Collaborative Learning in a Shared Digital Studio

CollaboratED is a research initiative exploring the opportunities and challenges for collaborative work between online and on-campus students within the Digital Media Design Masters programme at the University of Edinburgh, where group projects are an important aspect of the learning process. CollaboratED asks students and academic staff about the benefits and challenges to group work, looking to find ways to successfully bring on-campus and online learners into a creative and shared studio environment. This paper discusses the outcomes from the longitudinal research, involving questionnaires, observations, and individual interviews with students and lecturers on the programme. The research findings suggest that the challenges that online students face are mostly focused on balancing work and studies, but also relate to working from different time zones and overcoming cultural differences within the team. Despite these challenges, the students recognise the benefits of group discussion and sharing resources with their peers, mostly, however, they value the sense of being part of a community. Despite positive responses towards group discussion and collaboration, in both on-campus and online cohorts, the largest percentage of students prefer to work alone where course assignments are concerned.