Stress caused by on‐line collaboration in e‐learning: a developing model

On‐line collaboration is becoming increasingly common in education and in organisations. It was believed that this could in itself cause stress for collaborators. An analysis of on‐line learning diaries, phone interviews and questionnaires indicated that on‐line collaboration could cause stress, and this stress was linked to the dependency of the collaborators on each other, and the level of their mutual trust. Stress could be designed out of on‐line collaborative exercises through management of the on‐line working processes. The trend in both education and management towards increased on‐line working and collaboration indicates that further research needs to be carried out into finding how to reduce stress from this cause.