Development of Student Collaboration and Communication Platform - Literature review Example

Literature Review Background to Online Collaboration Collaboration is central to human nature. Although people have always developed and exchanged ideas to advance their very existence, innovations in science and technology have revolutionised the way in which people now communicate (Kimball, 2001). In fact, the use of e-collaboration and e-communication technologies for work is commonplace today. They are becoming an integral part of people’s lives, at work and at home (Kock, 2009). Nowadays, for collaboration and communication, web-based tools are now extensively employed by both the companies and individuals. These web-based tools are now helping to simplify communiqué and back the exchange of data, information, resources, and documents either among groups or between two or more individuals. (Lomas, Burke and Page, 2008). Electronic collaboration has emerged as the discipline at the intersection of technology and human interaction, having implications in all facets of everyday life. From social networking to telecommunication, it has significantly impacted the way people conduct business, gain knowledge, and change with technology (Kock, 2009). Advances in technology have changed the way today’s world communicates and socialises. This is very relevant to the field of education too; learners have adapted to new ways of researching, organising, and processing information using technological tools (Latha, 2009). Collaborative learning for a long time has been a common educational practice in which people acquire or try to acquire somewhat unitedly (Dillenbourg, 1999). Collaboration study offers many advantages to students such as enhanced accomplishment, commitment, and pro-school positive demeanour. They believe that assisting students will result in the development the interactive talents that buttress collaboration is a vital part of groundwork for the world of effort. Candy, Crebert and O’Leary (1994) suggested that a capability for and appreciative of teamwork, along with decisive thinking, flexibility and self-appraisal is one of the basic talents that a college education should nurture (Candy, Crebert and O’Leary, 1994). In the earlier days, collaborative events in educational institutions have been limited to whole-time undergraduates in the on-campus surroundings because of the rational complications in searching space and time for college students to function together. Nonetheless, the beginning of Internet-oriented communication, expertise has changed and advanced education for both learners and teachers are available now and now information technology is an inexorable chunk of education (Kimball, 2001). Computer mediated collaboration has become the primary method of interaction between students. It can be defined as a ‘group activity’ where students who are separated by distance and time work together towards a common goal using computers and the internet (Latha, 2009). According to Lomas, Burke and Page (2008), this collaboration may vary from using a simple asynchronous communication tools such as email or discussion forum, to using synchronous tools such as instant messenger, web conferencing or audio/video conferencing. An asynchronous tool enables any-time, any-place collaboration, enabling the learners to participate in collaborative activities at their own time and space. On the other hand, a synchronous tool facilitates real time interaction offering instancy to the learners. The researchers suggest that user-friendly and handy, collaboration mechanisms facilitate students to discover, exchange, engage, and associate with people and content in evocative means that assists them to learn. As part of their course delivery method, educational programs use collaboration tools like discussion forums, wikis, blogs, chat messaging, web/video conferencing, and online collaborative work spaces like Google Docs to enable student interaction and engagement (“Zhang, et al., 2013”). These tools allow them to collaborate with peers, exchange resources, share experiences and ideas, provide feedback to each other, raise questions, and participate in debates and discussions. Tools Employed Presently Fast expansion of communication and information technologies (ICT) has introduced transformations in several educational and industrial processes and applications (Lenhart and Madden, 2007). They are turning to be an omnipresent constituent of contemporary’s learning in classrooms. ICTs starting from customary course management systems to more collaborating mechanisms, such as classroom line channels and student feedback systems, now offer further chances to nourish the knowledge process, and learning experts are investigating the probable of new media mechanisms to change educational practices (Greenhow and Robelia, 2009). Frequently, these ICTs are ceremoniously intended for education. Learning Management Systems (LMS) have gained popularity in collegiate environments as programs that offer students with a persistent approach to course booklets, grade books, and other education materials. Recent examples include easy-to-use LMSs like e-Blackboard, Web Mentor, WebCT, and Moodle, all of which offer almost the same basic features of the instructional platform (Abdalla, 2007). The use of these systems has developed noticeably in universities around the globe (Carvalho, Areal and Silva, 2010). They offer software for the administration and distribution of learning resources and content to students. One of the most popular platforms among all LMSs is Blackboard E-learning system. Blackboard is the dominant LMS and e-learning tool commonly known and used by many universities for their educational