Crowds, Crews, Teams and Peers:
A study of Collaborative Work in Learning-CENTRE Based Distance Education
Lars Svensson
University of Trollhattan Uddevalla, Sweden
Email: lars.svensson@htu.se
Maria Magnusson
Volvo Information Technology AB Gothenburg, Sweden
Email: maria.magnusson@volvo.com
Abstract
Distance Education (DE) in the Internet age is rapidly movingfrom experimental small-scale projects to large-scale educational programs. Thistransition is likely to forward new sets of questions that need to be addressedby researchers and practitioners, where students motivation, engagement andfrustration are at the centre. This paper explores the on-line and the off-lineactivities of Scandinavian students in a learning centre-based full-time DEprogram in Computer Science and Systems Analysis. In particular, the waystudents organise and perform group work has been investigated. The resultsreveal four different typified group types (labelled: crew, team, crowd andpeers), each with a different focus and purpose for the way members use IT whenworking with co-located group members and when participating in the distributedclass-community.
Introduction
The Internet has become a melting pot where most traditionalmedia, such as television, telephone and newspaper have merged and collided,resulting in fruitful combinations and new functionality (Braa, Sørensen &Dahlbom 2000). This is related to a more generic trend of extending the notionof Information Technology (IT), to the notion of Communication Technology (Braaet al. 2000). From the perspective of Distance Education this means atechnological platform with support for dynamic distribution and organisation ofhypermedia course material, but also support for more flexible interaction, forexample chat-rooms, computer conferences and news groups. These potentialeffects are what Sproull and Kiesler (1991) call primary effects, orientedtowards an enhanced educational efficiency. These are often properties of thenew technology that to some extent are possible to foresee, and accordinglyfunctions as strong motivation for a fast adoption and diffusion of thetechnology, in the context in question. However, Sproull and Kiesler proceedwith the argument that new technology must also be understood in terms of thesecondary, more longitudinal, effects. They say that the use of ICT influencesthe social systems where the technology is adopted. When communicative patternschange, social and cultural change follows. Similarly, Meyrowitz (1985) arguesthat such changes in the social landscape relate to the way electronic mediainfluences the audience, the roles and our perception of the social situation.And indeed, perhaps the most important outcome from using the Internet indistance education, is the informal and social dimension it introduces. Theease, at which contacts can be initiated amongst students and teachers, is instrong contrast to the demand of structure and planning that is necessary whenusing correspondence and teleconferencing. Subsequently, the web has become amedium where learning communities and new practices can form and evolve (Svensson2002). The need to address social aspects of DE is also furthered by the factthat many educational organisations are experiencing problems with high numbersof dropouts in DE (Rovai, 2002), while at the same time the volume of DEincreases as experimental projects are being replaced by large-scale programs.Together these aspects bring issues of students' motivation, engagement,frustration, perceptions and expectations to the fore.
When exploring the social nature of distance education it isimportant not to set a too narrow focus only on on-line activities, andactivities planned and supervised by instructors and tutors. There is a need forresearch that adopts a broad approach that also includes what happens outsidethe virtual classroom (Bannon, 1989; Alavi & Leidner 2001). Furthermore,since Internet-based DE is a social phenomenon, as argued above, the researchshould include both individuals as well as groups of students as the unit ofanalysis.
