Building a collaborative online learning community: A case study in Hong Kong

This article reports on how a social sciences instructor teaching contemporary global issues implemented collaborative learning among students in a virtual environment. A substantial part of this particular course was delivered at a distance with the help of the Web. The bulletin board feature of WebCT was used to implement a simulation game where students role-played different countries and discussed issues online. At the end of the course, a total of over 480 messages were posted. A summative evaluation was conducted to examine the online collaborative experiences of the students. It was found that more than 90% of students reported that they gained from either actively participating in the online discussion or from just reading others' messages. In light of the present results, factors that would promote online collaboration among students were explored.