process. The popularity of Blackboard performance was proven by looking at the number of its usage percentage in US colleges which was more than 70% and had twelve million users in 2006 (Bradford, et al., 2007). According to Blackboard (2015), their current client base exceeds 5000 institutions and includes millions of other users. The main function of Blackboard E-Learning is to accommodate the education practice between the students and teacher that includes providing the material, discussion, posting the important announcement and submitting the given tasks (Bradford, et al., 2007). The use of the system is very important for the educational process. It can overcome the limitation of time and place to distribute the course material, collect and submit task in more organised way (Zhang, et al., 2013). Blackboard also provides students with a number of tools for collaboration. It is tailored with group tools such as group e-mail, virtual classroom, discussion board, and file exchange. Though , in universities and schools , there has been a considerable increase in the perusal of LMSs tools , much anxiety has been raised as regards to whether such tools are being employed as an efficient learning mechanisms or just as electronic document warehouses. (Badge, Cann and Scott, 2005; Hall, 2006). It appears that although students think that e-learning is a valuable learning device, and they are worried with quality of the system, particularly synergistic. Learners pointed that they desired more communicative and interactive functions and activities, while employing the Blackboard E-learning system (Liaw, 2007). Researchers from University of Maryland, Badawy and Hugue (2010) examined how undergraduates reflect of their knowledge in a subordinate level course where a blackboard course is used and where the discussion boards were supposed to be employed expansively by the students. Therefore, they intended to plan a survey for receiving the feedback of the undergraduates about their involvement with the discussion boards, its usefulness and its involvement to their education. Students were asked how often they post on the discussion board in Blackboard and surprisingly it has revealed that only 20% of students used the tool more than once a month. The researchers also concluded that students are of the view that the boundary of ELMS is too antique looking, and it requires a modernisation. The successful implementation of LMSs will depend upon the magnitude of students’ active engagement, and their satisfaction with the LMS used will depend upon the training and support for instructors (Hall 2006). The user standpoint is hence critical to scrutinise the application of LMS and to appraise their success. The truth that a learning platform is accessible, or that it is employed expansively, does not necessarily connote that they are employed to related levels of engagement. Francis and Raftery (2005) differentiate among three e-learning approaches of commitment, which resemble to increasing intensities of intricacy and complexity in LMS practice. Mode 1 is categorized ‘foundation course management and support to the learner’, and demonstrates circumstances where an LMS is employed just to allocate course information and achieve course administration, and maximum learning activities happen in customary classroom backgrounds. As per Hall (2006), majority of the universities are at initial stage of the” Francis and Raftery (2005) model”. Carvalho, Areal and Silva (2010) carried out a related study in a Portuguese University. They interviewed students’ insights and involvements with Moodle and Blackboard, including their magnitude of happiness and mode of commitment, and their world-wide favourite of LMS and valuation of precise structures and practicalities. The study showed that about 78.8% students employing frequently Blackboard to ‘copy course materials’, ‘63.4% involved in the examination of the course announcements’ and 47% involved in examination of ‘check course grades’; but “36.7% and 34.6%”, respectively of them will only occasionally or infrequently ‘examine the course syllabus and “31.4% and 28.5%” of them will examine the schedule’ or ‘submit assignments’ and nearly 50% of them have never employed Blackboard to ‘send communications to colleagues or faculty’ nor to ‘avail quiz tests’ ; and the 72.4%, of them engaged in ‘joining in forum discussions’ , ‘74.2% of them thereby exchanging files with co-workers’ or ‘89.9% of them either in participating in virtual classroom or course chat-room’ Carvalho, Areal and Silva (2010) suggested that as for the level of engagement, the outcomes endorse the anticipations that, LMSs in UM are not employed outside Mode 1. The LMSs are employed more as an automated document warehouse than as dynamic knowledge tools and students are expected to presume an inactive role (i.e., copying class material or examining course proclamations) instead of remaining as active players (i.e., exchanging files with fellow students or contributing to the course forum) (Carvalho, Areal and Silva, 2010). Large percentage of students explained that they used alternative tools for team work because they have better functionalities for collaborative activities. Students were also inquired whether they underwent problems in employing the LMSs, and what they were. About 50% of the interviewees had expressed that they faced issues and these were 46.7% for Moodle and 44.8% for Blackboard). Generally, the students appear to be happy over the influence of LMSs to their learning, considering them as a counterpart instead of an alternative to classroom functions. Nonetheless, the advantages derived from employing collaboration and communication mechanisms to back group work that could be