The aim of this paper is to explore how students in alearning centre based distance education organise, perform and perceive theircollaborative work, on-line as well as off-line, and how these issues can berelated to their use of information and communication technology? The object ofthe study was a distance education project in Sweden where 46 students, dividedinto six groups, studied full-time for a bachelor degree in systems analysis.The education was organised around six learning centres, each located in smallercommunities in the region surrounding the University College that was providingthe courses. In each centre 6-15 students met weekly for videoconferencesessions. A web education tool called DisCo (see Svensson & Ekenstam, 1998or Svensson 2002 for a thorough description), facilitated all additionalcontacts between teachers, students and administrative staff. The case settinghas a number of interesting characteristics, where interaction within thecommunity is mediated in different ways. Moore (1993) identifies three differenttypes of educational interaction. In this case the (i) learner-instructorinteraction is predominately technology mediated. This is also true regarding(ii) learner-learner and (iii) learner-content interaction within the communityas a whole. However, it is supplemented with face-to-face interaction takingplace in each sub-community (compared to mixed-mode education, Campos,Laferrière & Harasim 2001). The study involved interviews with 13 of the 46students and 14 additional students kept a study journal for two weeks,describing all study-related actions. Finally, on-site observations were made atall six learning centres in connection with a scheduled VC-session.
The results reveal typified patterns with respect to the waystudents organise their collaborative work. The different group-types also makeuse of the Internet in different ways and to some extent for different purposes.Finally, the different group-types are connected to different approaches andstrategies for learning.
Related Research
The social aspects of distance education have in previousresearch been approached from several different perspectives. Based on MediaRichness Theory and Social Presence Theory it has been argued that the socialquality of computer-mediated interaction is to a large extent predetermined bythe medium (see for example Daft & Lengel, 1986). This view is challenged byGunawardena (1995) who shows how the social presence is not solely a staticproperty of the technology, but should rather be seen as dependent on theparticipants’ subjective perceptions (see also Leh 2001). Patterns ofcommunication and collaboration have been explored by researchers in the fieldof CSCL (Computer Support for Collaborative Learning). Wasson & Morch (2000)identify typified strategies for synchronous collaboration, and Haythornthwaite(2001) examines how students interact inside and outside teams. Others includecultural and organisational aspects of DE (e.g. Fjuk 1998; Hakkarainen,Järvelä, Lipponen & Lehtinen 1998). Fjuk uses a triadic framework todescribe the factors that affect the interactional processes, and describe themas: "a field of tension between organisational, technological andpedagogical aspects" (Fjuk 1998). Nuldén (1999) presents a framework, thatin addition to technology, also emphasise the empowerment of students, andperhaps even more importantly their engagement concerning their studies. A studyby Hara & Kling (1999) shows that student-frustration is a neglected topicin most research on DE. In a case study of a North American DE-project, theyfound that most students report a strong feeling of dissatisfaction andfrustration primarily related to three aspects: (1) technical problems, (2) lackof prompt feedback from teachers and (3) ambiguous instructions.
Collaboration
Understanding how students organise, perform and perceivetheir work should departure from a general understanding of collaboration andco-operation. Gaver (1991) presents a simple model with four different levels ormodes of collaboration (fig. 1). At the lowest level, general awarenessrepresents shared knowledge of who is participating in the project or thecommunity. It could also be extended to include knowledge of whether a certainindividual is available for interaction or not and what type of work he or sheis doing at present. The next level, serendipitous communication, refers toinformal and unplanned conversations between two or more people, where sharingof experiences or ideas leads to fruitful progress. Division of labour is usedto label any type of practice where a project or a task is deconstructed into anumber of sub-assignments, to be completed by an individual or a smaller groupof people. At the highest level, the term focused collaboration is usedfor activities where people work simultaneously together on the same task.
Fig. 1: Levels of collaboration, Gaver (1991)
Gaver (1991) argues that group members constantly move up anddown the engagement-axis shifting among the various levels of collaboration.Furthermore he argues that most computer based systems, designed to supportthese processes often neglect the need for lower levels of awareness, focusingsolely on focused collaboration.
