Case Study 2

Teaching and Learning through Online Collaboration

Background

The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania is regarded as one of the best MBA schools in the nation. Beginning in 1998, the school has integrated and online collaborative environment into the MBA process. The main stumbling block to this was that IT needed to be able to provide access to the software (based on Documentum’s eRoom) for any of the faculty members, and nearly 7,000 students enrolled in over 400 courses; and all this had to be able to be done asynchronously.

The Technology

It appears that the technology employed here is relatively the same as that found on other asynchronous environments such as blackboard.com or other sites that provide an “educational classroom” type environment. Instructors can easily get started by uploading syllabi or readings prepared as PDF or Word documents. Lecture slides and additional supplemental materials can all be added as the instructor sees fit throughout the course of the semester. As the instructor adds each file, the software automatically catalogs the addition and sends each enrolled student a notice of the addition to their class. Additionally, like any “chat enabled” environment, Wharton’s webCafe’ (the name for their in house software) allows the creation of rooms where students can meet and discuss all manner of business topics. Furthermore, it allows the students access-control to make project folders private, additional only to members of their team, or public.

Benefit to the Student

This type of online collaborative technology is fantastic for any school site / class to have. It gives students a reminder when the professor posts a new assignment or document, it provides for student collaboration, and gives them a place to store and share information. Furthermore, it provides links to other enrollee’s email, as well as a place to send information to the professor for submission or review. All of these benefits add to the student’s ability to deliver high quality collaborative commitment to the educational process.

In Conclusion

For those teachers with classes that rely upon student collaboration for success, this type of online collaborative environment that can lead to meaningful, reproducible results. The gains produced by this type of software for both the student and the professor are easy to implement and very cost effective. If you would like to read more about this article click on the hyperlink to visit the Syllabus website that contains this article.