Online collaborative design projects: Overcoming barriers to communication
- Autores: Niall Sclater, Hilary Grierson, William J. Ion, Steven P. Macgregor
- Localización: The International journal of engineering education, ISSN-e 0949-149X, Vol. 17, no. Extra 2, 2001 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Virtual Universities), págs. 189-196
- Idioma: inglés
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Resumen
As course provision is expandingin the emerging virtual universities, the majority of Internet-basededucation revolves around online course materials and asynchronous discussion forums. One of theless exploited aspects of the Internet however is its ability to enable students to work together at adistance on collaborative design projects. A wealth of new technologies enables high levels ofcommunication between students working at a distance. Sometimes, though, communication breaksdown.Someofthetechnologiesarestillunreliableandmanyarenoteasy touse.Studentsarefacedwith working together in new ways and must develop effective means to collaborate using thetechnologies available to them. At the University of Strathclyde's Faculty of Engineering studentshave been working on collaborative online design projects since 1997. Building on the originalICON project, developed under the Clyde Virtual University initiative, a number of projects haveidentified barriers to communication between students. In describing the educational and technicalenvironment for these design projects, this paper highlights the difficulties and shows ways in whichstudents and staff have developed strategies to overcome them.