Learning
Marton and Säljö (1984) and Ramsden (1992) argue that theways in which students interact and work can be related to how and what theylearn. They discuss the notion of approaches to learning (see Ramsden, 1992, pp39-66). This is not to be perceived as a generic approach that a certain studentuses in all learning situations, but rather as a situational phenomenon,influenced by a complex web of contextual factors, for example course design,methods for teaching and examination and so forth. Marton and Säljö (1984)distinguish between two approaches to what students learn. The deep approach isoriented towards understanding and the surface approach is where students aretypically occupied with memorising facts. This is in turn related to how theylearn. Ramsden (1992) describes that the atomistic approach implies focusing onfragmentised parts without attempts to relate them to one another. This iscontrasted with a holistic approach, where focus is on the big picture, and theway things relate to each other. The process of how they learn is dependent onthe students' insight in how the world can be interpreted in different ways,which in turn affects the engagement in the learning process, and to what degreethe student has a contextual, relativistic thinking. These situated approachesare also connected to orientation to studying or general approach to learning,that is a generic preferred strategy used by a student based on experiences fromprevious learning situations. Ramsden (1992) presents four such orientations.
Meaning orientation: The student has a deep-holistic approach, uses data critically, relates new info to existing knowledge and learns for the sake of learning
Reproducing orientation: The student focuses on memorising, pays close attention to the demands of examination, avoids work that is not mandatory, lacks confidence and is not likely to discover relations between concepts and ideas
Strategic orientation: The student seeks for clues to what will be assessed, motivated by hope for successful examination and is highly confident and competitive.
Non-academic orientations: The student organises work poorly, and is cynical, frustrated and poorly engaged. Draws conclusions and generalise without proper support.
Fig. 2 shows how the outcomes and learning effects areinterrelated with approaches to learning, study orientation and organisationaland pedagogical aspects of the learning context.
Figure 2. Student learning in context, (Ramsden, 1992 pp 83)
Method
The case study was conducted at a Swedish University College.The objects for the study were second year DE-students in the Systems Analysisprogram. The fieldwork involved qualitative interviews, study journals andparticipant observations. Out of a total population of 46 students a sample of34 students was selected to be part of the study. 13 semi-structured interviewswith a stratified sample of students were used to investigate the perception oflearning, co-operation, collaboration and use of technology as a DE- student.The interview method was based on Mc Cracken’s (1988) systematic guide foropen-ended long interviews. Three of the 13 interviewees had experience fromtraditional higher education, and the remaining 10 where first time students atthe University level. Only two of the interviewed students had prior experiencesfrom Distance Education. The students had diverse educational backgrounds andworking experience. Six of the interviewees had responsibilities, such asfamilies and/or work, in addition to their studies. The sample also representeda diversity of people of different ages living everywhere from a walkingdistance to a one-hour drive from the learning centre. The majority of theinterviews were conducted at the six learning centres and some were forpractical reasons conducted at the University campus during three weeks inOctober and November 1999. Each interview lasted for approximately one hour, andwas recorded on tape or minidisk. Prior to the interviews, an email was sent tothe interviewees, explaining the objectives of the study, highlighting the mainissues of the interview guide (for example, study techniques, used technology,social dimension, communication, text based tutoring, community issues, thoughtsand feelings concerning the studies). The respondents were asked to reflect uponthese topics, and during the interviews they were encouraged to give elucidativeexamples. Parallel to the interviews, two to three additional students from eachlearning center were asked to make daily entries to a study journal (diary)during two weeks, in order to survey the daily habits of a distance student. Intotal, 14 diaries were handed in (21 students were asked). The diary was aimedat exploring study activities, thoughts and reflections on their studies and thecoordination, communication and collaboration in the educational context. Thestudents were given directives in an e-mail on exactly what periods to do thediary entries and to especially reflect upon topics such as organisation andstudying arrangements (individually and in group), feelings, attitudes, place,time, ICT-support (and other aids), studying materials and so forth. Thestudents were also encouraged to use their own personal style when keeping thediary. The period for the diary was planned to cover the last week of one course(including examination) and the first week of the next course. Included in themissive was a document template for the students to fill in. Each individualstudent was kept anonymous in transcripts. The actual studying conditions andlectures over the video conference system from the students’ perspective werestudied through visits to all six learning centres. These visits includedparticipation and observation of three lectures and they also included severalinformal conversations with the students as well as inspection of the premisesand studying environments.
