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Abstract

This paper investigates collaboration in teaching and learning and draws out implications for the promotion of collaboration within online environments. It is divided into four sections. First the case for collaboration, including specifically cooperative approaches, is explored. This case revolves around the impact of collaboration on the quality of learning and on learning outcomes. Collaboration is seen as constrained by context but, if structured and rewarded, it will bring important motivational and cognitive benefits. Next, the case for online collaboration is examined. This is based on longstanding arguments about the benefits of working together albeit in an environment which offers greater reach; a mix of media; and archives of interaction. The third section of the paper compares perspectives on online collaboration with a longer tradition of research into collaboration in general; it critiques the idea that online mediation offers a paradigm change in teaching and learning. The fourth section of the paper considers future directions for promoting online collaboration.

Introduction

Forms of online collaboration (hereafter OC) in education have been consistently advocated in contributions ranging from Hiltz and Turoff ( 1978); Mason and Kaye ( 1989); Garrison ( 1993); Harasim ( 1996; 2000); McConnell ( 2000); Scardamalia and Bereiter ( 2006) through to more recent work in respect to MOOCs such as Siemens ( 2005), Conole ( 2013) and, more generally, Beetham and Sharpe ( 2013). Collaboration (and for brevity here collaboration covers specifically cooperative approaches too) is not, however, new; there is a tradition of thinking about collaboration and the benefits it brings. Indeed those promoting OC routinely draw on this tradition by referencing, say, Dewey (e.g. Garrison 2007); Habermas (e.g. Boyd 1996; Cecez-Kecmanovic and Webb ( 2000); Johnson and Johnson (e.g. McConnell 2000); and McMillan and Chavis's ( 1986) work on community (Rovai and Jordan 2004). Nonetheless, there have been few attempts to explicitly compare OC with the 'traditional' or longer view of collaboration. This is a significant gap as many of the opportunities and challenges which OC throws up might turn out to be recurring ones rather than unique to online environments. Thus this paper is concerned, firstly, with the 'long' view of collaboration. In other words how and why have forms of collaboration been promoted over the last hundred or so years?; What benefits / difficulties has collaboration been seen as offering?; How has collaborative learning been evaluated?. The paper, secondly, goes on to look at collaboration in specifically online environments before considering, thirdly, to what extent OC should be seen as marking a paradigm shift in teaching and learning. Finally, the paper draws out tensions in the case for collaboration and suggests a recalibration of the way that OC is promoted.

The long view: What is collaboration and cooperation? How and why has it been promoted?

Collaboration and cooperation have often been used loosely but many see a distinction between collaboration as a process leading to jointly constructed artefacts or achievements and cooperation a process leading to an assembled product. As put by Dillenbourg ( 1999: 8)

In cooperation, partners split the work, solve sub-tasks individually and then assemble the partial results into the final output. In collaboration, partners do the work 'together.'

However the terms collaboration and cooperation are not used consistently and Johnson and Johnson ( 1988, 1989), whose work has been hugely influential in this field, offered a strong form of cooperation in which individuals seek outcomes that are both beneficial to themselves and beneficial for all other group members. Johnson and Johnson contrast cooperative learning with competitive learning and with individualistic learning in which students work by themselves.

Benefits of collaboration

Perhaps the most influential marshalling of evidence in favour of specifically cooperative approaches to learning was undertaken by Johnson and Johnson who repeatedly claimed that systematic review showed that a cooperative approach led to statistically significant improved learning outcomes (e.g. Johnson and Johnson 1989; Johnson et al. 1998). The explanation for these gains was that there were cognitive processes involved in collaboration, for example explaining to others, challenging other views and reaching consensus, that helped learners learn. Tran ( 2013), drawing on Johnson and Johnson as well as Slavin ( 1983), saw cooperation as underpinned by theories of 'positive interdependence'; social interdependence theory (i.e. learners had to care about the group and come to derive self identity from being a members of a group); and social theories of cognitive development, drawing at times on Piaget but more particularly the work of Vygotsky.

However there is more to collaboration than impact on learning gains. In particular there are contexts in which cooperative or collaborative learning may be particularly valuable notwithstanding any general stance. For example, forms of collaboration might assist professional preparation. This was something seen in Abercrombie's ( 1960) influential work in medical education and in later cases of inter-professional cooperation (for example, Tsakitzidis et al. 2015 and Olapade-Olaopa et al. ( 2014), in respect to international partnerships). Other fields in which collaboration has an obvious appeal have often involved literacy (e.g. Bruffee 1999) and language learning (see Stahl et al. 2006; Warschauer 1997) indicating an obvious association between collaboration and the development of language fluency. There is too a more general case that collaboration develops important, but not easily defined, learning outcomes such as employability and transferable skills needed for the knowledge society as, for example, in Bindé ( 2005) and Mezirow ( 1997), in the context of adult education.

