Having an assessable element to contribution can be hard to measure. Do you, as the tutor, grade based on the number of postings which is easy to measure but doesn’t measure value of contribution and is therefore meaningless as a method of group cohesion. A better (and fairer) method of assessment would be to measure quality rather than quantity of postings. However, this involves more work by the tutor and is less easily manipulated by learners. In this scenario it is vital that the user has clear guidelines concerning what is expected of them prior to undertaking the discussion group or they are less likely to actively contribute and therefore achieve good marks. In my experience as a learner, a well designed discussion group has become a very valuable resource with sharing of ideas and references, while other courses I have attended without active groups jealously guard references from each other. This is an outcome that be avoided when the benefits of collaboration have been fully described to all users.

With the continuing march of technology available to learners, we as educators have a responsibility to update our teaching practices to reflect new demands. However, simply adopting new technologies to maintain our existing current practices may lead to internal efficiencies for us, but will probably not lead to new learning experiences for our learners. Younger learners are accustomed to using technology to augment all areas of their lives for both work and social aspects. They expect to be able to collaborate and form groups for all areas of studies too. Young learners also expect to be able to access information immediately and from multiple sources - gone are the days of spending hours in the school library and of finding sources checked out by other learners.

So how as educators do we expect to pass on knowledge in a medium that we ourselves are new to and have not experienced learning using them ourselves? The answer is that we need to be imaginative in our approach. I think that the first step is to encourage collaboration between students. In the e-learning environment that means creating a group sense of identity and mutual support. A discussion group is a good start but there must be some discernible benefit to the user or they will not wish to get involved - there must be a payoff! Whether that payoff is demonstrated as a learning outcome to the user(Collaboration in itself is a valuable outcome), or as an assessable element (which has it own issues and will be discussed later). Left their own devices, with considerable workloads, extra work will not usually be undertaken without some form of reward. Another consideration is the amount of input undertaken by users because if a learner posts but receives no response they are unlikely to post again. This encouragement of collaboration outside the tutorial space was not something that was previously possible to such an extent prior to introduction and adoption of new technologies.