Organizations are increasingly using virtual teams to execute business processes by leveraging a distributed workforce and advanced communication and collaboration technologies. Given the growing use of virtual teams in work-place settings, there is a need to impart students with collaboration skills in virtual environments to enable them to perform efficiently in a globalized economy. Due to the complex nature of collaboration in distributed and virtual environments, past research indicates that formalized structured processes are key to successful collaboration and group performance. In this paper, we propose a training program to teach students how to collaborate in virtual settings by focusing on the process aspect. The structuring of the collaboration processes is suggested through the application of successful collaboration patterns deemed thinkLets. These structured templates may be instantiated using common collaboration tools to generate desired collaboration patterns and group processes
