  Educative platforms are at the heart of the development of online education.
They can not only be reduced to technological aspects. Underlying models impact
teaching and learning from the preparing of lessons to the learning sessions.
Research related to these platforms are numerous and their stakes are
important. For these reasons, we launched a call to a special issue on "Designs
and uses of educative platforms" An educative platform is a computer system
designed to automate various functions relating to the organization of the
course, to the management of their content, to the monitoring of learners and
supervision of persons in charge of various formations (Office de la langue
fran\c{c}aise, 2005). So educative platforms are Learning Management Systems
(LMS) which are specific to education contexts.
