INTERACTION AND COLLABORATION

Interaction and Collaboration can take many forms. The ECP criteria place emphasis on the type and amount of interaction and collaboration within an online environment.

Interaction denotes communication between and among learners and instructors, synchronously or asynchronously.

Collaboration is a subset of interaction and refers specifically to those activities in which groups are working interdependently toward a shared result. This differs from group activities that can be completed by learners working independently of one another and then combining the results, much as one would when assembling a jigsaw puzzle with parts of the puzzle completed separately then assembled. A learning community is defined here as the sense of belonging to a group, rather than each learner working independently.