e-Collaboration for Tertiary Education Using Mobile Systems

Abstract

Electronic collaboration has revolutionized academic activities by enabling academic collaborations through devices such ascomputers and other mobile devices. With this development, learning and academic collaboration can now take place acrosscontinents and different time zones. In electronic collaboration, knowledge sharing is done remotely, in real-time and notlocation-bound. Although several institutions in the developed countries have been using some form of eCollaboration foracademic activities and for improving collaborations among students, much has not been done in this domain in thedeveloping world. Using Java as software technology of choice, we take electronic learning a step further by making itpossible for students to learn and collaborate through mobile phones thus leveraging on the existing mobile diffusion amongstudents in Nigeria. The intention is to contribute to research and development in mobile learning relevant to the growth andquality of education by encouraging group participation among students and fostering joint academic contributions amongthe academia.KEYWORDS: Electronic collaboration, Mobile collaboration software, mobile phone and electronic learning.