A further part of Johnson and Johnson's original argument was that working together could lead to the development of social skills such as turn taking and active listening and Slavin ( 1990) felt too that there were affective and motivational gains associated with cooperation as well as cognitive ones. On a broader canvas the experience of collaboration is often seen as 'empowering' in the sense of developing a belief in one's ability to make decisions and influence institutions. Empowerment, as Juceviciene and Vizgirdaite ( 2012) argue, requires a different role for teachers, one in which they are exercising power with students rather than a power over learners. Empowerment has been particularly associated with self-help groups (e.g. Israel et al. 1994 in the context of community health) but also with political activism as seen, for example, in 'settlement movements' (as pioneered by Addams, [ 1910] 1990 in USA) and in 'Freirian' emancipatory pedagogy (Freire 1974). Collaboration might, in addition, help generate empathy across divided groups and communities, an approach strongly associated with Lewin's experiments in addressing anti-Semitism in USA (Lewin, [ 1951] 1997). This was taken up in the 'contact hypothesis' of Allport ([ 1954] 1979) and revisited in cases such as Mollov and Lavie's ( 2001) study of cooperation across divided Israeli and Palestinian communities and Austin et al.'s ( 2015) efforts to normalise cooperation in divided school communities in Northern Ireland.

Collaboration and knowledge building

Cooperative and collaborative learning raises fundamental questions regarding epistemological / ontological dimensions of knowledge - the two being very difficult to separate (Crotty 1998). In the context of language teaching, but often cited for its more general significance, Oxford ( 1997) saw cooperative learning as concerned with particular classroom techniques that fostered learner interdependence but collaborative learning as having a full 'social constructivist' basis. Collaborative learning unsettles objectivist assumptions about knowledge (see Bruffee 1999) and it is not surprising that growing interest in collaboration, particularly from the 1960s onwards, ran alongside a challenge to positivist assumptions about natural science (Kuhn ([ 1962] 2012), and greater scepticism about the value of 'propositional knowledge' (e.g. Schön 1983, in respect to professional practice and Glaser and Strauss 1967, in respect to social theory).

There is too a more normative dimension to collaboration and this was captured most influentially in Dewey. For Dewey it is through language that we create social lives, learning is in itself necessarily communicative:

To be a recipient of a communication is to have an enlarged and changed experience. One shares in what another has thought and felt and in so far, meagerly or amply, has his own attitude modified. Nor is the one who communicates left unaffected. Try the experiment of communicating, with fullness and accuracy, some experience to another, especially if it be somewhat complicated, and you will find your own attitude toward your experience changing; otherwise you resort to expletives and ejaculations. The experience has to be formulated in order to be communicated. To formulate requires getting outside of it, seeing it as another would see it, considering what points of contact it has with the life of another so that it may be got into such form that he can appreciate its meaning. (Dewey 1916 [1947]: 12)

Here Dewey is advocating what he called democratic education not just for its efficacy but for the personal growth that comes from engaging with others and articulating one's own view point. For Dewey learning was a process of coming to share an inter-subjective world (Dewey 1910); to be intelligent was to be socially intelligent and this meant learning one's own position in relation to others:

But suppose that each becomes aware of what the other is doing, and becomes interested in the other's action and thereby interested in what he is doing himself as connected with the action of the other. The behaviour of each would be intelligent; and social intelligent and guided. (Dewey [ 1916] 1947: 37)

Dewey's work continues to be important as it introduces a wider argument: only through collaboration do we develop intersubjective knowing, democratic habits and public spiritedness. His influence has been long lasting in education as seen, for example, in Thelen's ( 1960) influential work into group based inquiry and collaborative action research (e.g. Elliott 2007).

Strategies and challenges for collaboration

Collaborative learning may be introduced on an ad hoc basis, for example, episodes of peer discussion in seminars and lecture rooms, but discussion of collaboration has often been dominated by questions of learning design. These questions have often covered the role of assessment and, in particular, that of peer assessment (e.g. Johnson and Johnson 1989) but also the design of learning tasks as in problem based learning (PBL) (Hmelo-Silver 2004); reciprocal teaching (e.g. Brown and Campion 1995) and inquiry based learning (e.g. Windschitl 2003). In different ways these approaches provide learners with problems to work at together - often open ended ones that invite a range of possible solutions. They often involve a change or alteration of teacher and student roles too. Typically tutors will help facilitate group work, for example introducing students to problem solving strategies and encouraging them to reflect on not just what they have learnt but how they have learnt it. Students are expected to take more responsibility for their own learning.

There are further concerns as to whether a reasonable degree of symmetry can be expected in respect to roles, status and knowledge in group work as opposed to one person doing all the work for the group or individuals within a group finding that their contributions are ignored. Symmetry, as Dillenbourg ( 1999) pointed out is not the same as homogeneity and groups may well benefit if members have different viewpoints based on their personal experiences and knowledge. Indeed collaborative learning is predicated on, first, that such differences exist and, second, that their very existence sets up a productive learning context.