The Case Setting: Learning Centres and DisCo
When the distance education project started in 1998 it had 58active full-time students. At the time of the case study the amount of distancestudents in the same group was 46. The education was a cooperative projectbetween the University, The European Union structural funds and sixmunicipalities in the region. The project made it possible for students in thesesix municipalities to study the first two years of a three-year Systems AnalysisProgram, in the form of distance education. Each participating municipality islocated in a region distinguished by weak traditions of higher academiceducation. Consequently, one of the project’s main purposes was to increasethe knowledge about higher education among companies, organisations and citizensin the region. It also aimed at improving the pedagogy, methodology andICT-support for distance education as a concept. The education was organisedaround a learning centre in each municipality. All learning centres wereequipped with a studio for the videoconference (VC) system (see fig 3-4), acomputer laboratory and a part time local coordinator, responsible for studentservice matters and administrative contacts with the University. Regarding theseand other aspects such as possibilities for collaborative work, opening hoursand access to facilities such as copy machines and library recourses, theconditions varied between the learning centres.
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| Figure 3. Teacher in VC-studio at Campus | Figure 4. Students in VC-studio at Learning Center |
The DE courses uses a web-based system called DisCo (DistanceCourses) (fig. 5) that provides the possibility to publish course material andto communicate student(s) to teacher(s) and student(s) to student(s). It offersthe possibility to publish text-based material and tutor students and isdesigned to overcome obstacles such as lack of computer skills. The teachers canpublish course information and material such as course description, content,goals and methods for examination, presentation of involved teachers, studyguides, assignments and exercises. The interaction between all users isprimarily facilitated through an email function and a threaded discussion board.
Figure 5. The start page of the threaded Discussion Forum in DisCo
For small group collaboration the system providespossibilities to share files and hyperlinks within project groups. Allcourse-site maintenance is done with standard browser software. For a moredetailed description of DisCo, see Svensson & Ekenstam (1998).
Results and Analysis
The interviews and the study-diaries give a fairly consistentpicture of what activities could be considered as collaborative work for thestudents. This picture is dominated by activities relating to studying thesubject matter of courses, for example, assignments, exercises, literaturestudies, projects and exams. In addition to this, students are also occupiedwith evaluation (formal evaluation as well as informal evaluative feedback),administrative tasks such as registering for courses and applying for financialaid, planning for future courses and so forth.
The students can use a collaborative approach to all courseelements, even the "home exam" which they are explicitly instructed tocomplete individually. Other course elements are designed in a way that forcesthe students to form working-groups. The study diaries mirror how all studentsworked during a two week period that contained the final stages and examinationof one course and the initiation of two following parallel courses. Thesesituated stories were complemented with the more longitudinal descriptions andreflections expressed in the interviews. Table 1 briefly outlines the nature ofeach course on the level of explicit course elements.
| Week | Course-module | Course element |
| Programming-project: A large-scale project with pre-defined sub-projects. All students at each learning center formed one group. | ||
| Exam: A written "home-exam" that students should complete individually within five days. | ||
| Organisational Theory | Literature-studies: First week included lectures, literature seminars and preparations for a forthcoming project assignment | |
| Literature-studies: Introductory textbook in project management. | ||
| Project-assignment: One project per learning centre. All six projects were provided by and conducted in cooperation with local companies. The assignment instructed each group to appoint a manager and a secretary. |
Table 1: Courses and course-elements at the time of the study
Understanding Groups
Studying the situations where groups were formed resulted intwo major observations regarding how work was organised. Firstly the variousgroups differ with respect to whether the preferred mode of work was orientedtowards an individual or a social focus. The individual approach ischaracterised by an orientation towards division of labour, whereasgroups with a social approach have focused collaboration as the preferredstrategy of organisation. Secondly there appears to exist clear differencesregarding to what extent the individual members of the groups adopts diversifiedroles. A group with differentiated roles is often highly structured andcharacterised by their members having different and well-definedresponsibilities, and subsequently also explicit mutual relations. Thisdifferentiated structure was more or less totally absent in other groups whereall members appeared to have equal roles and status.
