International Online Collaboration Competencies in Higher Education Students: A Systematic Review (original) (raw)
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ICERI2011 …, 2011
Global and virtual collaborations that transcend time and cultural boundaries are more and more prevalent in the business world today (Connaughton and Shuffler 2007). Working in global and virtual collaboration means to manage complex group dynamics due to cultural heterogeneity regarding different national and organizational belongings, aspects of geographical distance and computer mediated communication. Preparing undergraduate students to the complexity of collaboration in such environments poses specific methodological and didactical challenges.
2011
Global and virtual collaborations that transcend time and cultural boundaries are more and more prevalent in the business world today (Connaughton and Shuffler 2007). Working in global and virtual collaboration means to manage complex group dynamics due to cultural heterogeneity regarding different national and organizational belongings, aspects of geographical distance and computer mediated communication. Preparing undergraduate students to the complexity of collaboration in such environments poses specific methodological and didactical challenges. By analysing the self-reflective assessment of unexpected events made by the students a first concept for a process-oriented assessment method for global and virtual collaboration competence could be developed. The validated course concept of combining realistic hands-on-experience with data collection and reflection can be used for further development of the concept of global and virtual collaboration competences in undergraduate student courses. Additionally the reflected experiences regarding the courses will be presented in form of guidelines for teaching such courses.
Virtual Teamwork: A Product of Globalization Implications for University Education
With globalization, virtual teamwork is becoming the predominant type of labour organization within multinational companies. Empirical studies on this new form of teamwork show that besides requiring specific knowledge, this teamwork requires social skills, as well as media and methodological competencies. Through the Bologna-Process European universities received clear directions to prepare young professionals for the challenges of the future working life by focusing on extra-curricular activities and developing personal key competen-cies. Accordingly, this essay outlines how to prepare students to work in a virtual team environment by making fundamental reforms to university education. A key element of proposed reforms is the introduction of Collaborative Computer Supported Learning as the leading didactic principle, especially in postgraduate studies.
Virtual Teams as part of Internationalization of Higher Education
Proceedings Cross-Cultural Business Conference 2017, Steyr, Österreich, 2017, pp. 211-220 , 2017
Worklife is becoming increasingly international and intercultural. With improved online interaction and new ways of working multicultural virtual teams are becoming a routine. In order to interact effectively and efficiently in the networked professional environments practice for higher education students is of utmost importance. Building intercultural competence and experimenting with multicultural virtual teams as part of pedagogical internationalization must be systematic. Successful internationalization of education depends on activities on three levels: institutional, faculty and students (Lauridsen & Cozart 2015). Trust, relationship building, cohesion, cooperation, communication, team-related attributes and tasks are crucial for successful virtual team cooperation (Hertel, Geister & Konradt, 2005; Baruch & Lin, 2012). In order to explore for further prerequisites of effective cross-cultural virtual cooperation in an educational setting a group of Finnish and Austrian master level students were given an assignment to organize multicultural virtual teams and study aspects of intercultural work. Six virtual teams were formed with only a broad assignment brief with the objective of finding out factors hindering or facilitating a successful intercultural virtual team cooperation from the subjective students' point of view. After a three weeks' long cooperation both student groups filled in a similar qualitative questionnaire about the intercultural virtual team experiences. The questionnaires were analyzed with content analysis by means of different criteria i.e. cooperation and collaboration, technical platforms, satisfaction and perceived challenges. The results were additionally analyzed in view of intercultural differences. The students were very satisfied and appreciated the possibility for the virtual international team work. Based on the results following recommendations for enhancing intercultural knowledge in virtual teams are presented: considering obligations and time (especially for para-occupational education), clear assignments, a set of recommended tools for communication and collaboration, scaffolding students in different steps i.e. team formation, common ground for group work and intercultural awareness.
The purpose of this research was aimed to establish a relationship between the level of collaborative work competency and the academic performance of students in an online master’s degree program. An Ex-post-facto investigation was conducted through a quantitative methodology and descriptive analysis. A collaborative competency checklist was designed to evaluate 46 teams in order to estimate their collaborative work competency level. This competency was assessed through interactions and performance, registered in discussion forums. Results confirmed a positive correlation between high level of collaborative work competency and academic achievement. Didactic recommendations of this study included collaborative learning activities as one way to promote useful academic and personal skills development. For future research, experimental approaches could be applied to get higher level of certainty about collaborative competency benefits.