Collaboration rests on a level of optimism over the ease with which learners are able to work together but it is, to a certain extent 'invitational' rather than something that can be 'delivered'. This imposes constraint though it is also worth noting that if collaboration cannot be guaranteed in a context in which it is promoted, it cannot be excluded in a context in which it is not. For example, some individuals in almost any circumstances have particularly strong dispositions to work together and these dispositions are embedded in some cultures, as argued by Bruffee ( 1999: 19). Intense collaboration may take place in unlikely settings. For example, Mandela ( 2008), when imprisoned on Robben Island, described the experience of the correspondence course, a much criticised transmission model of teaching, as intensely felt at both a personal and shared level. Donge ( 1999) too showed distance learning may provoke patterns of collaboration outside of formal learning, in this case among farmers in Tanzania, and recently Adams and Yin ( 2015) unexpectedly found collaborating face to face child - parent pairs of learners while researching Moocs.

The why and how of online collaboration

There has been a close connection between educational use of technology and collaborative learning and this is signalled in conceptual labels or movements such as computer- supported cooperative work; computer- supported collaborative learning and strongly implied in terms such as networked learning (Fowell and Levy 1995) and connectivism (e.g. Siemens 2005) and perspectives on learning within Moocs (e.g. Conole 2013). Crook ( 2011) argued that this association was generated at a time when a shortage of computers required students in the classroom to work together. This is intriguing but probably more significant were the changing attitudes to learning and to knowledge (its generation and ontological status) in the 1960's and beyond. What is striking is that technology, once perceived as oppressive and affirming hierarchies of power (e.g. Marcuse, [ 1964] 2013) became in time reconstructed as an asset for counter cultural thinking and a support for creativity and collaboration (e.g. Matei 2005). This led many educational reformers to associate the introduction of technology with pedagogical change and to paradigm shifts in teaching and learning (e.g. Harasim 2000; Hodgson et al. 1987; Mason and Kaye 1989; Siemens 2005; Webb 2014 and so on). As Gunawardena et al. ( 2009: 5) put it, technology challenges existing learning theories 'primarily because the theories were developed when wide-ranging online communication between people of different races, locations, and viewpoints was not possible.' Technology mediation provides opportunities for expanding the reach of collaboration, mixing media and access to past archives of interactions. Using technology, learners are seen as increasingly able to articulate ideas, receive feedback, tackle joint problems, and reflect on opinions and perspectives of others (particularly of peers) in ways that were not possible before the Internet, certainly in the context of distance learning.

Benefits of online collaboration

There is a widely expressed view that the learning gains evidenced by Johnson and Johnson, Slavin and others can be realised in an online context (e.g. Cecez-Kecmanovic and Webb 2000; Harasim 2000; Hrastinski 2009; McConnell 2000). Researchers have, further, provided experimental studies of their own (e.g. Roy et al. 2014), or more often constructed experimental and control groups in naturally occurring situations, to show that there are positive gains to be had in promoting OC (e.g. Hiltz et al. 2000 and the earlier, more qualified review of Lehtinen et al. 1999). There has too been a raft of broader investigation comparing online with f2f learning, with, for example, Cavanaugh et al. ( 2004) suggesting that the medium of 'virtual schooling' can be as effective as f2f schooling, and Means et al. ( 2009) showing gains through online as opposed to f2f teaching and learning - though greater gains in blended contexts.

The case for OC goes wider than learning gains and, as recent contributions to Hmelo-Silver et al. ( 2013) show, it is underpinned by both quantitative and qualitative research into the nature of learners' behaviour and interaction. Of course investigations of learner interaction is not new (see for example Mercer 1995 on pupil talk), but the automatic archiving of messages has made it much easier to chart the frequency and source of interactions as well as to carry out different forms of content analysis (see De Wever et al. 2006 for examples). Learning analytics, drawing in part on earlier social network analysis (e.g. Aviv et al. 2004), has helped to further evidence the networked nature of learning in particular by throwing light on less expected interactions away from the main site of learning - see for example Fournier et al. ( 2011) exploration of Twitter connections between learners and, more generally, Agudo-Peregrina et al. ( 2014).

As in the long view of collaboration outlined in the first part of this paper, OC is seen as developing important but not easily defined learning outcomes such as employability; transferable and 'twenty first century' skills (Facer 2011; Harasim 1996; Keane et al. 2014; Scardamalia and Bereiter 2006; Webb 2014); and fit with Castell's vision of a knowledge society. Again as with the earlier literature, there is a tendency to see OC as natural though this time because younger learners are disposed to be communicative with digital media based on their extensive experience of technology in informal learning contexts. Finally there are particular contexts that invite OC - as in Collings and Pearce's ( 2002) reporting of usability trials of web sites and Kavitha and Ahmed's ( 2015) study of paired programming, both in the context of developing IT knowledge and skills.

Learning and knowledge building online

However there is not a unified view of the nature of knowledge or the process of knowledge building within the literature. For example, widely cited work by Salmon (e.g. Salmon et al. 2010; Salmon 2013) offered a loose idea of collaboration. In this five-stage model participants start with an initial orientation to working online and establishing an online identity. Only as participation and confidence increase may learners look for deeper exchange and seek help in achieving their own learning goals, transferring and applying their online activity to learning. This is collaborative knowledge building of a kind, but looks more a model of individual learning in a collaborative context rather than a joint construction of artefacts and databases.

