A Web-Based Synchronous Collaborative Review Tool: A Case Study of an On-line Graduate Course

On-line collaboration is an instructional method that facilitates collaboration in an on-line learning setting. To promote effective collaboration, it is vital to reveal both the student’s and the instructor’s point of view pertaining to effective on-line collaboration. In this study, the effectiveness of a learning management system in on-line collaboration was first investigated in a graduate course offered through the means of distance learning. In this first phase of this study, the nature of collaboration, the students perceptions of the effectiveness of the tool in on-line collaboration, the factors contributing to effective peer interaction among students and the role of the instructor as perceived by the students in the on-line course were explored. This phase of the study also involved the reviews of other learning management systems, course management systems and groupware systems regarding the tools used to encourage collaboration. Also revealed was a lack of diversity in collaboration tools. Based on these preliminary findings, an on-line document reviewing tool was developed and pilot tested in the second phase of the study. In this phase, a web-based synchronous collaborative review tool called WebSCoRe is proposed to promote online collaboration. WebSCoRe is proposed as an attempt to develop and implement a new platform for on-line document reviewing, to promote effective on-line collaboration among students and the instructor.