There are many examples of collaboration being used to improve learning, participation
and satisfaction. Turoff (1999) stated that students in an OLE are getting a significantly
better education than FTF students and advocates giving FTF students OLE capabilities
to compensate. In the same paper, Turoff discussed the results of augmenting FTF
classes with OLE capabilities during the 1980's. Turoff was able to go from 5%
participation to 100% participation through the use of OLE capabilities and the quality
of the discussion was significantly increased. Reasons for this include the additional
time to review comments before posting them, students' knowledge that the instructor
and other students will permanently be able to review their comments and know if
they do not comment, and concern over how other students will perceive them.