The important changes in the means of collaboration and exchange of information of the people have opened the way to form several study groups in different places and from different disciplines. A distributed learning environment not only involves faculty and students within the university, but also extends to students from different universities. Today, many technologies are used in e-learning, from blogs to groupware, virtual classrooms, exchange forums, social networks and mobile technologies. One of the most important characteristics of web 2.0 technologies is that they emphasize sharing, participation, and collaboration. A well-designed learning environment helps improve learning by making information and educational content available and accessible anytime, anywhere.

Social learning is defined as a new paradigm of finding, consuming, creating and providing information through collaborative commons. In this environment, the community creates and maintains multiple forms of content and members of this community can find and consume content through an informal path. Collaborative learning environments have been shown to offer significantly higher quality of content compared to formal learning environments. Additionally, social learning creates a higher degree of engagement between participants, and members can mutually benefit from linking, cross-talk, and feedback. Much research has been done on the role of Web 2.0 services in supporting social interaction between students, teachers, and researchers.

In light of the benefits associated with the rapid advancement of information technology and the growing popularity of social networking sites, many websites are moving to adopt learning communities for easy knowledge sharing. Social learning websites are expanding and becoming more specialized; They support the creation of public and private workspaces. Additionally, those websites promote active conversation among students, employees, teams, project clients, and partners. ‘Livemocha’ is an online language community that is specialized for language learners, connecting with native speakers for instructional help. ‘Bloomfire’ is an additional example that specializes in building an effective knowledge base for companies through a collaborative environment; This website facilitates knowledge sharing and discussions surrounding business topics. “Google Docs” is a Google service that allows people to share documents, spreadsheets, and presentations with other people. ‘Zoho’ supports the creation of collaborative portals for effective knowledge management. Users can create a centralized, searchable repository of information for easy organizational access. Some websites offer communities the ability to create their own social media website (ie ‘socialgo’). They provide a set of features including profiles, messaging, groups, events, chat, forums, blogs, and file uploads. To improve online collaboration between students, an online community is needed that can connect students from different universities and research centers.

This article highlights the importance of developing a Social Learning Portal between universities as an application of social learning between academic institutions. This specialized community can be managed by information technology centers at universities. This community includes college students and professors, and accounts are awarded to students with valid college credentials. Information about student universities and departments is public in this online community. The social learning portal can be divided into several communities; a community for each department, including all participating universities. Each community can be divided into subcommunities according to specialization, for example the main community is Computer Science, the subcommunities include Computer Networking, Web Development and Object Oriented Programming. Additionally, joint communities can be formed between different departments, which can help different college students share experiences and collaborate. For example, a research project may include students specializing in Computer Science and Bioinformatics. Students who belong to this community can easily share appropriate content and related learning resources with other students.

This social learning portal enhances scientific inquiry; provides an online framework for collaborative projects. Integrated into an easy-to-use interface, the portal will offer research and publication guidelines for students. In addition, Social Learning Portal supports the formation of research groups (under the supervision of the departments involved) that combines students from different universities and diverse academic backgrounds. Instructors can add new groups according to their research interests, they can assign research participants to the group, and students from all universities can view the activities; When students join the group, they can see the group’s posts on their wall and can participate by writing comments. In addition, students can contact instructors from other universities. Colleges can allocate weekly hours for instructors to be online and discuss some issues posted by students (office hours).

To develop a successful social learning website, factors must be considered during design and development and some questions must be asked:
1. What is the role of universities for the successful implementation of social learning?
2. The attitudes of teachers and students towards the use of social learning platforms and the effectiveness of existing platforms.
3. What are the possibilities and barriers to implementing new and effective features / technologies for social learning in universities?

By introducing a specialized social learning community, the quality of the educational process in universities will be improved, scientific research will be emphasized, and social media will be a more effective and reliable tool.