Group Participation

Many courses incorporate group work to teach decision-making and leadership skills as well to allow students to participate in larger projects than they could handle individually. Web courseware facilitates group work: it provides instructors with tools to create groups and provides members of groups with tools to communicate with each other.

Feature	WebCT	Blackboard	Prometheus
Instructors can create groups manually	Get help	Get help
Instructors can have program create groups and assign members randomly	Get help
Users can e-mail members of a group	Get help	Get help
Group members can share files	Get help	Get help
Group members can have a private chat area		Get help
Group members can have private bulletin boards	Get help	Get help
Group members can have Web content presentation areas	Get help

Notes

Blackboard and Prometheus do not have automated Web content presentation areas; however, their file sharing components allow groups to upload Web pages and view them within the course site.

Prometheus does not automatically create group chat rooms, but it allows creation of password-protected chat rooms. The instructor or a student could then provide the password to all members of a group.