Résumé
To improve effectiveness in distance training, collaborative learning has been used in order to reduce the feeling of loneliness and to create a virtual community of learners. Furthermore, group support is a key element in collaborative environments. This article presents our approach which is meant to group support using a role-based collaboration. We discuss the main issues of a group contract model based on roles and rules to group management in collaborative virtual learning communities. We introduce Virtus, a Web-based platform that provides enhanced functionalities to automate the management of groups using an expert rule-based module.