Strategies and challenges for online collaboration

OC has been facilitated by wider access to online technology which has meant that many, but by no means all, have continuous Internet access and social networking is now commonplace. However those promoting OC in education routinely note the challenge of adoption (e.g. Gan et al. 2015) including in distance education where the argument for networking learners has probably been more compelling (e.g. Crook 2011). Constraints on adoption match those reported by Juceviciene and Vizgirdaite ( 2012) earlier: contextual issues include individual, rather than group assessment; weaknesses in policy and leadership of change; limited support for teachers or instructors (e.g. Blin and Munro 2008; Selwyn 1999; Timmis 2014). Many of these issues resonate with a wider literature on the constraints of using technology and the nature of its promotion in education (e.g. Selwyn 2014).

A comparison between the longer view of collaboration and its promotion online

Table 1 Comparison of perspectives on online collaboration with the longer view of collaboration

One reason that technology does not in itself disrupt teaching and learning is that, as Nardi and O'Day ( 1999) argue, it is always used in a social cultural context and adapts to existing habits and orientations to teaching and learning. Technology of course has consequences, but it cannot be assumed that technology is being used in the way its designers intended or that the affordances inviting collaboration, which so impressed earlier writers on educational technology, are noticed by students. For example, many of the pioneers of Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) design had a learner centred, and at times explicitly 'constructivist', view of teaching which they were keen to promote (e.g. Dougiamas 1998). VLEs were intended in many cases to support curriculum change, in particular providing a tool for addressing learner isolation and lack of interactivity. In practice, however, their use has tended to prioritise access to information over collaboration (see, for example, Blin and Munro 2008) and in spite of their supposed benefits technologies may end up offering 'more of the same' (Selwyn 2014: 45).

Where next for online collaboration?: Criticism and recalibration of an argument

This paper cannot address all these criticisms. Instead, it is broadly accepted that there are substantial benefits from collaboration but that there are weaknesses in its promotion to which it is worth drawing attention. Three problems stand out and they concern weaknesses in: the instrumental perspective on collaboration; the normative perspective; the view of learning as social participation.

Weaknesses within the instrumental perspective on collaboration

A rather different line to the instrumental perspective on collaboration, particularly OC, is to stress its suitability for developing the skills needed for a networked knowledge economy. In other words what is being recommended about collaboration is the utility of the outcome rather than the process itself. However the argument on transferable skills is not wholly convincing. While there have been changes in professional practice that really do seem to require higher levels of collaboration, not least in the field of teacher education (e.g. Hargreaves 2003), these changes are not universal. In fact contemporary labour markets demand a very differentiated mix of knowledge and skills, in some cases a very low level of skills indeed. Much in the discourse of the knowledge society, and the type of education that best fits it, has been distorted by wishful thinking about market requirements and influenced by 'rose tinted', future narratives (see Peters 2001).

Weaknesses within the normative perspective on collaboration

In contrast to the instrumental perspective, the normative perspective on collaboration (drawing strongly on Dewey) stresses that core to learning is the reaching of warranted intersubjective agreement, the capacity each has for mutual recognition and awareness of shared reflective consciousness. Dewey and others called for a 'democratic' education on wider grounds than vocationalism. If this view is accepted it shifts the debate from 'What works?' (collaboration as a means to an end) to 'What is ethical and ontologically valid?' (collaboration as an end in itself). The only questions worth asking about collaboration are, not whether it leads to better learning outcomes, but how best to promote collaboration in the first place, and how to create a communicative process that is both rigorous and democratic.

This normative view is, however, open to critique precisely because it is normative; it is assuming, albeit with appeal to historical sources, that education is fundamentally concerned with goals such as a empowerment, emancipatory learning and democratic practice when others might, and frequently do propose, other goals such as knowledge of facts and acquisition of functional skills. Furthermore, critics point out that it is reasonable to question whether learners who are being empowered have asked for such empowerment in the first place; 'power with' may be empty rhetoric.

Weaknesses within the view of learning as always social

Those writing about collaboration agree to varying degrees that learning is social. This historically has been a particularly useful standpoint as it shifts the study of achievement to the quality of social interaction rather than effort, innate ability or personal resilience alone. As put by Pea ( 1993: 48-49), in respect to distributed learning, we are moving away from 'intelligence' as an attribute of individuals, 'carried primarily in internal transformations of mental representations of symbols of goals, objects and relations' towards the artefacts which are 'in constant use for structuring activity'. So far so good. However it is intuitively obvious too that learning is also a personal achievement, a point well made and without irony, by Salomon ( 1993: 114) in discussing the very individual and internal process of writing alone at his desk about distributed learning. In the same vein Dillenbourg ( 1999) saw learning as involving a kind of internal dialogue or 'collaboration with oneself' as did Vygotsky in discussing egocentric speech. Indeed Vygotksy is justifiably enlisted in support of collaboration when arguing that 'higher psychological function' begin with the stimulus of external activity (Vygotsky [ 1994]: 153). However the point for Vygotsky was that these functions need to be interiorised, that is separated from the context in which they were first developed. This strongly implies that learning is achieved also at an in individual level (see Van der Veer and Valsiner 1994).

