JOHANNA ANNALA PhD, is senior lecturer at School of Education, University of Tampere. Research interests include personal development planning, curriculum studies and guidance in higher education.MARITA MÄKINEN PhD, is research director at School of Education, University of Tampere. Research interests include literacy education, special education, curriculum studies, and higher education.PÄIVI SVÄRD MA, is researcher at School of Education, University of Tampere. Interests include online pedagogy and social media in education.KIRSI SILIUS M.Ed, is researcher at Tampere University of Technology. She is carrying out her doctoral thesis in hypermedia. The topic is modelling pedagogically personalized and adaptive hypermedia content production and web services. THUMAS MIILUMÄKI is researcher in at ABSTRACTThis paper illustrates how university students describe the benefits and challenges of online community environment (OCE) in promoting engagement in university studies. The sociocultural framework allows gaining understanding of the engagement in learning processes as well as the collaborative dimensions of OCE in developing higher education in the 21th century. The study was conducted by using the method of empathy-based stories. The data were collected from two student groups representing samples of presumed forerunners of online and offline environments. The results revealed the importance of multidimensionality of engagement, with interaction among and between students and staff. OCE was seen beneficial in strengthening the sense of belonging to the university, in networking and in enhancing active citizenship. The students saw the academic and social world overlapping. OCE was not seen as an alternative but supplementary to offline community, being beneficial for learning and extracurricular activities. The results represent four overlapping spheres that reflect the potentials of OCE in enhancing engagement in studies: supportive reciprocity, collegial contribution, growth of expertise and shared direction. In order to enhance engagement in university studies via OCE, the results suggest that the focus should be on the sociocultural practices and pedagogical processes.