| Work-orientation | ||
| Individual | Social | |
| different | Crew | Team |
| equal | Crowd | Peers |
Fig 6. Group types observed in the study
These findings are summarised in a 2 by 2 matrix, where thepreferred mode of work is contrasted with the degree of equality with respect togroup members' roles and responsibilities (fig. 6). The result is fourmetaphorical group-types all observed in the case study. These group-typesshould not be perceived as static labels attached either to individuals orgroups, but merely as possible ways to organise collaborative activities inconnection with a specific course element. In fact, the data points to severaloccasions where groups changed their strategy when shifting from one assignmentto another or when reforming in to new group-constellations.
The Crew
This group-type bears the resemblance of a formal bureaucracyor perhaps an aeroplane crew. Assignments and exercises where group work isrequired are approached with division of labour as the dominating strategy. Thecontribution of each member is subsequently merged in to a homogeneous product.The Crew has one (or perhaps two) members functioning as managers orcoordinators with responsibility for monitoring and managing progress as well asediting and unifying. The Crew often uses a similar approach for individualcourse elements, such as literature studies. Even though this work is mostlyperformed individually, there are frequent coordinating activities where membersthrough planned or serendipitous conversation can check and compare their workwith the others. Members of a Crew use ICT primarily for coordinating groupactivities, such as distributing documents, checking the status of fellowgroup-members, and when necessary, also contacting them for exchange ofinformation.
"When I got home I wrote the remaining part of our system documentation and received the final contributions from the others. Then I distributed the complete text to the other group-members for cross reading. This work is much more time-consuming than you think"
This entry to her study diary, was made by the coordinator inone of the communities where the Crew approach was used for nearly all thecourse elements.
The Team
The differentiated roles within a Team are primarily relatedto variations in engagement and sometimes also level of expertise. Thisgroup-type is characterized by having a leader or a core of leaders, whichorganizes and supervises the group activities, seldom distributing subassignments to the members, but instead preferring focused face-to-facecollaboration. In some situations there are members with moderate engagementresulting in very passive roles or even absence from joint activities.Technology is used for communication and in some cases for supporting thegeneral awareness when the group is not gathered for work. The group as acollective mostly solves problems related to the subject matter, and questionsto teachers are submitted by the group, rather than by individual members.
"I prefer asking the others when there is something I don't understand it is more convenient, and I don't have to formulate a written question [..] when we work in the group we sometimes send an email together…"
The quote, from an interview, is an example of the behaviourof a team member in need of support. This group-type was the most frequentlyobserved.
The Peers
A democratic structure, where all members are equal andnearly all group tasks are done in focused collaboration. Individual exercisesand assignments are mostly done together and individual work is more or lessrestricted to literature studies on evenings and weekends, subsequently followedup by group discussions.
"If someone has a problem we always stand by each other, 100%. When you work like this it is a prerequisite to do so. We are a school in the school. We explain things to each other, give new angles of approaches, tips on good chapters or articles to read, share lecture notes etc. We have a close fellowship in our small group, and we are pleased when someone else has a success, there's no jealousy."
The typical Peers are a small group of 3-5 people with a highlevel of motivation and engagement for all members. ICT is used in the purposeof community maintenance and awareness and seldom for communication withteachers. The Peer approach was found to be the dominating strategy forsub-units in two of the communities, in all course elements where small groupswere suitable or a prerequisite. In one case a somewhat awkward situation arosewhen two groups with different ways of working were forced to co-operate in oneof the course modules. One of the groups was a typical Peer-group, while theother group varied between Crew and Crowd behaviour. A woman in the Peer-groupmade the following comment (quoted from her diary).