Recalibrating the argument for OC

Those seeking to recalibrate the argument for OC are challenged to address the weaknesses above and there are ways of doing this. As to the last of the three criticisms, it is not difficult to present a picture of learning as both individual and social and to agree with Sfard ( 1998) that there is danger in identifying two metaphors for learning but choosing just one. Arguably this integration of social and individual perspectives on learning is achieved in Vygotsky. More difficult is to address the first and second criticisms. One means of doing so is to highlight the strengths of the normative and instrumental perspectives but see them as complementary, in other words to acknowledge the importance of evidence of impact but also to recognise that collaboration, OC or otherwise, is shaped by educational values, values which need to be articulated and reflexively critiqued. In practical terms this means that all evidence about outcomes will need to be considered but done so in respect to its 'discursive location' (Clegg 2005) and in recognition of its limitations. As regards collaboration the danger is having incompatible stances on knowledge and knowledge building. The instrumental view of collaboration, lying within an objectivist / positivist tradition, assumes that there are generalisable recommendations for practice based on comparative analysis. In contrast, the normative view takes knowledge as provisional, contextual and needing to be constructed through social interaction. A strategy for reconciliation is to take the evidence provided by objectivist methodologies as workable hypotheses, rather than recommendations, about collaboration which need to be explored, and if necessary discarded, in particular contexts.

Towards a differentiated view of collaboration

Underlying the problem of promoting OC is the need for a more differentiated account of learning and knowledge building. Of course such differentiation already exists in the well-worn distinction between collaboration and cooperative learning seen earlier, but there is an opportunity to present a more general distinction between weak and strong forms of collaboration (see Lehtinen 2003), based in part on the strength of ties between learners (e.g. Norris 2002). Weak tied collaboration seems capable of organic growth in otherwise formal learning setting as Goodband et al. ( 2012) discuss in the case of Facebook groups to support students of mathematics and Lai and Gu ( 2011) in considering online support for language students. Weak networks often emerge under the radar of institutions and instructors (e.g. Adams and Yin 2015; Dabbagh and Kitsantas 2012), though more could be done to support them. Of course informal collaboration may even under supportive conditions fail to take off but this should not led to a loss of esteem for designers. The case for weak collaboration need not be all encompassing and may include motivational gains, developing social identity and the value of sharing information. Siemens's ( 2005) presents the case for weak tied collaboration well by drawing attention to the myriad ways in which learners are connected and can share ideas:

Weak ties are links or bridges that allow short connections between information. Our small world networks are generally populated with people whose interests and knowledge are similar to ours. Finding a new job, as an example, often occurs through weak ties. This principle has great merit in the notion of serendipity, innovation, and creativity. Connections between disparate ideas and fields can create new innovations.

However, Siemens goes on to argue that 'learning (defined as actionable knowledge) ..... is focused on connecting specialized information sets, and the connections that enable us to learn more are more important than our current state of knowing.' This is much more problematic. More is implied in coming to know than picking up, what Siemens describes as, 'chaotically ordered' information in open networks and while connectivism may draw attention to new strategies for learning this does not make the case that a new learning theory is required (see Kop and Hill 2008).

In contrast to weak forms, strong forms of collaboration such as PBL and group assessment set the bar much higher in respect to levels of participation and evidence of knowledge building. Here instructors and evaluators would be expected to show evidence of regular interaction and symmetries in interaction patterns; it would matter greatly if social interaction failed to take off or if interaction was dominated by some and other voices were not heard. Those promoting strong collaboration would need, further, to be clear about the criteria by which the quality of any new knowledge can be judged, rather than fall back on the argument that learning has taken place because there is evidence of participation. In providing such criteria there are some helpful propositions about knowledge on which to draw.

One proposition about knowledge is that it should correspond to validated discipline knowledge. This appears to introduce quite objectivist assumptions about knowledge ('Does the knowledge created correspond to reality?) but the correspondence could simply be to what a community holds to be important at a particular time, or to logical consequences of rule based inquiry, rather than immutable facts about the world. For example in discussing knowledge building in virtual maths teams Wee and Looi ( 2009) are able to chart a process based around language functions such as making suggestions, disputing and reaching agreement. These language functions are discussed in the context of discipline knowledge, for example 'Are learners following recognised mathematical problem solving strategies?, 'Are their arguments logically true?, 'Are they introducing facts which are mathematically correct? This is a coherent and operationalisable strategy for evaluating collaboration and enables researchers to distinguish between valid and invalid arguments. It offers a means of tracking a genuinely knowledge building process and would not need not be confined to one particular context. However a limitation of the approach is that it is wedded to a correspondence view, the knowledge created is new to the group but not 'new knowledge' as such. This can be contrasted to a more radical stance in other writers such as Scardamalia and Bereiter ( 2006: 98) who see knowledge creation in their classroom as distinctive and as:

encapsulated by the comment of a fifth-grader on the work of a classmate: 'Mendel worked on Karen's problem' (referring to Gregor Mendel, the great 19th century biologist). Not 'Karen rediscovered Mendel' or 'Karen should read Mendel to find the answer to her problem.' Rather than being overawed by authority, or dismissive, they see their own work as being legitimated by its connection to problems that have commanded the attention of respected scientists, scholars, and thinkers.