The rapid emergence of the global, digital workplace within contemporary design practice has raised questions regarding the educational implications of professional collaboration across cultural, geographical and disciplinary borders. Are we effectively preparing students for this new creative paradigm? Educationalists are responding by implementing more face-to-face team-based approaches, but the potential of online learning - the medium ideally suited to this new international digital work environment - has largely been overlooked. COFA Online has been creating, evolving and evaluating fully online art and design courses for the last three years in response to these questions. By triangulating data from a series of online case studies, teacher and student experiences, and three years of evaluations, this paper highlights specific online pedagogical approaches that have successfully engaged students in an active, collaborative online learning environment. It also pinpoints problems that can occur in online teamwork, and investigates several potential solutions. If carefully considered, online team-based learning can parallel contemporary collaborative work practices within the global design industry, and can help equip students with the collaboration and communication skills they need in order to work successfully in this professional environment. This paper highlights the need for educationalists to continue to pursue higher levels of understanding of online collaborative learning in the context of design, and offers suggestions on how to move forward.
Designing and implementing virtual exchange – a collection of case studies
This case study outlines an example of cooperative online learning for teaching business communication skills at a Hungarian and a Belgian university. During this eight week long Erasmus+ Virtual Exchange (E+VE) project, students collaborated online in virtual teams on a weekly basis to complete the following main missions: (1) giving constructive feedback; (2) creating an elevator pitch; (3) promoting themselves by creating a digital CV; (4) preparing for a job interview; and (5) participating in a real online job interview with a professional recruiter. Not only does this case study describe the planning, design, and implementation of the project from a pedagogical perspective, but it also details its challenges and outcomes.
Experiential Learning with Global Virtual Teams: Developing Intercultural and Virtual Competencies
This study evaluates the impact of Global Virtual Team (GVT)-based experiential learning in business education. During the first semester of 2014, 2,494 university business students from 37 countries from all inhabited continents participated in the X-Culture project. Post-project surveys applied to a participating group and to a control group of Colombian students reveal significant learning in terms of perceived difficulties related to cultural differences and virtual team coordination. This study provides evidence for the usefulness of GVT-based approaches and facilitates a better understanding of the challenges and learning opportunities in using this type of experiential learning activity. This study evaluates the impact of Global Virtual Team (GVT)-based experiential learning in business education. Post-project surveys reveal significant learning in terms of perceived difficulties related to cultural differences and virtual team coordination. This provides evidence for the usefulness of GVT-based approaches and facilitates a better understanding of the challenges and learning opportunities in using this type of experiential learning activity. Participation in the GVT-based project allows students to experience the challenges and form more realistic expectations with respect to intercultural and international virtual collaboration.
… (HICSS), 2010 43rd …, 2010
several universities around the world, initially from South Africa and the United States and later expanding to include participants from India, Mexico, Canada, and the West Indies, participated in an historic exploration of geographically distributed collaborative learning. The project focused on the Global Graduate Seminar on Globalization and the Information Society: Information, Communication, and Development. The underlying goal of the project was to better understand the sociotechnical infrastructure required to support innovative cross-national teaching and learning pedagogical models to build human capacity for a knowledge-intensive global economy. The purpose of this paper is to review the best practices and lessons learned from the ten years of delivering the Globalization Seminar in a geographically distributed learning environment. Data for the study include participant observation, narrative student evaluations, and limited post hoc surveys of student participants. Our findings focus on three areas to support the seminar: (1) technical infrastructure; (2) social processes and pedagogy; and (3) administrative and infrastructure. face-to-face communication, suggest that team responses to individual initiatives are particularly important in the more uncertain environment of computer-mediated communication. Trust will change within virtual teams based on the degree to which team members: keep promises, engage competently in work, express themselves truthfully about important issues, care about each other, contribute to the success of the team, care about the success of the team, have consistent expectations of each other, acknowledge their mistakes, feel comfortable sharing ideas with the team, have developed friendships with team members, can disclose aspirations, confide in team members about personal difficulties, are considerate of others feelings, are friendly, and socialize (or would socialize) together.