This article highlights the central role of collaboration in higher education programs which involve students in "learning through participation" (LTP). It reports the findings of a project that began with the intention of exploring the range and applicability of online technologies used for enhancing collaboration between the three main groups (students, partner organizations, and unit conveners) in a university-based LTP initiative. A grounded theory approach led us to open up the research focus to investigate important themes of collaboration highlighted by participants. This centrality of collaboration overshadowed our initial concern with online-based technologies, which were found not to be directly correlated with collaboration. We discuss implications of these findings and tease out important distinctions between co-ordination (of activities), communication (of information and between social actors) and collaboration. We discuss the implications of these distinct factors for teaching and learning through participation.