This summary includes 2 tread: the tread for the collaboration challenge and the the new tread started by Elliot which is called defining online collaboration. 
 

Here're some statistic regarding this discussion (before Bill's message): 
 

Those 2 treads generated 33 messages all together (29 for the collaboration challenge and 4 for defining online collaboration).  Not counting myself, there was a possibility of 28 participants for this discussion which was 14 participants in each class.  The actual number of participants that participated in this specific discussion was 18/28, almost 2/3 of the class or 64%.  On these 18 participants, 11 were from the 14 distance students, while 7 were from the 14 campus students.  The distance class participated at 79% while the campus class participated at 50%.  Interesting...  However, without counting my messages, the number of messages and replies, is about the same  in each class.  15 messages in the distance class and 13 messages in the campus class.  So even though there is less students that participated from the campus class, they managed to send more messages per student.  Again, interesting...  But... that says nothing about the quality of the messages and the information in it.

Here's a summary of what people thought of 'online collaboration' and how it is achieved: 
 

Lorna

Lorna pointed out right at the beginning that we ought to make a difference between cooperation and collaboration as they are not the same.  Here's what she reported:  Collaboration: Mutual engagement of participants in a coordinated effort to solve the problem  Cooperation: Division of labor, each person is responsible for a portion of the work

Bruce

Bruce shared that online collaboration involves gaining input from others and providing input to others in order to meet objectives, focusing on a shared goal (Palloff and Pratt),  or a complimentary goals (from business setting).  He pointed out too that more often then not, goals and motivation are varied and that the success to collaboration may well be to find enough commonalties between individual to invest in the interaction.  Bruce also talked about asynchronous communication and how it helps to be able to communicate without competition and this type of communication provides for a broader and thoughtful range of inputs

Patricia

Patricia agreed with Bruce with his statement that goals and motivation are varied amongst individuals.  She articulated that teams might have the same goal but different motivation towards the outcome.  She finished her comment by saying that the most important is, the element of trust that these differences in motives can result in a richer experience and end product.  Assuming other people are aware of these personal motives.

Lisa

Lisa disagreed with Bruce comment that asynchronous communication helps to communicate without competition.  On the contrary, she feels competition for the "screen" as there is some very long and scholarly responses and she find this to be very intimidating as she see herself at the other end of the spectrum.

Here're the links Lisa provided us. 

Judi Harris' Virtual Architecture's Web Home. http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~jbharris/Virtual-Architecture/index.html

Ch. 1 "Foundational Ideas" http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~jbharris/Virtual-Architecture/Foundation/index.html 
 

Chuck

Chuck referred us to interesting links.  He brought the topic of the 'culture and structure' of organizations and if these organizations actually support collaboration or not.  Success is more likely to occur if  organizations actually support collaboration.  As Chuck mentioned, to be successful, we need a combination of the technology and the way it is used.  He is saying that 'instructional design’, is more important than the technology (the tools used to communicate/collaborate) in achieving collaboration.  He also added a very interesting point that Society and Education don't work together.  'For many people, collaboration is counterintuitive to the way they spend much of their lives.  For examples, business practices in western society have tended, and still tend to be, competitive by nature, and many people are raised in a competitive mindset.'

Here're the links Chuck provided us. 

Elements of Successful Collaboration 
http://collaboration.mitre.org/prail/IC_Collaboration_Baseline_Study_Final_Report/3_0.htm

http://collaboration.mitre.org/prail/IC_Collaboration_Baseline_Study_Final_Report/toc.htm

“Intelligence Community Collaboration Baseline Study” by Tamara Hall, Ph.D of the United State's C.I.A.. 
http://collaboration.mitre.org/
 
 

Roland

The way Roland sees it, is two or more individual working to solve  a problem, or to complete a task.  He also said that the objectives of task requires the use of CMC.  This is partly what will motivate the participants to work together in collaboration.  He also referred to blended technologies as being more effective in the case in-dept discussion.

William

William shared with us that online collaboration means collaborating with people online.

Stephen

Stephen liked Lorna's comment about the difference between cooperation and collaboration.  He stated that "cooperation is much easier to attain."  Stephen doesn't believe that "competition stifles collaboration."  On the contrary, he thinks that "a great deal of collaboration is needed to survive in a competitive world."  He thinks that "true collaboration springs more easily from a truly competitive structure where there is a mutual goal, shared responsibility, mutual authority and most importantly mutual accountability and a sharing of rewards."  Stephen believes that  "healthy competitiveness promotes true collaboration."  He also provided us with 12 conditions for collaboration as well as 7 habits of ineffective collaboration taken from the following outstanding article: The Power of Collaboration: Summary of Participants' Work  12 conditions needed for collaboration: 1. Clear and compelling purpose, goals, or tasks.  2. Agreement that collaboration is the best way to proceed, not just the assumed best way.  3. A commitment to a win-win approach.  4. Leadership support from upper management or a champion with power.  5.  Involvement of and active partnering by all, across functions and levels.  6. Systematic, inclusive communication processes.  7. Clear expectations for roles and responsibilities, decision making, boundaries and tolerance for risk.  8. Group members are committed to creating a positive working atmosphere.  9. Commitment to ongoing learning.  10. An appreciation of diversity.  11. A clear action planning process.  12. The group strengthens the individuals and the individuals strengthen the group.  7 habits of ineffective collaboration: 1) Authoritarian, punitive or directive leadership styles that stifle participation  2) Saboteurs, competitors, those with their own agenda, or those who simply want their own way.  3) Goals which are unclear, artificial, or unshared.  4) Historical adversaries who have not yet become collaborative.  5) A critical mass of loners or "wait-and-see'ers" who withhold energy or information.  6) Resource constraints or reward systems that do not support collaborative efforts.  7) Previous unresolved negative experience--either with collaboration or with the organization involved.

