A research theme for investigating the effectiveness of collaborative e-learning in higher education

This paper provides a research theme for investigating the effectiveness of collaborative learning in online learning teams in university classrooms where substantial variations exist among students in terms of professional experiences, academic and socio/cultural backgrounds. The research theme is the result of a systematic investigation of the current literature, and deriving factors that were cited to affect student's perception of the effectiveness of collaborative eLearning. The effectiveness of collaborative eLearning therefore is investigated from the student's perspective. The outcome of the present study is a survey instrument to be administered to students. The ultimate goal of this study is to support the achievement of student's graduate attributes by developing a generic survey for assessing the effectiveness of collaborative eLearning initially used by the Australian School of Business, and ultimately to be utilized by similar organizations.