Collaboration and Teamwork: Immersion and Presence in an Online Learning Environment

Martin Beer (), Frances Slack () and Gillian Armitt ()
Additional contact information
Martin Beer: Sheffield Hallam University, School of Computing & Management Sciences
Frances Slack: Sheffield Hallam University, School of Computing & Management Sciences
Gillian Armitt: Sheffield Hallam University, Registry

Information Systems Frontiers, 2005, vol. 7, issue 1, No 3, 27-37

Abstract: Abstract In the world of OTIS, an online Internet School for occupational therapists, students from four European countries were encouraged to work collaboratively through problem-based learning by interacting with each other in a virtual semi-immersive environment. This paper describes, often in their own words, the experience of European occupational therapy students working together across national and cultural boundaries. Collaboration and teamwork were facilitated exclusively through an online environment, since the students never met each other physically during the OTIS pilot course. The aim of the paper is to explore the observations that (1) there was little interaction between students from different tutorial groups and (2) virtual teamwork developed in each of the cross-cultural tutorial groups. Synchronous data from the students was captured during tutorial sessions and peer-booked meetings and analyzed using the qualitative constructs of ‘immersion’, ‘presence’ and ‘reflection in learning’. The findings indicate that ‘immersion’ was experienced only to a certain extent. However, students found both ‘presence’ and shared presence, within their tutorial groups, to help collaboration and teamwork. Other evidence suggests that communities of interest were established. Further study is proposed to support group work in an online learning environment. It is possible to conclude that collaborative systems can be designed, which encourage students to build trust and teamwork in a cross cultural online learning environment.

Keywords: problem-based learning; collaborative learning; semi-immersive environment; presence; synchronous communication; occupational therapy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2005
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10796-005-5336-9 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:infosf:v:7:y:2005:i:1:d:10.1007_s10796-005-5336-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/10796

DOI: 10.1007/s10796-005-5336-9

Access Statistics for this article

Information Systems Frontiers is currently edited by Ram Ramesh and Raghav Rao

More articles in Information Systems Frontiers from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().