Effective online teamwork
Online teamwork is similar to working with a team in person, but with some added challenges and opportunities.
Collaborating online in teams is an essential contemporary skill, whether in professional life or in your group assignments at university. As with teamwork in general, online collaboration works best when everyone:
- agrees on the team's rules and structure, and
- communicates effectively to build a shared team purpose.
In the online environment, a team's communication and collaboration rely on digital tools, so think carefully about how your team can use these tools most effectively to achieve its goals.
Getting in touch with your team
Actively reaching out to get in touch with your team members is the very first step in coming together as a team.
When you are working in teams in-person, there is often the opportunity to meet and start your teamwork together, but in online environments the first contact sometimes needs to be through online messaging.
If a team member is away on the first day of the teamwork, reaching out to them online is the best way to include them as soon as possible and bring them up to speed so that you can all start working together.
In your unit’s Moodle site, there are two common ways that may be set up for you to communicate with your team members: Moodle forums and Moodle messaging. These are the most efficient ways to get in touch with your teammates at the beginning. After you have established communication together, you may then decide to move your main communication method off Moodle to other platforms.