Collaboration can be effectively used to improve the quality and quantity of education
in online learning environments. There are numerous tools and methods that can be
used to facilitate and stimulate collaboration in online education. The author has made
an effort to list and define the most important of these tools and methods. These tools
have evolved very recently and will continue to evolve as we learn more about how
people learn in an online learning environment. Additionally, new methods unique to
the online learning environment will likely develop. The collaborative learning in online
environment is likely to evolve and make significant benefits to education, and
probably to post educational business collaboration as well. Detailed studies of online
learning environment, experiments with new collaboration technology and better
monitoring and analysis tools are needed to expedite this endeavor.