Group Leadership in Online Collaborative Learning

The innovations in computer and communications technologies combined with on-going needs to deliver educational programs to students regardless of their physical locations, have lead to the innovation of distance education programs and technologies. To keep up with recent developments in both areas of technologies and techniques related to distance education programs, educators, administrators, and researchers are in constant needs of learning about issues, solutions, and challenges of these technologies. The Encyclopedia of Distance Learning offers the most comprehensive coverage of the issues, concepts, trends, and technologies of distance learning. With more than 2,000 terms and definitions and over 6,000 additional references, this authoritative 4-volume encyclopedia is considered the foremost reference source for the latest understanding, discoveries, and research in the field of distance learning

E-mail and Direct Participation in Decision Making: A Literature Review

This paper reviews the literature on the effects of the use of e-mail on direct participation in decision making (PDM) in organisations. After a brief review of the organisational literature on participation the paper distinguishes e-mail theories on direct participation in three different theoretical perspectives. Then the paper focuses the attention on the role of e-mail in affecting task type, vertical and horizontal communication and their consequences for PDM. Finally the paper presents indications and open questions for future research.email, e-mail, decision making, participation in decision making, literature review,

Team Learning: A Theoretical Integration and Review

With the increasing emphasis on work teams as the primary architecture of organizational structure, scholars have begun to focus attention on team learning, the processes that support it, and the important outcomes that depend on it. Although the literature addressing learning in teams is broad, it is also messy and fraught with conceptual confusion. This chapter presents a theoretical integration and review. The goal is to organize theory and research on team learning, identify actionable frameworks and findings, and emphasize promising targets for future research. We emphasize three theoretical foci in our examination of team learning, treating it as multilevel (individual and team, not individual or team), dynamic (iterative and progressive; a process not an outcome), and emergent (outcomes of team learning can manifest in different ways over time). The integrative theoretical heuristic distinguishes team learning process theories, supporting emergent states, team knowledge representations, and respective influences on team performance and effectiveness. Promising directions for theory development and research are discussed

Designing multiplayer games to facilitate emergent social behaviours online

This paper discusses an exploratory case study of the design of games that facilitate spontaneous social interaction and group behaviours among distributed individuals, based largely on symbolic presence 'state' changes. We present the principles guiding the design of our game environment: presence as a symbolic phenomenon, the importance of good visualization and the potential for spontaneous self-organization among groups of people. Our game environment, comprising a family of multiplayer 'bumper-car' style games, is described, followed by a discussion of lessons learned from observing users of the environment. Finally, we reconsider and extend our design principles in light of our observations

THE IMPACTOFTECHNOLOGYON EMERGENT LEADERSHIPBEHAVIORSAND PERCEPTIONS IN SRI LANKA

Organizations are increasingly making use of technology to facilitate collaboration and communication within teams. Such computer-mediated work arrangements are not limited by geography and often require new work practices including more proactive individual participation – or emergent leadership. While emergent leadership has been studied extensively in North America, much less work has been done in other cultures. In this paper we report the findings from a longitudinal study of emergent leadership behavior in computer-supported project teams in Sri Lanka with special attention paid to the role of gender. Also, the relationship between actual leadership behaviors and leadership perceptions is investigated. Similar to North American studies we found that technology helped level the playing field for women enabling them to engage in emergent leadership behavior. Further, women engaging in both task- and socially-oriented leadership behaviors were positively perceived by team mate

Flexible Global Software Development (GSD): Antecedents of Success in Requirements Analysis

Globalization of software development has resulted in a rapid shift away from the traditional collocated, on-site development model, to the offshoring model. Emerging trends indicate an increasing interest in offshoring even in early phases like requirements analysis. Additionally, the flexibility offered by the agile development approach makes it attractive for adaptation in globally distributed software work. A question of significance then is what impacts the success of offshoring earlier phases, like requirements analysis, in a flexible and globally distributed environment? This article incorporates the stance of control theory to posit a research model that examines antecedent factors such as requirements change, facilitation by vendor and client site-coordinators, control, and computer-mediated communication. The impact of these factors on success of requirements analysis projects in a “flexible” global setting is tested using two quasi-experiments involving students from Management Development Institute, India and Marquette University, USA. Results indicate that formal modes of control significantly influence project success during requirements analysis. Further, facilitation by both client and vendor site coordinators positively impacts requirements analysis success

Emergent leadership, Gender, and Culture: The Case of Sri Lanka

Organizations are increasingly making use of technology to put together people from different geographic areas to collaborate and communicate in order to accomplish assigned tasks. Such virtual work arrangements are not limited by country borders. These virtual team arrangements require many new work practices including more proactive individual participation – or emergent leadership. While emergent leadership has been studied extensively in North America, much less work has been done in other cultures. In this paper we report the findings from a longitudinal study of emergent leadership behavior in virtual project teams in Sir Lanka with special attention paid to the role of gender. Similar to North American studies we found that technology helped level the playing field for women enabling them to engage in emergent leadership behavior

Electronic Mail Usage Pattern of Emergent Leaders in Distributed Teams

We conducted an exploratory study to examine the unique electronic mail usage patterns exhibited by the emergent leaders in seven teams of senior executives of a federal government agency. The team members worked together over ten weeks via electronic mail in the context of an executive development program. The goal of the analysis was to identify the distinct patterns of communication behaviors among emergent leaders in distributed teams that differentiate them from other team members. To this end, we conducted a content analysis of 327 electronic mail messages that were sent to the list-serve, using a coding scheme developed based on the existing leadership and small group literature. We examined the communication frequency, the message type (task-oriented, people-oriented, and technology-oriented), and the message length. Our results provide four main observations regarding emergent leadership in distributed teams: (1) overall, the emergent leaders sent more messages than other members did; (2) the emergent leaders sent more task-related messages than other members did; (3) the emergent leaders sent longer messages than other members did; and (4) demographic variables such as age, job experience, and experience at the current position did not affect emergent leadership

The impact of technology: value-added classroom practice: final report

This report extends Becta’s enquiries into the ways in which digital technologies are supporting learning. It looks in detail at the learning practices mediated by ICT in nine secondary schools in which ICT for learning is well embedded. The project proposes a broader perspective on the notion of ‘impact’ that is rather different from a number of previous studies investigating impact. Previous studies have been limited in that they have either focused on a single innovation or have reported on institutional level factors. However, in both cases this pays insufficient attention to the contexts of learning. In this project, the focus has been on the learning practices of the classroom and the contexts of ICT-supported learning. The study reports an analysis of 85 lesson logs, in which teachers recorded their use of space, digital technology and student outcomes in relation to student engagement and learning. The teachers who filled in the logs, as well as their schools’ senior managers, were interviewed as part of a ‘deep audit’ of ICT provision conducted over two days. One-hour follow-up interviews with the teachers were carried out after the teachers’ log activity. The aim of this was to obtain a broader contextualisation of their teaching