"This group work doesn't work at all in this big group constellation. And this time we had a really difficult assignment to solve too. […] We are not used to working this way, we usually work together and try to actually learn something, not to just get the job done and get it over with as soon as possible."
The Crowd
This label aims to describe the situation where a collectionof individualists chooses to deconstruct an assignment into parts which isrequired to be performed by a group. Most work is done from home, and littleresources are spent on coordination and fitting the pieces together.
"…we do the work at home, we are dispersed so you think twice before going to the centre. Do you REALLY have to meet with the others or can you manage on your own? I mean there is always email and telephone - that's preferred!"
The use of ICT for these purposes is restricted to individualinteraction with teachers and other group members when questions or problemsrelating to the successful completion of their subtask arise. The crowd-approachis not observed as the preferred strategy in any of the communities, butappearing as an alternative approach in situations where the group members arepoorly engaged and less committed to the assignment.
The Role of IT
The above presentation of the four group types indicates howsome differences with respect to the use of IT emerged from the data analysis.To some extent, such claims of uniformity with respect to IT-use is tentative,in the sense that the use-patterns observed could not be strictly mapped to allindividuals of a group at a certain point of time. However, if each group typewere to be connected with a primary purpose and a primary functionality withrespect to group work, the labels (in Italics) of fig. 7 came closest tosynthesise the primary focus of IT-use in the various group types. Crews wereprimarily oriented towards using IT to coordinate the division and merging ofsub-tasks in exercises and assignments. In Teams, IT was frequently used foradministrating physical meetings at the learning centre, and subsequently toupdate members that was absent from group gatherings. Similarly, Peers wereoriented towards socialisation and maintenance of personal relationships,whereas Crowds tried too minimise group interaction that went beyond merenegotiations of how to complete tasks with minimum effort and engagement. It isalso interesting to contrast these local foci for IT-use in work together withco-located group members, with the more global purposes of using IT forinteraction with peers ands teachers outside of the learning centre. Frominterviews, and to some extent also from diaries, we can detect some differencesin the way students used public discussion forums and teacher emails. Theclearest tendency that could be observed was that public student-studentinteraction seemed to be more frequent among Teams and Peers compared to Crewsand Crowds. Furthermore, Crowds and Crews were more active in sending email toteachers requesting help with assignments.
Figure 7. Focus for Use of IT for Global and Local Interaction
The discussion forums of the DisCo system can to some extentbe used for establishing a shared community for all students in the project (Svensson2002). However, the interviews show that the frequency at which students readand/or posts messages varies within wide ranges.
"I check it out occasionally, but I never write anything"
"I read all entries and go there often, sometimes several times a day, especially if there is some interesting debate going…some gossip or so"
The frequent users can be found at all learning centres andin all group-types, but it is worth noticing that the density of frequent usersis much higher on the two smallest learning centres. It appears as though asmall group of co-located students increase the motivation to interact withtheir virtual peers. The data reveals much information on the students'perceptions, attitudes and expectations regarding their situation and dailyhabits as distance students. However, there are no indications of these aspectsbeing correlated to the different ways the students organise individual orcollective studies. The nature of the study environment in distance education asopen and flexible is a contrast to the traditionally organised education, andcan be a source of various frustrations for the individual distance student(Hara & Kling, 1999). At the same time as distance learning expands theeducational opportunities it involves some obstacles in the way for individualas well as social tasks. These obstacles can be very frustrating and result indistraction and less efficiency for the student.
"The weekend between week 43 and 44 I spent 2 hours trying to reach someone who works at our learning centre and who is able to tell me the actual opening hours for the upcoming week. We would like to finish an assignment and need the technical equipment, no luck, I give up […] next morning after one hour of persistent phoning I finally reach the janitor and get the information I want. I can email the other group members and we agree to meet on Monday morning at 9 am."
