses on co-operative learning in virtual environments. Our experience about VSG seeks to improve the formalisation of models of collaboration in virtual spaces of communication. The main goal of this paper is to describe the concept of virtual study groups (VSG) as the key element of our virtual learning system, as well as a central piece of the backup system for keeping student's motivation high. A Virtual Study Group is created because students with similar types of needs form groups with the overall purpose of supporting each other educational needs, and, jointly, collaborate in solving learning problems.
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