After four years as Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor, respectively, we have read, dwelled on, and made judgements about several hundred CSCL papers. (As Managing Editor, Rolf has worked with the accepted manuscripts in addition to review work.) We believe that this overview has given us a deeper insight into CSCL as a developing field of knowledge and into what CSCL researchers want to achieve and emphasize. As an interdisciplinary field, CSCL changes over time as new technologies emerge and the field itself shifts, modifying its conceptual, methodological, research, and design perspectives as well as its empirical concerns. CSCL is one of the two strands of research in the learning sciences; the other strand manifesting itself through The Journal of the Learning Sciences and the associated conferences. Though there is a substantial overlap between these two research strands, with human learning as a core issue for both, CSCL is defined as a triad structure of collaboration that is mediated by a computational artifact (participant-artifact-participant). In this editorial, we will emphasize some significant ideas that we have observed in the IJCSCL and how they might influence the future of the field. We will not attempt to provide an extensive description of the papers published in the period from 2016 to 2019. However, both the original papers and the squibs published during this period are the backdrop for this editorial. Historical development of CSCL and foundational issues In the late 1980s and early 1990s, CSCL was conceptualized as a possible and nascent field of knowledge. Almost 30 years later, CSCL is a well-established field that cuts across social, educational, learning, and computer sciences. However, collaboration between humans and artefacts is not a new phenomenon. In most CSCL studies, collaboration is part of the digital and educational design, which means that collaboration should serve a specific purpose in both learning processes and outcomes. The digital aspects, however, are historically new. CSCL, as we see it, is a field of study that aims to understand the most important aspects of human