# Mass Collaboration and Learning: Opportunities, Challenges, and Influential Factors
## 4 Analysis of Affecting Factors
### Supportive Tools and Technologies Used in Mass Collaboration and Learning  
New digital tools have a significant facilitation role to play when involving hundreds of thousands of learners from around the world who are geographically, temporally, and conceptually dispersed but want to learn. The advantages of these tools are undeniable as for instance, they can empower countless learners to access educational resources anytime and anywhere, equip them for easy communication with other peers, provide opportunities for all whom are eager to exchange their knowledge and experiences, etc. [3]. In conformity with the adopted technologies, some interactive courses such as MOOCs suggest new pathways for delivering learning materials and supporting community connections and interactions. MOOCs are independently massive open online forums for learning. They can also serve as complementary tools in support of mass collaborative learning [1]. It means that learners by participating in and taking advantage of MOOCs, they can utilize of their findings in mass collaborative learning projects. Literature also shows that tools such as CSCL [1], social media [82], and the Internet [60] are about deriving value from collective efforts, and thus can be conveniently adopted for collaborative learning in large scale. For such level of learning, which is intrinsically linked to social interaction, digital tools are a must [1]. Table 8 includes some examples of supportive tools, technologies, services, and web sites in mass collaboration. Even though various references in the literature address the importance and advantages of technology in support of collective learning, real applicable tools for mass collaboration are still evolving, and as such, their appropriateness for self-directed learning still needs to be verified. In order to gain better insight about potential tools for this purpose, the Project-Based Collaborative Learning Model [86] was selected (as the most fit model with the nature of mass collaborative learning) to compare it with adopted tools in collected papers. As its name implies, this model is a synthesis of project-based and collaborative learning approaches. Project-based encourages learners to engage in activity-investigation, problem-solving, decision-making, and artifact-designing. Collaborative learning involves groups of learners working effectively together to understand meanings, find solutions, complete a task, and achieve common goals. This model consists of seven distinct phases and can classify some supportive tools under each phase, see Figure 4.  
As shown in this model, the process is divided into separate phases, and a sequence is defined among them in order to make the model easily-understandable although it does not mean that the collaboration is basically a linear process. To facilitate the understanding of these phases Table 9 presents some descriptions. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{l c} \hline \hline \multicolumn{1}{c}{**Some Evaluated Aspects**} & **Sources** \\ \hline Internet-based mass collaboration & [83] \\ \hline Open Source Software and mass collaboration & [9] \\ \hline Mass collaboration and Web 2.0 tools (e.g., wikis, weblogs, podcasts, folksonomies, file sharing and virtual online worlds) & [1,83] \\ \hline Mass collaboration and social medias (e.g., Wiki, blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube) & [83,84] \\ \hline Mass learning and Synchronous Audio graphic web Conferencing (SAC) technology & [85] \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 8: Some examples of supportive tools, technologies, services, and web sites in mass collaboration. Figure 4: Project-Based Collaborative Learning Model [86].