This study focuses on the reliability of intra-group peer assessment (PA) of the collaboration processes in a wiki. First-year university students (N = 659) were subdivided in groups of 8 to create wikis. They were to assess their group members on four criteria (contribution, discussion, sources, and social). The main research question focused on…

Remote experimentation laboratories (REL) are systems based on real equipment that allow students to carry out a laboratory practice through the Internet on the computer. In engineering, there have been numerous initiatives to implement REL over recent years, given the fundamental role of laboratory activities. However, in the past efforts have…

In recent years researchers have found that people often collaborate during information seeking activities. Collaborative information seeking (CIS) is composed of multiple different activities like seeking, sharing, understanding, and using information together. However, most studies of CIS have focused on how people find and retrieve information…

Web-based collaboration tools and groupware are uniquely qualified to address the emerging business opportunities heretofore hindered by location barriers, constraints of time, and expensive travel costs. Global business enterprises are implementing online collaboration software to augment their face-to-face meetings and group decision making in…

Online collaboration and project-management tools allow people to work together without being in the same place at the same time. However, that is not all, Google Docs & Spreadsheets, for example, allows the creation of documents and spreadsheets just like in Microsoft Word and Excel, but with more collaborative capacity. Google Calendar lets…

Tutors have only limited time to support students. In this paper, we discuss a model that addresses the question of how to help students answer content-related questions. A small group of students is created, which consists of the student who asked the question and peers who should be able to answer it. Criteria used to compose the group are the…

The poster child for the Web 2.0 movement, the wiki, demonstrates the spirit of open content more clearly than any other application. Wikipedia, the most famous wiki and the world's largest encyclopedia, defines a wiki as a Web site that "allows visitors to add, remove, edit, and change content." Even though it is a controversial information…

The use of authentic tasks is derived from social constructivist principles of locating learning in the context of reality. Authentic tasks can foster learning transfer because collaboration among students not only helps them learn the concepts under discussion, but also exemplifies how these concepts are used in real-world contexts. To achieve a…

Describes 15 types of educational telecomputing activities that can be integrated into students' academic explorations. Three categories of activities are presented: (1) person-to-person communications, including LISTSERV discussion groups and electronic mail; (2) information collections, such as database creation; (3) and collaborative problem…

Explores students' psychological responses to an introductory Internet course delivered using computer-supported collaborative learning. Data were collected in pre- and post-course surveys and through observation of patterns of participation. Students' self-efficacy for learning and preference for collaborative work increased, while their…

For most distance education (DE) systems, distance, time, and/or opportunity isolate learners from their teacher and their fellow students. To facilitate interaction, most DE systems include different types of support groups. Modern technology allows groups to interact effectively even though individuals are far apart. Technology may appear to be…