This is a far more 'profane' view of discipline knowledge but one that raises the kinds of questions over validity of knowledge (in what sense can it be said that learners' work is 'legitimated'?) which Wee and Looi are able to avoid.

Habermas provides a lens through which to critically review the process of knowledge creation, bringing in strong ethical considerations. However his key concept of an ideal speech situation is very difficult to exemplify and some would argue too that it offers an almost endless invitation to discuss rather than the action oriented inquiry of the CoI.

Conclusion

To summarise, the case for cooperation and collaboration is based upon an idea that having students work together will lead to more positive learning outcomes and more engaged learners. This is because there are processes in collaboration which make an identifiable contribution to learning and may be considered as learning in their own right. Collaboration offers a more relevant experience for learners and one that chimes better with the contemporary world; the relentless focus on individual achievement is not the natural way of learning but an early modernist aberration.

Online collaboration, it is argued, involves a change of environment for learners with consequences in particular for reach, media and archiving of interaction. However OC should be seen as an evolution of a tradition rather than a paradigm shift in teaching and learning.

Collaboration, and OC in particular, carries many reported benefits but there are inconsistencies or at least tensions in its promotion. In addressing these tensions it is suggested that the normative case for collaboration should be better signalled and there needs to be understanding that learning is both an individual and group achievement. Those promoting OC might look to clearly differentiate between strong and weak forms of collaboration and the kind of evidence of knowledge building that each requires.

References

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Michael Hammond

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Correspondence to Michael Hammond.

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Online collaboration and cooperation: The recurring importance of evidence, rationale and viability

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This paper investigates collaboration in teaching and learning and draws out implications for the promotion of collaboration within online environments. It is divided into four sections. First the case for collaboration, including specifically cooperative approaches, is explored. This case revolves around the impact of collaboration on the quality of learning and on learning outcomes.

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I agree with Benedict's response. Collaboration brings about more efficient workers.

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there is no I in team. By collaborating we can see things in a different view . Divide and conquer.

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Collaboration...
brings people and organizations closer together
helps people learn from each other
opens up new channels for communication
makes us more efficient workers
boosts morale across your organization
leads to higher retention rates

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Agree with the response of everyone here. a twig is easily broken on its own but when it is in a bunch it is hard to break and i believe that we need this in this dark times.

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UNDERSTANDING WOG COLLABORATION

Governments today have had to adopt Whole-of-Government (WOG) thinking as a matter of necessity, as public issues become increasingly more complex and multi-dimensional. Such an approach allows governments to tap on diverse knowledge, viewpoints and ideas from across the public sector, with officers from different agencies coming together to broaden and deepen policy development, and to deliver services to citizens in more synergistic ways. On the basis that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, concerted and coordinated WOG efforts can achieve greater outcomes than the most competent individual agencies working alone. If well executed, a WOG strategy is a powerful source of competitive advantage for governments - one which, furthermore, is not easy to replicate.

True WOG collaboration requires agencies to make their vertical organisational structures permeable so that learning, communication, analysis and decision-making processes can take place across organisational boundaries. While structures and processes supporting WOG collaboration are key, what is more important is that public officers across all levels of government believe in the value of operating as one government in the work they undertake.

It is worth pointing out that WOG collaboration does not always yield a better outcome: In instances where the cost of collaboration outweighs the benefit of doing so, the task is better assigned to a specific agency. Examples include areas where an organisation's deep functional or technical expertise could be weakened as a result of collaboration, or when collaboration is foisted on officers who are not yet ready to fully embrace the spirit and substance of a collaborative approach.

THE CURRENT STATE OF WOG COLLABORATION

In early 2010, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) and the Public Service Division (PSD) commissioned the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP) and the Nanyang Business School (NBS) to take stock, assess and review the state of WOG collaboration in the Singapore Public Service. It was intended to give greater clarity to the term "WOG collaboration" as applied in the Singapore Public Service, identify supporting factors as well as impediments, and recommend strategies to improve collaboration among government agencies.

WOG COLLABORATION IN SINGAPORE: WHAT WORKS

Drawing from its observations, the study, started in July 2009 and completed in September 2010, identified five approaches which could enhance WOG collaboration in the Singapore Public Service.

1. Pursue disciplined, rather than directed collaborations

Most major, large-scale WOG collaborations to date have been directed top-down from senior government and public sector leadership. Directed collaborations as such are likely to face two challenges. First, some officers may have been appointed or co-opted to join the project rather than collaborating out of conviction. Second, there is an assumption that the ones directing the project have all the necessary information and knowledge to see it through, which could overburden the project sponsor. Both of these limitations could result in less optimal outcomes for WOG collaboration.

