Responding to Global Challenge through innovative three-way collaboration (original) (raw)

A model for international and industry- engaged collaboration and learning

Audio Engineering Society E-library, 2015

Traditional barriers of geography, organisation and culture and being broken down by emerging technology [1]. In the recording industry, professionals often collaborate on projects globally, engaging in what Tapscott and Williams [2] call 'peer-production'. The potential in these concepts extends to those developing their expertise-they can connect with peers and industry professionals on a global scale. Despite the potential however, most Higher Education institutions fail to engage for cultural reasons. This paper outlines a model for collaborative learning explored and developed through a project funded by the UK's Higher Education Academy. The project involved Coventry University and industry organisation JAMES as well as a number of other international partners. The paper looks at the pedagogical background to the project, some typical activities undertaken before summarising the key outcomes and opportunities for further work.

An International Cross-Disciplinary Student Collaboration: A Retrospective Eight Years

EDULEARN Proceedings, 2018

A successful construction endeavour invariably obliges a successful collaborative effort among its many multidisciplinary stakeholders. Teachers of construction education today are increasingly aware of the need to teach their students skills to enable them to work collaboratively with their peers from other related disciplines. In the present day context of an increasingly globalized construction industry amidst a current rapid advancement in communication technology, an ability to work collaboratively with peers across a geographical divide within an online environment is a valuable skill to have. This paper presents the collective experiences of two distant universities where students from two related disciplines-architectural science (with a construction project management major) and civil engineering-collaborate on a joint student assignment across a time and geographical divide. It presents a description of the project and its intent, teaching pedagogy, students' feedback and the challenges of establishing the framework.

Symposium ECER2015 - Different International and Educational Perspectives on Student Collaboration

Collaborative learning is considered an important instructional method that can help students to gain collaborative skills (Van der Linden, Erkens, Schmidt, & Renshaw, 2000) and which facilitates deep and transformative learning (Alicántara, Hayes, & York, 2009). This generally applies to any kind of educational setting, however, it becomes of special interest in educational strands that prepare students for professional fields such as higher education and vocational education. Due to the growing European knowledge economy, working in a collaborative settings has become an important feature of the twenty first century labor market and these settings provide opportunities for continuous significant learning experiences (Binkley et al., 2012; Olssen & Peters, 2005). Hence, when students graduate and enter the labor market they need to be well equipped to collaborate with others and to learn from these situations. This symposium considers different educational settings in vocational education and higher education in which collaborative learning activities play a central role.

Managing international student collaborations: An experience report

2012 Frontiers in Education Conference Proceedings, 2012

Knowledge and experience from working in international collaborative projects prepares engineering students for their future careers in a global market. Hence this is an important element in higher education, although seldom provided in the curriculum. One reason for this lack might be uncertainty in how to manage international collaborations and to create a good learning environment for the development of skills related to international collaborations. Therefore this article describes our experiences from managing international student collaborations including theoretical underpinning for our choices when relevant. Having given the context of, and the strategies for running our two collaborations, we provide an analysis of our experiences. This includes observations of differences in the two collaborations, both when due to use of different strategies and when due to different contexts, as well as observations of similarities. With this in mind, we present recommendations for running international student collaborations.

Evolution of an international collaborative student project

2009

Abstract International collaborative student projects are inherently difficult for everyone concerned--the students working on the projects, the faculty guiding the students, and the clients submitting the projects. With more and more schools recommending, or even requiring, that their students have some form of international experience in their degree programs, these projects will become more prevalent in helping to educate computing students in the 21 st century.

Global collaboration and industry-orientated assessment –outcomes of project commissioned by the UK Higher Education Academy

Audio Engineering Society E-Library, 2015

The traditional barriers of geography, organization and culture are being broken down by emerging technology [1]. Applicable to many industries, the concept is particularly relevant for audio professionals and music producers who can work in a variety of digital formats with collaborators around the world. By undertaking such a mode of working, professionals are effectively involved in ‘peer-production’ [2], thereby driving down cost and improving quality. Students also reflect this practice by joining and sharing with peers around the world though this is often outside the formal curriculum. Despite the potential in these practices, Higher Education institutions fail to engage with the concepts often for institutional and cultural reasons. This paper outlines a project funded by the UK’s Higher Education Academy to examine a model for collaboration between international HE institutions and industry practitioners. Managed by Coventry University and initially involving New York University and JAMES, the project has engaged in a number of collaborative activities to facilitate new ways of learning. The paper will outline the academic background to the project, the type of activities undertaken, the technical and organization approaches taken before finally summarising the key outcomes and opportunities for further work.

Collaboration across border: benefits and pitfalls of an international collaborative project

2004

International educational collaboration, facilitated by web-based means, has important benefits in higher education. The CAB project is aimed at designing, experimenting and evaluating ways of introducing collaboration into the educational practice of higher educational institutions in Europe and beyond. This paper presents results of four collaborative activities aimed at peer-evaluation of students' assignments. Interviews, discussion transcripts, and student questionnaires have formed the research tools for the analysis of pedagogical and social benefits students have gained, as well as problems they experienced. While we found that peer evaluation can be an effective pedagogical instrument for promoting critical thinking, reflection and collaboration at an international level, a number of organizational and pedagogical pitfalls were identified and suggestions for the improvement of such projects are proposed.

Students as co-producers in a multidisciplinary software engineering project: addressing cultural distance and cross-cohort handover

Teachers and Teaching, 2018

This article reports on an undergraduate software engineering project in which, over a period of two years, four student teams from different cohorts developed a note-taking app for four academic clients at the students' own university. We investigated how projects involving internal clients can give students the benefits of engaging in real software development while also giving them experience of a student-staff collaboration that has its own benefits for students, academics, and the university more broadly. As the university involved is a Sino-Foreign university located in China, where most students are Chinese and most teaching staff are not, this 'student as co-producer' approach interacts with another feature of the project: cultural distance. Based on analysis of notes, reports, interviews, and focus groups, we recommend that students should be provided with communicative strategies for dealing with academics as clients; universities should develop policies on ownership of student-staff collaborations; and projects should include a formalised handover process. This article can serve as guidance for educators considering a 'students as co-producers' approach for software development projects.

Student–industry collaboration models: challenges and risks

Many student-industry activities have emerged in recent years, and universities have invested considerable time and energy in designing and implementing such collaboration models. However, as models differ significantly, student-industry activities should not all be bundled together. This paper examines student-industry activities conducted as integral parts of engineering study programmes. These activities allow students and industry representatives to meet. The results are based on four major components: an interview study, a case study of the Meet with industry guest lecture series, a case study of the Industry link project course, and a risk analysis of two student-industry collaboration models. Two very well-known, but markedly different, types of collaboration models have been chosen, one collaboration model, delivering real results to industry (e.g., project) and one collaboration model, not delivering real results to industry (e.g., guest lectures). Both collaboration models have been subjected to risk analysis, leading to the identification of strategic areas specific to the particular collaboration model. Based on the findings we suggest that, before choosing a specific model of student-industry collaboration, a risk analysis should be conducted focusing on the three key areas, i.e., Resources, Framework, and Pedagogic considerations, perhaps not primarily to identify specific risks, but to identify the typical risk areas for the activities to be offered