The Universitat Oberta De Catalunya (UOC, the Open University of Catalonia) Was Recently

Tittle: Cooperative Learning & Working in a Virtual Environment: a Case Study Area: Institutional Case Study

The context

The Open University of Catalonia (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, UOC) was recently created to provide distance learning university-level education. The UOC has introduced an innovative pedagogic model which guarantees the quality of educational materials, continuous assessment of the students and easy access to tutors, professors and university resources.

The Open University of Catalonia (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya) is a new model of university whose educational system is based on the concept of the "virtual campus". The virtual campus exists in the form of a communications network which covers and interconnects the entire territory of Catalonia, overcoming obstacles of time and space and providing personalized contact between students, professors and the UOC.

Via the "virtual campus" students have access to the internal databases of the University (virtual library, notice board, team projects, and so on), can make inquiries, and can carry out administrative formalities (registration, certificates, and so on). Also, either from home or from their regional county center, UOC students have access to external databases, to the libraries and services of other Catalan public universities and even to the Internet.

All courses offered at the UOC are structured around a core of required and optional semester-length subjects. Each subject, in turn, consists of various modules (sequential study units) with specific learning objectives.

Introduction In this context, one of the basic present education challenges is to prepare people to be able to participate in an information society in which knowledge is the critical source of social and economic development. In this society, productive collaboration is the key issue of interactive organization networks that are open to constant changes.

The net facilitates access to resources asynchronously without geographical and temporal limitations, promote interactions and can exchanges, improving quality due to larger interaction opportunities. In this way, students can share and participating the teamwork, attending to at the same time, their own timetable and working spaces. Then the space & time obligatory nature of the synchronous as an absolute conditional disappear for the working development with other friends.

The conflict resolution cooperatively, will allow the possibility to acquire certain abilities like exchange of ideas, contrast different points of view, the confrontation of opposite ideas, etc. that integrate different forms of knowledge, abilities, aptitudes and attitudes that are considered important in view of the requirements that social laborer realities require.

As we can see, learning on the net facilitates new forms of collaborations for students as well as teachers, which favor shared knowledge without any need of geographical coincidence.

In this situation, a group of professors of the Open University of Catalonia (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya), of Multimedia and Informatics studies, try to implant the necessity to enrich the present learning spaces with the possibility that students are able to develop a virtual form of teamwork, initiating strategies that provide and promote a more agile interaction between professor, students and the resources that the net provides.

With this end, there are two initial objectives: - Systematize cooperative working processes, in a virtual environment of a pedagogical viewpoint, to facilitate learning and apprenticeship processes to student and professor. - To identify the functionalities and adequate tools that help in cooperative working processes, in virtual environments and that adapt to different proposals and learning situations.

Description of reviewed cases: A pilot experience

A pilot experience of work and cooperative learning is underway in virtual environment within a curricular design of four subjects with objectives, concepts, and methodologies which are very differentiated.

In each case the implementation demands an adaptation of the professor on each subjects, in reference to a series of variables, for example, the size of the group, the composition (heterogeneous or homogeneous), rules that should direct the activity, organization of working spaces and resources, evaluation strategies, and the different roles that students can assume. Four subjects were chosen, that in their curricular design included a team project:

Multimedia and Communication: The subject of Multimedia and Communication is transversal and introductory for all students that accede to the university and therefore, those students that begin a learning process of a virtual form. It facilitates learning process of a virtual environments, knowledge of basic tools and promotes the analysis of TIC. Students develop a research project on a team. In this subject, 600 students worked on various teams. Software development methodologies: A subject that pertains to the study of informatics systems. It is centered upon the study of different strategies, representation of data on a computer using programming language, and using the idea of an abstract type of data, like a connecting theme for the presentation of these strategies. This project is done with a team. The scheduling that is made is divided between the different members. Therefore, it is indispensable to develop strategies in order to learn how to organize the tasks in a group. 70 students worked on different teams for this subject. Informatics Applied to Management: a subject that pertains to the study of Informatics and Multimedia and the studies of Economy and Business. It's a subject based on cases that the students resolve working on interdisciplinary virtual teams. 80 students participated in this experience. Multimedia Graduate Workshop: a workshop of a month's duration. This has two objectives: Introduction to a tool to acquire knowledge in order to publish and edit web pages, and on the other hand to practice cooperative working abilities in virtual environments with the aim to establish exchanges between students that share this experience. Students work on a multimedia project in teams. 100 students worked in this workshop.

