Studying Online;Succeeding through Distance Learning at University

collaboration. 

---

138 Studying online 
Tere are several reasons why using the systems provided by the 
university are better than using your own methods. For a start, if 
you use the university’s software, all of your collaborative learn-
ing is in one place. It will save you time searching through your 
own systems that might include a mix of social media programs, 
online documents, shared fles, and so on. Indeed, I recall one of 
my students who got in a muddle just before they were due to 
submit a group assignment. Some of the work had been done on 
Google Docs, part of it had been performed using WhatsApp, and 
there had been discussions about the work taking place on Mic-
rosoft Teams with the chat facility there also having some of the 
corrections. Tis student wasn’t sure which piece of work was the 
most up-to-date and was concerned he would submit the wrong 
one, potentially reducing his colleagues’ marks. What they had 
ignored was the fact that I had set up a forum on Moodle (the 
VLE) so they could collaborate in one place, avoiding ending up 
in a muddle. Often, you will fnd that your lecturer has provided a 
means of collaboration. Using it will help you ensure that all your 
work is in one place. 
Tere are other advantages to using university systems for collab-
oration when they are provided. One is that your lecturers can see 
you collaborating. Tey can monitor what is happening to make 
sure that everyone in the group is contributing. Many of your 
assessments will be based on group work. When you collaborate 
on that group work using the university’s system, the lecturer can 
see if anyone has been slacking. One of the problems with group 
work is that students often complain that someone in the group 
was not pulling their weight. Tis is called “social loafng” and cre-
ates a sense of unfairness as the lazier student will beneft from 
the marks of the more active ones in the group. To counteract 
this, lecturers will often require collaborative group work to be 
conducted using the provided software provided. Tat way, marks 
can be allocated according to the amount of work contributed by 
each group member. 
Another advantage of using the provided systems for collabora-
tion is that lecturers can see the progress of your learning and 

---