From reluctant online contributor to mentor: Facilitating student peer-to-peer mentoring online

As the teaching staff working in a university postgraduate program, an ongoing concern has been to ensure our students engage with the digital course content (delivered via the Moodle learning management system). This is an issue shared across the sector and, in our case, specifically in the area of students understanding how this online course content and tasks could benefit them in a program that is based around individual projects. Like many institutions which now offer degrees which are either partially or fully online, the program in question offers a blended learning environment, with internal students also expected to engage with online materials. A key strategy has evolved around introducing peer ­mentoring as an intrinsic behaviour in the courses in the program which is outlined in this article.