Article
Using Mendeley to Support Collaborative Learning in the Classroom
i-Manager’s Journal of Educational Technology
(2015)
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. We investigated how students used the software, tracking individual contributions and reviewing final student projects. We used survey data to gauge student experience with Mendeley. We 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. Our 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
Disciplines
Publication Date
Fall 2015
Citation Information
Khwaja, T., & Eddy, P. L. (2015). Using Mendeley to support collaborative learning in the classroom. i-Manager’s Journal of Educational Technology, 12(2), 19-28.