This paper examined the effect of using an online collaborative learning platform on students’ learning outcomes in higher education. An online collaborative learning platform called GMoodle was implemented at The Education University of Hong Kong. To investigate the benefits and drawbacks of online collaborative learning, students were invited to complete the pre‐test and post‐test questionnaires to evaluate their learning outcomes. The quantitative and qualitative studies of 75 undergraduate students were conducted based on the pre‐test and post‐test questionnaires and focus group interviews, and the results showed that students’ learning outcomes especially self‐management skills and collaborative skills were enhanced through the online collaborative activities. In the pilot study, training was provided for in‐service and pre‐service teachers. Most of them reflected that GMoodle is a useful platform for educators to understand students’ learning progress, promote active collaboration and facilitate team teaching across different disciplines. Not only the students but also the teachers benefited from this online learning platform for collaborative learning, fair assessment, and team teaching. Copyright © 2019 The author.

Collaboration between students is particularly important in tertiary education because most courses include group activities in which they need to work together to reach a common goal. Unlike individual learning, collaborative learning involves interaction and cooperation. However, it is difficult to assess individual contributions in a group. Teachers usually collect the final product and give the same mark to all members in the group, so this may cause unfair marking and lead to conflicts in case of uneven workload. To encourage student collaboration and provide a reliable assessment system for teachers, we proposed an online evidence-based assessment system called GMoodle (https://gmoodle.eduhk.hk) with the Teaching Development Grant (TDG-T0210) in the Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK). GMoodle provides the basic functions of Moodle plus customized features including chatroom, Wiki and real-time progress report. It is a centralized platform for students to discuss, share resources and work out the solution together. Detailed reports, such as the number of posts/replies, weekly trend of contribution, ranking in group and class, can be retrieved by both students and teachers. The objectives of this system are to promote active and collaborative learning environment through peer motivation and facilitate an evidence-based assessment for setting assessment criteria and identifying free-riders. GMoodle was launched from September 2018 to April 2019 with 337 users involving 10 courses in IT, Mathematics, English language and law in EdUHK. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from pre/post-test survey, system log and focus group interviews. The effectiveness of GMoodle on group collaboration and assessment was evaluated by statistical analysis by SPSS using ANOVA and t-test. The results showed that the improvement of problemsolving skills and collaborative skills were statistically significance. Furthermore, decision tree was used to discover interesting

This paper investigated online collaborative learning on students' learning outcomes in higher education with an online platform called GMoodle that was implemented at The Education University of Hong Kong. To discover the benefits and drawbacks of online collaborative learning, students were invited to join this exploratory study and complete the pre and post questionnaires to evaluate their learning outcomes. The quantitative and qualitative studies of 75 undergraduate students were conducted based on the questionnaires and focus group interviews, and the results showed that students' learning outcomes especially self-management skills and collaborative skills were enhanced through the online collaborative activities. Before launching GMoodle, trainings were provided for the in-service and pre-service teachers. Most of them reflected that GMoodle is a useful platform for educators to understand students' learning progress, promote active collaboration and facilitate team teaching across different disciplines. Not only the students but also the teachers benefited from this online learning platform for collaborative learning, fair assessment, and team teaching. Copyright © 2019 Association for Computing Machinery.