Virtual collaborative learning for building design

Abstract

A building design project that requires civil engineering students in the UK and architectural students in Canada to collaborate virtually has been implemented at universities in the two countries. The aims were to obtain a greater understanding of the process, strategies and expected outcomes for a more effective implementation of problem-based learning to hone communication and teamwork skills. Data were obtained from a series of interviews with 23 students from seven groups, assessment results of 249 participating and non-participating students, and student evaluation. The findings suggest that the professional ethos of the groups and the consequent building of trust is the greatest factor in supporting successful collaborations. This has been found to be able to overcome many barriers related to technology and differences of culture, language, time zone and tasks. However, the activity did not seem to have any impact on student performance, but has improved the project management skills of participating students. The activity has also contributed positively to increasing student satisfaction. Several lessons for future implementation are presented, before limitations and further research are described.

Key Success Factors and Guidance for International Collaborative Design Projects

“…For example, Barry et al (2012) describe the development of the capstone design course in Purdue University, which has been teamtaught since the early 1960s. Some recent examples, such as Bhandari et al (2011), Peterson et al (2011), Soibelman et al (2011), Wolcott et al (2011), Korkmaz (2012, Stanford et al (2013), Solnosky et al (2014), are varied in their focus with different objects of design, supporting technologies, disciplinary composition and locations of team members, previous training and education levels (Soetanto et al, 2014). Most were implemented within one institution which makes possible regular offline (face-to-face) communication between students (e.g.…”

“…Most were implemented within one institution which makes possible regular offline (face-to-face) communication between students (e.g. Tucker & Rollo, 2006;Barry et al, 2012;Solnosky et al, 2014), but fewer include collaboration between students from two or more institutions from different geographical locations (such as Fruchter, 1999;Hussein & Peña-Mora, 1999;O'Brien et al, 2003 andBecerik-Gerber et al, 2012;Soetanto et al, 2014). Previous research studies have considered the effectiveness of distributed project teams (Gaudes et al, 2007;Kankanhalli et al, 2007) and the impacts of distance collaboration on the outcome of a design process (Dossick et al, 2015).…”

“…co-located) teams, and attempt to understand the factors influencing the performance of a virtual team. However, given the dynamic of a virtual team, variability of implementation context and approaches adopted (Solnosky et al, 2014), the performance of the team over a longer time, its influencing factors and impact are difficult to assess objectively (Becerik-Gerber et al, 2012;Soetanto et al, 2014). O'Brien et al (2003) and Becerik-Gerber et al (2012) found that remote collaboration is not always successful and often less effective than face-to-face offline meetings.…”

“…O'Brien et al (2003) and Becerik-Gerber et al (2012) found that remote collaboration is not always successful and often less effective than face-to-face offline meetings. Communication technologies are often blamed for the poor performance of virtual teams, but they are not the root cause of problems; although they could amplify the discrepancy and other barriers which already exist, such as the professional ethos of virtual team members (Soetanto et al, 2014). Such issues are further exacerbated by the lack of guidance on how to implement a successful collaborative design project.…”

“…Throughout the academic year, the tutors were present, not only as the client, but also to support the collaboration on a consultancy basis and, sometimes, to act as a mediator should relationship issues in the teams arise. The mediator has an important role in the process of virtual collaborative learning (Soetanto et al, 2014).…”