The following list contains brief use cases of faculty and instructors throughout Penn State using VoiceThread in unique ways for teaching and learning. These use cases describe the basic designs utilized by the instructor, reported outcomes as well as possible future uses for VoiceThread.

This article is a rather old (1999) meta-analysis of the effect of small-group learning on undergraduate students in STEM majors and the outcomes of collaborative, cooperative, or mixed form learning on student achievement, attitudes and persistence. What we like about this article is that it is scientifically robust, from a really high impact (5 point impact factor) educational research journal. It serves as primary research evidence about how important small group learning can be on a number of outcomes, not just the outcome of achievement. While it doesn't address specifically online work, it is powerful research about the benefits of this kind of learning, which is really convincing, especially when we have students who might resist collaborative learning.

This is an overview of of standards for online teaching in various categories, including Higher Education.
https://www.qualitymatters.org/node/2343/download/QMOverviewforwebsite2014.pdf