The following up and collection of data of the working teams in each of the subjects lead us to obtain some significant considerations in relation to the develop of cooperative work in a virtual environment, in an academic university framework. These significant considerations are as follows:

Contributions of our work

By implementing cooperative work in these courses, our research enabled us to explore several possibilities that are related to the two main objectives we set initially. From a methodological point of view, this allowed us to identify that the progress of learning groups in a virtual environment goes across four critical phases that require defining specifications which are quite different from those applied in individual learning in virtual environments. In particular, based on the two main objectives defined before, we obtained the following results:

In virtual cooperative work, a group goes through four phases or stages during its learning process. These phases can be more or less evident o flexible depending on the working goal and methodology of the course at hand. They prove to be critical for a virtual working group since they represent moments in which important decisions have to be taken and changes may be effected as regards the group dynamics.

These phases are the following: Group formation, consolidation, development and closing.

A. Group formation: This is the period in which working groups are formed. It is important that students themselves are actively engaged in forming the groups, being conscious that this phase forms part of their working process. Nevertheless, in some courses where timing is short, as in the case of Multimedia Studies laboratory, the tutor forms the groups in order to optimise time. Taking into account that students study in a virtual environment, they do not know each other; for this reason, they should take the initiative to make proposals to their classmates to form a group based on information that their classmates presented about themselves previously. After a group is formed, it should be communicated to the tutor for final approval.

B. Consolidation: At this instance the groups have been formed and they are prepared to initiate the laboratory activities proposed to them. Before real work starts, though, it is the time when the group members should break the ice and get to know each other more deeply. In a virtual environment, this moment is important for two main reasons: 1. It constitutes a warm-up activity before the group starts working on real learning activities. 2. It gives members the necessary time to make initial contacts with each other. In a non-distance educational environment, once formed, a group sets up a meeting and can start working immediately; instead, in a virtual environment it is advisable for a group to spend some time trying to establish a good organisation and planning of the work before starting it right away.

Moreover, at this moment the group has to decide who is going to realize coordinating tasks, how to organise the shared space, how to plan the timing of the work, agree on decision taking processes as well as on the frequency the group is going to communicate, etc.

C. Development: This is the phase when the group applies and puts into practice all the decisions taken as regards scheduling and organisation forms, task sharing, etc. and when each member work cooperatively to carry out the assigned tasks.

D. Closing: Once a group has reached the definite resolution of the project, every member realises a self-assessment of the work process carried out. The aim of this self-assessment is to give the chance to each member to evaluate the work done, the progress made as regards the learning of the tool, and the process followed by the group.

Examining the phases that a group goes through in a virtual environment, we have observed that the tutor develops a role and different tasks as a response to the needs a students presents at each moment.

At the Group formation phase, the guidance the tutor may give to the students can be materialised in the following tasks:  Information: guides and resolves issues that a group may set as regards group work in a virtual environment.  Regulation: influences on the direction task organisation of the group should take; inform to the group, if it is necessary, on task organisation, how to initiate an activity, how to adapt the planning system better, etc.  Support: promotes the proper conditions that enable group consolidation and better task development; encourages group organisation, shows his/her support explicitly when the group needs it and tries to be always aware of how the group proceeds its work in the shared space.

At the Consolidation phase, the tutor intervenes in the guiding and orientation of the work when this is necessary. In fact, he/she intervenes when the group needs him/her to resolve a doubt, etc., so he/she always tries to keep a prudent distance by providing the group sufficient liberty in order to acquire autonomy. The tutor does not intervene directly nor shows an excessive protectionism and control towards the group; instead, in case of doubt, conflict, etc., he/she always expects to be the students that they ask him/her for help. When the group developers its internal organisation, task sharing, planning and timing, it may choose to show the resulting document to the tutor so that to get his/her opinion as regards the adequacy of the plan and thus be reoriented in case the tutor perceives that the working calendar is difficult to be fulfilled.

At the Development phase, once a group has started working on the web elaboration task, the tutor will just wait to give his/her support whenever students will ask for it, or when they have a doubt about the content, or when they face a conflict among them, or even when they get stuck, etc. Often, it is the students themselves that come to ask the tutor’s intervention in order to resolve a group conflict: a member unexpected withdrawal, lack of commitment to accomplish the deadline for handing in part of the work, excessive leadership of a member who goes against consensus, etc.