Discussion
Studying how work is organised and performed leaves a clearimpression of a strong cooperative working culture. This collaborativeatmosphere is supported by what Fjuk (1998) refers to as a tension betweenorganisational and pedagogical aspects. In systems analysis education it iscustomary to include several assignments and exams that should be performed bygroups rather than individuals. Additional support for this social orientationcan be found in the field between technique and organisation, namely thephysical organisation of the distance education project, with learning centresequipped with videoconference facilities and computer-labs at each participatingmunicipality.
Even though social work dominates over individual, the studyreveals several differences with respect to interactional patterns that cannotbe explained using Fjuk's triadic framework. One plausible dimension that couldcontribute significantly to explaining these differences is the element ofindividual engagement (Nuldén, 1999). Groups where the members had differentroles, (the Crew & the Team), seems to vary with respect to the engagementof different group members, and the leaders and coordinators who are most activeand engaged. Groups where the members played equal roles tended to be more equalalso with respect to engagement. The Crowd, being a collection of poorly engagedstudents and the Peers - a tight and highly engaged collective. However, thisshould not be seen as an evidence of that the group-type is a dependentvariable, modelled and explained by the group members' level of engagement as aset of independent variables. Reversing the direction of this dependency offersan equally relevant reflection, namely that the engagement of an individualcould be influenced by the way a group is organised. It is probably hard toresist the invitations from enthusiastic Peers, and equally difficult tomaintain a high level of engagement if surrounded by reluctant people in aCrowd.
When reflecting on how the different group-types relate tooutcome in terms of learning, it is tempting to try to connect the group-typesto a matching approach to learning (Marton and Säljö, 1984) and the differentstudy orientations (Ramsden, 1992). And indeed, the possibility to do so seems,at least theoretically, promising. The tendency to prefer division of labor infavor of focused collaboration is coherent with the typified behaviour of asurface-atomistic approach. Both strategies involve the deconstruction of thewhole into parts. Consequently, work patterns dominated by focused collaborationare, if not a sufficient, at least a necessary condition for holisticunderstanding to occur. However, we do not rule out the possibility that amember of a well organised Crew, where much time and efforts are spent oncoordination and merging the different sub-tasks could end up with a holisticoverview of the task in question. Since the approach a certain individualadopts, by definition, is situational and strongly dependent on thecharacteristics of each task, it is hard to find substantial empirical evidenceto confirm such a connection between group-types and approaches to learning. Thestudy-diaries contain some entries supporting these connections, but theinterview-data does not allow for certain answers and statements to be connectedto specific course elements or events. The interview data should rather beinterpreted as expressions of the interviewee's average or default approach tolearning situations, and is therefore more useful in providing an image of, whatRamsden (1992) calls, the general approach to learning or study orientation usedby a certain individual.
Applying these concepts to the characteristics of the four group-types found in this study, result in a good match between meaning orientation and the Peers. Both concepts include active interaction, engagement, satisfaction and a holistic approach. In the same manner, the non-academic orientation matches the properties of a Crowd with low level of engagement, satisfaction and ineffective ways of organizing work. It is not equally obvious how the strategic and reproducing orientations respond to the group-types. There are some examples in the case study, where a group classified as a Crew, resembles the hallmarks of the reproducing orientation, with an atomistic approach and a tendency to delimit their work, not to exceed the demands of the task in question. In other cases, a well-performing Crew runs a lean operation, focused on producing a high-quality product at the lowest cost. Focus is goal oriented and set on good grades, which is more compatible with the hallmarks of the strategic orientation. The Team is the group-type that is most ambivalent with respect to its study orientation. Some Teams appear to have a somewhat strategic orientation, but most of the observed Teams cannot be said to have one shared study-orientation for all members. Perhaps these Teams are better perceived as consisting of two groups? A core of engaged leaders, functioning as a miniature group of Peers with a holistic approach, and a remaining group of members resembling an attached Crowd, sometimes not even present at the work activities of the group. The way information and communication technology is used within various groups is consistent with the types of collaborative levels it is supposed to support. Division of labour calls for coordination of files and coordinating communication, focused collaboration is more aligned with pure communication through email and chat. As was reported earlier, most focused collaboration is done in face-to-face sessions, perhaps due to the fact that the DisCo system does not provide advanced support (for example. shared documents, Bannon and Bødker, 1997) for such work to be conducted when separated in time and space.
