Using Mendeley to Support Collaborative Learning in the Classroom

Tehmina Khwaja*, Pamela L. Eddy**
* Ph.D Holder, College of William and Mary School of Education, Williamsburg, USA.
** Professor of Higher Education, College of William and Mary School of Education, Williamsburg, USA.
Periodicity:July - September'2015
DOI : https://doi.org/10.26634/jet.12.2.3612

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore the use of Mendeley, a free online reference management and academic networking software, as a collaborative tool in the college classroom. Students in two iterations of a Graduate class used Mendeley to collaborate on a policy research project over the course of a semester. The project involved collaborative critique of an article, finding and annotating additional relevant literature, synthesizing all group articles, and creating individual policy briefs. The authors investigated how students used the software, tracking individual contributions and reviewing final student projects. The authors used survey data to gauge student experience with Mendeley. The authors discovered that in addition to facilitating collaboration, Mendeley was useful for organizing the material for the group project. The survey also revealed that there is a learning curve with Mendeley, which may prevent students from taking full advantage of Mendeley as a collaboration and reference tool. This study suggests that Mendeley can be used as a platform to facilitate learning through classroom collaboration.

Keywords

Mendeley, Collaborative Learning, Group Work, Educational Technology, Pedagogy.

How to Cite this Article?

Khwaja ,T. and Eddy, P. L. (2015). Using Mendeley to Support Collaborative Learning in the Classroom. i-manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, 12(2),19-28. https://doi.org/10.26634/jet.12.2.3612

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