enhanced, as students appear to find it difficult to re-count to these matters (Carvalho, Areal and Silva, 2010). Students often perceive these systems as spaces for instruction (e. g., access lecture notes) or administration (e.g., examining marks), instead of social medias to link with compeers. Moreover, none of these spaces exist as natural parts of a students own media ecology, requiring students to occupy yet another technology as part of an already-crowded digital landscape (Watkins, 2009). Therefore, in certain instances, students are employing re-purposing mechanisms originally intended for non-educational objectives. For example, Facebook, which is social network site are frequently considered of as exclusively social spaces; nonetheless, as these sites have progressed, so have the methods in which students are employing them (Lampe, et al., 2011). Facebook (founded in 2004) began as a social network for individuals associated with academic institutions. As of May 2013, Facebook had over one billion users around the world (Smith, 2012), and is extremely popular with college students: as many as 97% of college students have accounts, and they actively use those sites for nearly two hours daily (Junco, 2012; Smith and Caruso, 2010). Facebook is not an official system followed by universities, but instead a money-making, freely available system that students typically enrol with it for social objectives. According to Joinson (2008), Facebook abridges the procedure of handling a huge network of networks and enables easy-going communiqué around classroom activities by bestowing users with manifold communication conduits, including public wall postings, instant groups’ messaging, private messages, and status updates. Studies revealed that social network mechanisms support edifying activities by making interface information, active participation, collaboration, critical thinking and resource exchanging possible (Ajjan and Hartshorne, 2008; Mason, 2006). Hence, employing social networks in edifying and instructional background can be regarded as a possibly influential idea just because students devote a lot of time on these online collaborative activities. This creative re-purposing of technology has an explanation. Facebook espousal is seemed to have an important positive relationship with usefulness, ease of use, social encouragement, facilitating conditions and community distinctiveness. Expediency is regarded as the most significant factor in forecasting the espousal of Facebook and hence, usefulness as supposed by Facebook customers can be advocated as one of the chief aims for the fast espousal of Facebook and the fast increase in the number of its users (Bumgarner, 2007). Permitting for speedy updating, easy to use, evaluating and exchanging uninterruptedly snowballing information emanating from our daily life, launching unplanned relationships, nourishing comfortable learning practices, mainly through communication and interaction, and easing conveyance of education are elucidated as the motives why social networks such as Facebook, Friendster, MySpace, Flickr, and YouTube are embraced and recognised speedily although they had initially developed for exchanging of photos, individual information, profiles, videos and content (Ajjan and Hartshorne, 2008; Mejias, 2005). In the associated studies, it is recommended that Facebook and other social networks enable informal learning due to their active part in users daily lives. (“Lenhart and Madden, 2007”). Importance of Roles-Based Approach Although working in groups has its advantages, there are, nonetheless, a number of problems in small-group learning in general and group based evaluations in specific (Alexander, 2005). Operational teamwork may be weakened by diversity of issues such as incompetence, poor communiqué, misinterpretations or insufficient processes for issue-solving (Constructing Excellence, 2004). According to Beebe and Masterson (2003) typical problems reported in student interactions include unequal participation in discussion, group members ignoring one another, being highly competitive or personally irritating, not contributing in talk, or being uncritical and superficially accepting others ideas. Burke (2011) says that a single solution to this issue is to make each and every group associate conscious of the objectives and goals of the group and to allocate explicit tasks or accountabilities to each member. He explains that it is more difficult to be a slacker if the goals are clearly outlined for each member. Role assignment has been found to have interactional benefits for group learning in terms of awareness of group efficiency, stimulated group task coordination, and increased amount of task-content focused statements in group discussion (Strijbos, et al., 2004). James (2013) supports this view by claiming that assigning responsibilities for project team members boosts efficiency by allowing distinguishing who is in control of which job and when the particular lot of the project is anticipated to attain completion. If accountabilities are not allocated, the result of project errands becomes indistinct, imprecise and frequently imperfect. In opposite, teams incline to work more unitedly if the member identify their distinct roles (Basu, n.d.). Allocating roles also empowers members to have a better conception of which members are functioning on watchfully associated tasks (James, 2013). Members can analyse the to-do list, appreciate which member is finishing the task and to issue follow-up response and queries if essential. However, in a computer-supported collaborative learning environment, it is usually taken for confirmed that effective communication habitually occurs just since technologies allow it (Sun, 