While there will always be a place for directed projects, mature WOG collaboration calls for a more disciplined yet decentralised approach,where officers possessing the necessary skills, experience and interests become naturally inclined to come together to work as a team without close direction from their superiors. This self-selection process also leads to better team dynamics since members share a common goal, with a greater willingness to resolve conflicts when they arise. Positive experiences of working with one another will also build reciprocity, trust and therefore better relationships among officers for future collaborations.

2. Move from resource allocation to resource leveraging

Teams working on WOG projects may require additional resources in order to achieve desired outcomes. Recognising this, central agencies such as MOF and PSD have steered agencies towards better collaboration by granting additional funds or human resources towards WOG projects. The alternative is for agencies to redirect what existing resources they can spare, which means WOG projects have to compete with agencies' own projects for priority and limited resources. This is likely to result in less than optimal resource allocation and outcomes.

To get out of this bind, the government bureaucracy will need to be more permeable and allow a freer flow of resources. Agencies would then be better able to leverage the most appropriate resources to tackle complex issues, capitalise on emerging trends and create new markets. Such resource leveraging would allow expertise, physical assets and intellectual properties to be quickly redeployed and recombined in innovative ways, allowing the whole Public Service to overcome administrative constraints and enjoy new economies of scale. Given that such an approach would require a degree of flexibility and give-and-take, an environment of mutual trust and strong social networks would need to exist among public officers collaborating towards shared, long-term goals.

3. Establish processes, not just structures

Both temporary and permanent inter-agencies structures such as task force steering and review committees, have been useful platforms, bringing officers together to brainstorm, discuss and work on WOG projects. To support these structures, there must be clear processes to facilitate the way officers work with one another. These processes should allow seamless communication, information sharing, decision-making and approval within the team. In the WOG study, interviewees often highlighted that it was not the lack of structures, but the lack of processes that impeded collaborative efforts.

4. Think customer and citizen needs, not agency priorities

For effective WOG collaboration to take place, officers need to think of outcomes in terms of customer and citizen requirements rather than just their agencies' functional scope. This will enable officers to define problems and design products and services more holistically, instead of trying to coordinate fragmented service offerings at the back end. A customer-oriented mind-set - particularly with the overarching goal of bettering the lives of Singaporeans - would also help in balancing WOG goals with individual agency mandate and goals.

5. Empower officers to solve problems without escalation

The most common form of conflict resolution in WOG projects today is to escalate the matter to higher authorities for resolution. While such hierarchy-based processes do work in the short term or in critical situations, WOG project teams should be empowered to resolve operational issues at the working level. Even if formal approval is still needed, members should be able to engage freely in discussions, without fear of reprisal from their superiors - not only to achieve better outcomes, but to build a stronger collaborative spirit that will enhance the group's overall performance and WOG results.

WOG Collaboration Study

The WOG Collaboration Study classified all WOG efforts undertaken in Singapore to date into six types.

WOG Collaboration Study

The WOG Collaboration Study classified all WOG efforts undertaken in Singapore to date into six types.

1. Strategic Issues

These are central government planning projects where no single agency has the knowledge or resources to deal with on its own. Such projects map out long- and medium-term strategies, or review existing strategies to ensure continued relevance. Project outcomes provide coherence and guidance to agencies across Government involved in the subsequent implementation of more detailed plans. In efforts of this nature, leadership is key to ensure that strategic issues are identified and then coordinated in a WOG manner.

Examples: Inter-ministerial committees on Security, Climate Change and Population.

2. National Projects

These are mostly one-off events of significant national interest and where Singapore's global reputation is at stake, and to which Singaporeans beyond the public sector have pledged time or resources in support. Given the prominence of such pan-national efforts, leadership and participation are relatively smooth-going. Issues, if any, arise only in the background during actual ground implementation, arising from the sheer scale and scope of the endeavour.

Examples: Hosting of the Singapore F1 Grand Prix and the Youth Olympic Games (SYOG); setting up of the Integrated Resorts.

3. Programmes Sponsored by Central Agencies and Ministries

The two central agencies in Government, PSD and MOF, may make use of their influence and central control over manpower and financing to steer other agencies towards specific public sector priorities. Agencies involved (particularly coordinating agencies) are usually provided with additional resources to pursue specific programmes. Coordinating agencies also assist in facilitating dialogue among the other participating agencies.

Examples: World.Singapore strategic planning exercise; setting up of Centres of Excellence in the Public Service.

4. Self-driven, Inter-organisation and Peer Initiatives

Organisations on their own may approach one another to share resources, pursue mutually beneficial projects or resolve common problems. Most of these efforts are bilateral and the result of existing social networks nurtured over time.

Examples: The Singapore Sports School (MOE and MCYS); promotion of arts and culture (MICA, STB and PA); Gardens by the Bay (URA, NParks and STB).

5. Technological Platforms for Better Organisational Efficiency

Projects driven by efficiency and common functional requirements across agencies. Agencies may make use of common ICT infrastructure and applications to improve productivity. This is most effective when participation agencies themselves are convinced of the benefits of getting involved.