Here're the links Stephen provided us. 

INTERAGENCY COLLABORATION AND TRANSITION 
http://www.pacer.org/tatra/inter.htm

The Power of Collaboration: Summary of Participants' Work 
http://upperleft.aqp.org/draft.html
 

Patricia

Patricia  : ) collaborated "'simply by virtue(al) of the the fact that there has been an invitation extended."  She also pointed out that "successful group collaboration experience in the past has proven that a gathering of all the ideas together will make a stronger whole."  She finished by saying that "on-line collaboration must be, therefore, a synthesis of [her] desire to participate to signal support for the project, [her] confirmation of our mutual trust, and certainly an understanding that working together gets things done."

Lisa	Lisa felt that "30 or so definitions on the same term [was] a little much."  However, she thought that it appeared to have "some fruitful insight on the topic."

Glen

Glen mentioned that for him, collaboration involves synergy.  He stated that "the whole is greater than the sum of the parts."  That "it involves the process of people working together to achieve something that could not have been done working individually.  When this is applied online the benefits are endless.  It allows people to collaborate anytime, anywhere and produce something that can be readily accessed by others."

Ray

Ray stated that 'online collaboration is the purposeful interaction of learners through a computer network.' In more depth it means that 'each learner has a definite need and/or goal, that the exchange of knowledge, information, ideas, and concepts empowers the learners to construct meaning, that each participant has the desire and the opportunity to learn from the collaboration that takes place, and that online collaborators benefit from the fact that information can be shared digitally despite geographical barriers.'

Lorna

Lorna is 'ready to see that collaboration happens in some competitive situations. Lots of teamwork exercises are collaboration within competition....the three cooperation, collaboration, and competition can nestle within one another..but the distinction is important. Collaboration does imply some transcendence' to her.

Here's a link Lorna provided us.
 Good for teachers and a simple profile of cooperative grouping vs. collaborative grouping is at http://www2emc.maricopa.edu/innovation/CCL/building.html 
 

Mary-Lou

Mary-Lou shared that 'a group that works together online must first work cooperatively together.' 'And although [teammates do] work together to produce a "product", Mary-Lou thinks that [teammates] do have individual agendas in mind. However, [teammates] can state their agendas & still be willing to work together to fulfill objectives while doing the required assignment.' She even said that team members can share 'strengths and weaknesses and tried to share the workload accordingly.'

Richard

Richard shared that 'On-line collaboration is when individuals use WWW tools to work together on a common project, problem or question. In most cases these people are in different locations or at least work part of the day out of contact with the rest of the group. For the collaboration to work the procedures and ground rules must be established before or right at the start of the project.' He also added that 'For the collaborative project to work those involved must have access to the tools and have a clear understanding of what is to be accomplished, when it will happen and when it will end (if there is a deadline or natural end).'

Here's a link Richard provided us.

"The Internet: A Land To Settle Rather Than An Ocean To Surf".

http://www.unimelb.edu.au/tisp/teaching/teachingmr.html 
 

Brenda

Brenda mentioned that 'The process of collaboration allows people to work together on intellectual, academic, or practical projects. When the collaboration is carried out online, participants are able to exchange information, work on shared documents and ideas, study together, or reflect on practices. By sharing what they know, each participant may add a unique viewpoint to enrich the group's knowledge - many heads are better than one (echoing the synergistic aspect of the process).'

Ronald

Ronald provided with an interesting link of definitions, research summaries and web references from 2learn about ***

Here's the link Ronald provided us.
Readings and research 
http://www.2learn.ca/Projects/Together/research.html 
 

Patrick Kelly

Patrick feels that 'Trust is an important issue around collaboration. He thinks that 'an initial trust must be created between collaborators.' He thinks that 'this is enhanced when [online collaborators] never meet face to face. The initial relationship must immediately have a high degree of trust in it in order to get anything done.' He stated that 'sometimes meeting face to face has it's problems. Biases, or judgments can be made even before the collaboration begins. Once collaboration begins then all of sudden these judgments lead to limited trust.' But, as he said, he 'could be off target, and trust would depend on who is in the group.'

Gordon

Gordon referred to 'the value of telecollaboration in an educational setting' which he stated as being: 'authentic, inquiry (research), connecting, diversity, environments, generate, understanding, and knowledge. He stated that 'Telecolloborative learning experiences have the potential to encourage students to research our world first hand by communicating with other cultures.' He presented the idea that maybe "Telecollaboration is a 'direction' not a 'destination' ?"

Patrick Perry

Patrick questioned himself about 'what hardware and / or software does [online collaboration] entail?'

Bill

Elliott

For Elliot, 'Online collaboration is any activity using a variety of collaboration mechanisms from e-mails at one end of the continuum to videoconferencing at the other, that can energize and empower learners, promotes more in depth learning, treats learners equally, makes communication easier, and makes learners more independent. It also provides a means where learners can benefit from the knowledge of the entire online group, enabling the learner to derive inspiration from the variety of views expressed.

See Philip Rutherford. “Annotations: They Key to Collaborative Teaching and Learning on the Internet” http://elmo.scu.edu.au/sponsored/ausweb/ausweb96/educn/rutherford/paper.html
 (last time this link was not working but I kept it in case it does eventually work)