Which Online Resource is Right for You?

Before deciding what resources to use online, two factors must be considered:

1. The size of the group.
2. If the group is being put together for a short term or long term project.

However, every group is different. Try to consider each member on an individual level - for example, if there are students in the group that aren't efficient or confident online, they may struggle with more complex ideas like document sharing and online collaboration.

Group Size

The bigger the size of your group the more heavily it will need to be managed. For example, an online group chat with 10+ members could prove inefficient and time wasting. Breaking the group up into smaller groups for discussion can help if chat or IM is the prefered choice, but for larger groups websites such as Google Groups could prove benefial.

Short Term or Long Term

For short term projects it might be a waste of group time to invest in setting up complex mailing lists. Take into consideration how many times the group will meet to discuss and make decisions. A long term project on the other hand will benefit from using sites like Google Groups.