Finally, at the Closing phase of the group work, it is important that the group is able to close the process followed by evaluating not only the resulting work but also the attitudes and relationships that have been maintained among all members. For this reason, the tutor establishes and foments a common discussion space where students can consolidate their cooperative work process by generating common feed-back capable of assessing both positive and negative aspects of the experience. The teaching strategies always aim at offering support to the organisation and planning processes of all working groups, without imposing it.

By observing the working groups in the scope of the different educational actions that take place in the whole experience, we were able to identify that, on the one hand, the tutor should develop certain strategies and elaborate several activities that enable the accomplishment of the goals set in each phase. On the other hand, it is important to point out the active role that students should play with respect to their own learning process in order to achieve a successful task planning and timing, group organisation, task sharing, etc.

In order to the second objective of our experience: To identify the functionalities and adequate tools that help in cooperative working processes, in virtual environments and that adapt to different proposals and learning situations:

Tools for a collaborative learning in a virtual campus

Essential Characteristics: Focus on student needs; User friendly; Easy to learn and to use; A clear interface; An Internet tool

Functionalities: Accessing, filing, retrieving, sharing, sorting, ... Information; Spaces for group creation, group interaction; Communication flow: shared spaces: debates, forums, decisions, chats personal and direct: mail box, ...History of objects; Versioning; Calendar, address book, planner, ...Awareness: monitor, instant messages, ...Tools for evaluation; Virtual Presentations.

The tools and functionalities that can be able to promote a cooperative virtual work should present three fundamental requirements: 1. Communication and information exchange (between students and between students and professors) 2. Organization and management of information in the team 1. The tools designate to communication and information exchange in the Virtual Campus, they are Electronic mail and synchronous mail: The Chat is frequently used for making some decision quickly, to deadline in which the group have to present some activity or to consult some question, etc. So, in moments which synchronous is necessary.

The Electronic Mail, allow to obtain complete information, more elaborated doubts to the friends or to professor. It's allow that the answers be more analyzed. Allow to attach some documents quickly, it can to direct all members of the group and they can consult in the moment that they want.

2. For sharing and management the information, the Virtual Campus have the Share Disk, that allow to work and management the fields in a shared form. All members can to share all documents that they work and elaborate together, they can review it, to make modifications on documents, etc. Each member can create or eliminate fields.

To this space, all members of the group have access for making modifications. It's require a high organization of the work space. We make stand out that the exchange of the information in the group, and organization and management the information in a virtual team, involve the following aspects: 1. That all members of the group have access and to share the same information, for they can a clear vision of what its happening into the team, what are the actions that they are doing and the unsettled tasks. 2. To elaborate documents cooperatively asynchronously, that all members can to review and make the necessary modifications on the document. 3. To classification the messages and the documents, for categories or subjects, 4. To converse and to make decisions related to solve questions about exercise, for obtaining a high level of cooperation and integration. It's necessary to establish a system more flexible than the traditional electronic mail. 5. To organize and control the roles and tasks during the development of the activities. 6. To collect different kinds of information. 7. To create, eliminate and to management the information shared between the members of the group. It will be necessary to reduce some problems about the fact that different members working with the information synchronously. 8. To organize all information in the work space in a simple, flexible form, following the criterials of each subject. 9. To share and search for information cooperatively, with tools that allow tasks related with the research 10. To know what is the state of the tasks of the other members of the group.

However, in order to be able to generate this knowledge based upon the relationship of it's members, it is not only necessary to have technological support which allows cooperation and interaction, but it is fundamental to systematize the process, to control all of the elements that intervene and to conduct skills of cooperative work on the net environments.

As we can see, to systematize a training process of team work contributes to, on the one hand to acquisition of cooperation habits that allows the student to transmit it to other situations, beyond the academic environment, and on the other hand allows to identify those key elements of team-work in a virtual environment. AUTHORS: Montse Guitert ([email protected]), Ferran Giménez ([email protected]), Joan Manuel Marquès ([email protected]), Atanasi Daradoumis ([email protected]), Teresa Lloret ( [email protected]).

PRINCIPAL AUTHOR AND LEADER OF THE RESEARCH TEAM: Montse Guitert, [email protected]

ADDRESS: Universitat Oberta Catalunya Avgda. Tibidabo 39 – 43 08035 Barcelona (Spain)

PHONE: 00 34 93 253 23 00 FAX: 00 34 93 417 64 95