Looking at the way technology is used to communicate withteachers, and contrasting it with the differences in approaches to learningdiscussed earlier, suggests an intriguing connection. It seems as though thedeep-holistic approaches of Peers and (the core of) Teams are connected with lowtendency to use IT for interacting with teachers regarding problems andquestions concerning the subject matter. Instead most problems are solvedthrough discussions within the groups. To send an email with a question to ateacher is considered the last option when the group has failed in coming upwith a solution, or when the group for some reason cannot get in contact witheach other. Questions directed to teachers through email are much morefrequently used in individually oriented groups with a higher tendency to asurface-atomistic approach.
This could imply that teachers should regard it as comfortingwhen he or she hears nothing from the students, and start getting worried aboutthe quality of learning when the email starts piling up. This validity of thissomewhat tentative claim can of course be questioned, but the possibilities ofin-depth face-to-face collaboration is a major advantage when organising DEaround learning centres. Haythornthwaite (2001) argues that group-basedinteraction risks dominating over class-wide interaction when group assignmentsare used in a course, thereby reducing the size of the class, and consequentlythe individual’s exposure to other’s ideas. She advocates that this could bebalanced through providing appropriate tasks and tools. In this case thediscussion board at the course sites was used and appreciated by many as a forumwhere a joint community could form. However, these initiatives for class-wideinteraction were more or less solely driven by the students and were in thatsense not exploited by the teachers. The challenge is consequently to find toolsand tasks that not only aids in creating a discourse that is rich, both on thelevel of class-wide communication, and on the level of group work, but also aidsin supporting group work that is oriented towards meaning.
The interplay and relationship between the local and theglobal, between being physically co-located and being geographically dispersedconstitutes an interesting element of the mixed-mode design in learning centrebased DE. With this type of organisation we can combine the benefits ofsmall-size co-located groups where isolation and frustration are less likely toappear (Oren et al. 2002), with a global community where the quality of learningdiscourse could prosper from the fact that ideas are discussed in a bigger group(Haythorntwaite 2001).
Conclusions
The study shows that a clear social dimension and a strongfellowship between students in the same community dominate the work for thestudents. As a complement to the local community it is possible to distinguishhow ICT (DisCo) is used as a medium to create embryos of a virtual learningcommunity for the group as a whole. Furthermore the study has identified fourdifferent ways of organising their collaborative studies (Crew, Crowd, Team andPeers). The different group types differ depending on whether they areindividually or socially oriented, that is, if division of labour dominates thework, or if it is primarily concentrated towards focused collaboration. Yetanother dimension that diversifies the groups is whether the members havedifferent or equal roles when it comes to the work task. The analysis of thematerial indicates connections between the identified group types and the studyorientation of the individual students. Ways of studying related tounderstanding is mostly common within groups distinguished by focusedcollaboration (Peers and Team). The non-academic orientation can be matchedagainst the Crowd distinguished by a division of labour. Finally we seeindications of a connection between group type and to what extent the studentsmake use of the teacher as a resource for problem solving and support. Inwell-functioning groups, mostly Peers but also Team and Crew, it is common toturn to the teacher for help as a last resort. For a group with less motivationand a more strategic or non-academic orientation (Crowd & Crew), contactingthe teacher is one of the first alternatives when a problem has come up or atask needs to be solved. The validity of this claim, and to which extent it canbe generalised, is an issue for further research. Exploratory studies such asthis is important in order to gain a rich understanding of the situated natureand conditions of different DE-practices. The group types described in thispaper can serve as simple templates for understanding and interpretingactivities, performances and processes in various DE settings, thereby guidingteachers and designers in improving tasks and tools.
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