 While CEO of the network, Harasim focused her research on 500 online courses that were conducted on Virtual-U.While performing this research she collaborated with Carl Bereiter and Marlene Scardamalia to further develop theoretical work in collaborative learning and knowledge building, especially the use of latent semantic analysis of online educational discourse.Harasim has been a member of several prestigious boards and committees such as Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.