Abstract: The aim of this study was to identify social patterns in mobile technology mediated collaboration among distributedmembers of the professional distance education community. Ten participants worked for twelve weeks designing amaster’s programme in Information Sciences. The participants’ mobile technology usage activity and interview datawere first analyzed to get an overview of the density and distribution of collaboration at individual and communitylevels. Secondly, the results of the social network analyses were interpreted to explore how different social network patterns of relationships affect online and offline interactions. Thirdly, qualitative descriptions of participant teamwork were analyzed to provide practical examples and explanations. Overall, the analyses revealed nonparticipative behaviour within the online community. The social network analysis revealed structural holes and sparse collaborationamong participants in the offline community. It was found that due to their separated practices in the offlinecommunity, they did not have a need for mobile collaboration tools in their practice