2011). However, media poor environments such as text-based e-mail, forum and chat have been found to have little capacity for immediate feedback and rich communication due to the text-based communication in these environments (Kreijns, Kirschner and Jochems, 2003). Therefore, collaborative project work needs some elements in tools that are vital for teamwork to prosper. Tan and Jones, (2008) discussed elements that are considered to be essential and those that are regarded as necessary for effective team collaboration. According to the researchers, one “must-have” feature such as job allocation/scheduling. This contains the aptitude to label a particular job to a specific team member with an agreed date. In this manner, each project member distinguishes precisely what their accountabilities are within the scheme. In establishing and controlling a team, it also is significant to cogitate not only technical expertise of individuals, their experience and knowledge but also their capability to align actions and their interactive abilities (Constructing Excellence, 2004). Crucial to this is to comprehend what each individual passes to the team synthesis – both behavioural and functional (Belbin Associates, 2014). For many years, Dr Meredith Belbin investigated about the team-work, and his famous quote was that individual in teams incline to adopt dissimilar "team roles." He demarcated role played by a team as "a tendency to behave, contribute and interrelate with others in a particular way" and christened nine such team roles that inspire team accomplishment (Belbin Associates, 2014). Recognising these roles play an important part in team and organizational performance. Belbin Team Roles are employed to recognise public’s behavioural strengths and flaws, especially in the workplace. This connotes that wherever individual are associated within an establishment, Belbin can deliver the language to make sure that teams and individuals interconnect and toil together with better understanding (Belbin Associates, 2014). Functional Requirements Online collaboration tools range from uncomplicated to intricate, cheap to luxurious, locally connected to far-away hosted, profit-making or open source, outsized versus minor. And although the expectations from the interactive tools vary for different user groups depending on their activities on the tool, there are some characteristics in tools that are vital and required for any teamwork to flourish (Nanda, Lehto and Nof, 2013). Basic elements include a dialog medium for placing and reading messages and file exchanging /warehousing location (Tan and Jones, 2008). Lomas, Burke and Page (2008) introduced the following list of elements that are regarded vital for teamwork in any interactive tool: Strong Communication Capability: The most significant element of a collaboration tool is its ability to facilitate communication and interaction between participants. A good collaboration tool should promote communication and allow natural interactions. File Sharing: Any interactive mechanism tool should facilitate easy mean to exchange information. Customers should be capable to post their own postings in the form of diverse kinds and exchange it with other customers. Easy-to-Understand Interface: The technical interface of the mechanism should be simple and spontaneous to surf around. Expectation and Capability of Collaboration: To boost contribution from participants, a collaboration tool should make it clear that input is expected and will elicit a response. It should be clear whether and when it is acceptable to collaborate in this space. Multiple Collaborators: Any collaboration tool must allow multiple collaborators to work on a project at the same time. Synchronous/Asynchronous Collaboration: Collaboration tools should support both synchronous and asynchronous interaction process among team members. Contribution Ownership: It must be unblemished who “owns” a specific contribution. Users should be able to track contributions of others and see the authors of shared resources. Task Assignment: This includes the capability to label a precise job to a specific team member with an agreed date. In this manner, member of each project recognises precisely what their accountabilities are within the project. It permits the project teams to organise errands in an effective manner. Reminders: Collaboration mechanism should have a feature that provides the capability to forward reminder messages to particular team associates before benchmarks are accomplished. Similarly, Nanda, Lehto and Nof (2013) did a customer needs study to recognize the necessary collaborative elements for an online interactive mechanism for inculcating advanced design course in industrial engineering. Elements seemed to be specifically significant constituents of such an interactive tool included sharing of file, the capability to establish user groups, easy organization of content, and interaction approaches for remote collaboration. The useableness of the tool was also ranked as being very significant. According to authors majority of the groups have consented that the operationality offered by the elements discussed above are valuable and should be part and parcel of any online interactive mechanism employed in the advanced design course. Apart from the elements deliberated above, for an efficient collaborative job, it is also significant that the mechanisms conform to some standards. Tan and Jones (2008) introduced the following list of factors that are considered significant for evaluation of web-oriented collaboration mechanisms designed for students: User-friendliness: Both on and off campus, students should be able to access to the collaboration tool. Anywhere access to the tool is particularly