Examples: Vital.Org, SG-SPACE and TradeNet.

6. Human Resources Programmes for Networking

Programmes intended to communicate common values, and promote an exchange of perspectives among participants. Many public officers are also drawn to these programmes for opportunities to network with their peers within the Service.

Examples: Foundation courses for new public officers; milestone programmes; policy forums.
Notes

Teams promoting collaboration and use of best practices around a specific area (e.g. urban planning and government procurement) for better results.
Abbreviations

MCYS : Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports

MICA : Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts

MOE : Ministry of Education

MOF : Ministry of Finance

NParks: National Parks Board

PA: People's Association

PSD: Public Service Division

STB: Singapore Tourism Board

URA: Urban Redevelopment Authority

TOWARDS A MORE CONDUCIVE WOG ENVIRONMENT

The Singapore Public Service has done much to make WOG collaborations work, despite the many challenges of working together across multiple administrative boundaries, organisation priorities and complex public issues, with evidence that the planning, coordination and execution of WOG initiatives have steadily improved with time. These successes lay the necessary groundwork of expertise, experience and trust for more elaborate collaborative initiatives in future. The study makes several recommendations for developing a more conducive public sector environment in order to enhance and sustain Singapore's WOG efforts.

Establish WOG-Compliant Institutions and Rules

Some level of central planning for WOG collaborations is already undertaken by the central agencies of MOF and PSD, as a matter of operational necessity, but there is still a lack of clear ownership for the planning, coordinating, tracking and documentation of WOG collaborations in the service. A dedicated WOG office could act as a central point for all government agencies planning to work or are already in WOG projects, help eliminate duplication, track the progress of on-going collaborations, mediate when disputes arise, and serve as an important source of institutional memory for earlier collaborative strategies.

Rewards and recognition frameworks should also take into account the nature of WOG collaborations. Officers on secondment to collaborative projects can be recognised for good performance in cross-agency initiatives, for instance, through a formal cross-agency feedback system. At the agency level, KPIs should be rationalised to reflect joint outcomes so that agencies involved can be duly recognised for their contributions to national goals.

Develop Organisational Capabilities

The ability to work in cross-agency teams should not be assumed as a given. The WOG study cited the value of T-shaped managers: leaders who combine deep specialist expertise with broader perspectives, who are able to transcend traditional hierarchical roles to contribute across organisational lines, but are nevertheless still committed to their agency's performance. Training programmes could be developed to help officers work more effectively in WOG teams; officers with a bent for collaborative work could be identified and nurtured early in their careers.

Nurture a WOG-Ready Culture

Many interviewees spoke of the need to inculcate a long-term WOG culture in the Public Service, in which individual officers are motivated and committed to think and work in WOG terms across agency boundaries. While this will require concerted effort over time, officers at all levels can be given ample opportunities to socialise so that they can begin to establish their own networks, build trust and be better equipped to work across agencies.

Public sector leaders have an especially important role to play: in their formal and day-to-day interaction with colleagues, they should exemplify the characteristics of WOG, and walk the talk. They help nurture a psychologically safe environment in which a culture of collaboration can take root, where public officers feel confident about sharing their thoughts and question assumptions without prejudice.

Strategic social networks and communities should be developed among agencies with high incidence of collaborations. In the process, key connectors, influential brokers and experienced WOG role models in the public sector community at all levels of the Service can be identified. These key figures will be highly influential in moving the public sector forward towards more effective collaboration.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kharina Zainal is Principal Researcher at the Centre of Governance Leadership whose works focus on organisational development and social policies.

NOTES

1. Professor Neo Boon Siong from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP), National University of Singapore and Professor Boh Wai Fong from the Nanyang Business School (NBS), Nanyang Technological University.

2. The concept of a Whole-of-Government approach was first introduced to the Singapore Public Service in the early 1990s.

3. The study spanned over a year with officers from the Ministry of Finance, Public Service Division and Civil Service College working closely with the research team from LKYSPP and NBS. A total of 65 interviews were conducted with senior officers (deputy directors and above) from 8 ministries and 10 agencies, whose job scope involved working closely with counterparts from other agencies within the Public Service.

4. The Infocomm Development Authority employs a cross-agency feedback system for its officers seconded to other agencies.

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Reviewing Whole-of-Government Collaboration in the Singapore Public Service

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Governments today have had to adopt Whole-of-Government (WOG) thinking as a matter of necessity, as public issues become increasingly more complex and multi-dimensional. Such an approach allows governments to tap on diverse knowledge, viewpoints and ideas from across the public sector, with officers from different agencies coming together to broaden and deepen policy development, and to deliver services to citizens in more synergistic ways.

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Benedict's Article on Collaborative Learning

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Benedict's Article on Collaborative Learning

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Agree with Andrew's response collaboration increases productivity and morale in any organization.

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Agree with Razi's comments - So relevant in todays way of working among peers.

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United we stand, Divided we fall. Collaboration is one of the pillars for building and fostering good communication, increases productivity and morale in any organization.