Collaboration across border: benefits and pitfalls of an international collaborative project

International educational collaboration, facilitated by web-based means, has important benefits in higher education. The CAB project is aimed at designing, experimenting and evaluating ways of introducing collaboration into the educational practice of higher educational institutions in Europe and beyond. This paper presents results of four collaborative activities aimed at peer-evaluation of students’ assignments. Interviews, discussion transcripts, and student questionnaires have formed the research tools for the analysis of pedagogical and social benefits students have gained, as well as problems they experienced. While we found that peer evaluation can be an effective pedagogical instrument for promoting critical thinking, reflection and collaboration at an international level, a number of organizational and pedagogical pitfalls were identified and suggestions for the improvement of such projects are proposed.