valuable for travelling students and those who reside off campus. Low-priced: The mechanism should be available to students – it should either be relatively cheap or free of cost. Easy to Use: Is the user interface easy to comprehend? Is the interactive mechanism easy to usage? This is a significant deliberation. Connection: Whether any software has to be downloaded? If so, whether such installation needs any expert knowledge? Whether the instructions are available for installation? On which platforms it can be installed? The ease of use and usefulness has been claimed as one of the important characteristics by many other researchers. Outcomes indicate that the user-friendliness as well as the practicality of technology definitely impacts student’s attitudes towards the system, which in turn controls technology’s efficiency (Abdalla, 2007). There is a need to be able to communicate easily for project teams to interact efficiently and systematize their work professionally; a good interactive mechanism should facilitate natural communications and be easy to usage and study (Lomas, Burke and Page, 2008). One good example of a tool that meets all criteria discussed above and contains most of the necessary features is Basecamp. It has become very popular project management tool due to its simplicity, ease-of-use and reliability. For people in different roles, Basecamp makes it easy with different accountabilities to interact and work together. It facilitates the users to exchange files, to have interactive discussions, to interact through documents, to allocate jobs, and to have control over deadlines (Basecamp, 2015). Design Principles As of date, there are variety of tools, criterion, and technologies accessible that could be employed for establishing interactive applications and systems. Nonetheless, comprehending the dissimilarities in human communications is essential to guarantee the suitable technologies are used to develop and design systems that could back e-collaboration efficiently (Kock, 2009). It includes comprehending how individuals react in different teamwork atmospheres since albeit there are instances when a number of clusters have exact analogous desires, others have exclusive needs. Therefore, designing the right tool for online collaboration starts with identification of the problem that needs to be solved (Ubell, 2011). Correspondingly, the processes of design and development must be driven by the end users’ requirements and specific needs because the system should allow the teams to do what they want naturally (Lomas, Burke and Page, 2008). Researchers, practitioners, and educators have devised a variety of techniques and methodologies to design, deliver, and, at the same time, evaluate the effectiveness of collaboration tools (Kock, 2009). One of them, Mills (2003) tried to differentiate some of the significant dimensions intrinsic in collaboration tools and to explain the vital considerations that should be made during the design stage. The properties are: Time: Is there a need to back supportive work that happens simultaneously (at the same time) or distinctly (differently) or both? Space: Whether the individual interactors be materially situated at the same site, such as an amphitheatre or a room? Obviously, a more intricate need might also present for manifold, physically aloof, locations of lumped collaborators to be arranged together virtually. Size of the Group: Should the system back a department, a small team, an initiative, or mass spectators? Interaction style: Does the group need backing for premeditated or unplanned interactions or both? Background: Whether group members involve in many dissimilar teamwork or do they tend to contribute in only one or a few? Substructure: Will the group allow the arrangement of standardized computing podiums personalized to teamwork, or must the CSCW system function across already organized, varied computing systems? Mobility of the Collaborator: Will the collaborators stay at secure sites or will some or all of the collaborators move among sites? Secrecy: How much info can be made accessible about the collaborators and who should manage the announcement of information? Selection of Participant: Whether the group’s members be allocated by present group members or by some outside specialist, or can contributors self-select or hunt for extra participants from a larger population? Extensibility: Whether the CSCW system describe the whole functionality accessible to collaborators, or can the collaborators spread the functionality to support fluctuating requirements? According to Mills (2003) the following 10 measurements deliver a rich design space over which the designers of online collaboration systems should navigate. Development of a collaboration system, with respect to information technology, requires having a better appreciation of networking know-how and how features of that technology impact a users experience. With regard to the designers for systems of collaboration, the trend today is the employment of technologies of network-oriented systems. In specific, as of date, the trend transforms to the course of evolving collaborative portals. The fundamental technological solution for the designing of network-oriented systems is three-tier designs with usage of a database, web server, and a scripting language. Client-server designs where the clients interconnect their vicissitudes to one or more web-servers and these web-servers, consecutively, are accountable for the redeployment of the received information to all linked clients (Kock, 2009). References Candy, P., Crebert, G., & O’Leary, J. (1994). Developing Lifelong Learners Through Undergraduate Education. 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