The likelihood of a local site becoming a successful learning group is primarily a result of individual personalities, the level of learner autonomy of group members, and the interpersonal dynamics within the group. Given identical assignments, some groups respond with an extraordinarily high degree of competence, commitment, energy, and creativity while others do not. The former give time far in excess of what is expected, are task oriented, productive, and continue to communicate informally by e-mail and in other ways, seeming to have fun working together. Surely there can be no better indication that a virtual class has succeeded than that the students do not want to dissolve it when the course ends. To a large extent, it seems to depend on the personalities of the group members, in particular on the degree of personal autonomy of the individuals.
Successful groups exhibit a high degree of interdependence among relatively autonomous individuals.
In many groups the interdependent members cluster around an informal leader, who acts as alocal chairperson, guiding discussion and decision making in an environment characterised by a high degree of participation, division of labor, and collaboration. Sometimes there are no particular leaders, but group members devise ways to share leadership responsibilities. Being relatively autonomous learners, the members of the successful group are likely to have sufficient understanding of the instructional process to be good collaborators with the distant instructor. Problems seem to occur when someone wants a leadership role and is rejected or when two or more people compete for leadership, or when the level of autonomy among the group members is so low that no one is able to lead the decision making process. If there are individuals who have difficulty in collaborating with others or who, instead of accepting informal local leadership look for control from the distant instructor, the situation might become volatile.