Projects   Articles & reports    Students' work   R&D To Do   Seminars

European Community-Canada Programme
for Cooperation in Higher Education and Training

Field of study:

Summary of programme of study and project activities

The project will introduce Web-based teaching modules and courses for co-operation and negotiation as part of the regular courses taken by students in participating institutions. Students from the partner institutions will collaborate, engage in group problem solving, and negotiate using Web-based tools as part of their regular course programmes. In the course of the project cases, guides and teaching materials, technological infrastructure and evalution methods necessary for virtual mobility will be developed. This project will also provide a limited exchange of teachers and students. Four types of activities will form the core of the education and training programme:

1. Design and development of electronic organizations (business and other);
2. Simulation of the establishment of joint programmes and ventures between firms;
3. Setting up virtual teams to collaborate on projects; and
4. Cross-cultural Internet-based negotiations.

The project builds on previous experiences of team members in Internet-based teaching and negotiation tools. It will provide a more stable and broader basis for Web-based cross-disciplinary teaching co-operation. The tools and methods developed during this project will be useable after the termination of the project.

In addition to Internet-based activities, the project provides for limited teacher and student exchanges among the participating institutions. Teacher exchange is important for familiarising participants with teaching methods and institutional settings of partner institutions. Student exchange, apart from being valuable in itself, will serve as an incentive and for the establishment of a support group of teaching assistants.

List of European and Canadian consortium and institutions

Europe	Canada
Politecnico di Milano, Italy	Concordia University
University of Vienna, Austria	University of Ottawa
Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

Number of students (mobile/non-mobile) and length of transatlantic study period:

Non-mobile:	over 630 per year; 1900 total
Mobile:	33 per year; 66 total

Number of Europian and Canadian faculty exchanges for teaching purposes and length of stay:

Europe to Canada:	3 visits, 2 weeks each
Canada to Europe:	4 visits, 10 days each

Project Identification

Second Partners
Europe Canada Prof. Dr. Rudolf Vetschera University of Vienna Department of Business Studies Vienna, Austria Dr. Stan Matwin, Professor University of Ottawa Systems, Information Technology and Engioneering, Faculty of Engineering Ottawa, canada
Third Partners
Europe Canada Tina Murray International Office KTH SE-100 44 Stockholm Sweden
Fourth Partner
Europe   Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Greece

Project Description

1. Introduction

Today's students will, after their graduation, face a working environment that is radically different from that commonly found only a few years ago. The environments of business firms are increasingly complex, fast changing and with more interdependencies. Firms have to compete on regional and global scales and establish linkages across regional and national borders. Developments in information and communication technologies have radically changed the organisational structures of business firms, public institutions and many other organisations.

Three key features (characteristics) of the emerging environment in which business and other organisations function:

1. Virtual mobility and organisation: Large hierarchical structures characterised by a rigid line of command and face-to-face contact between supervisors and supervised are being replaced by flat, team-oriented structures in which team members are dispersed in various locations around the globe and communicate mainly via technical media like e-mail and other internet-based co-operative tools. "Virtual teams" and "virtual organisations" transparently link individuals and groups from different units located in different geographical regions and are rapidly becoming an important factor of business life.
2. Distributed knowledge and expertise: Traditional organisations and teams have access to local knowledge only. Virtual mobility allows employees to contact experts located in different parts of the world, use globally available resources, and create international teams whose members complement each other's knowledge and expertise.
3. Distributed data and information systems: Internet and Extranet technologies allow remote use of databases, decision and negotiation support systems, and other information systems. Already a number of support systems like Internet search engines, navigable museums and virtual libraries have been developed and placed on the Web. Electronic commerce creates an additional demand for globally accessible systems, both for the use in business-to-business transactions and by individual consumers. Web-based auction systems, systems to support consumers purchasing decisions and negotiation support systems for businesses are available now and many more are under development (e.g., Ebay.com, Personalogic.com, Amazon.com).

These dramatic changes must be addressed in the education of business and management studies. In addition to acquiring a sound education in the concepts and methods of modern business administration, students also need to acquire the "soft skills" necessary for effective functioning as members of virtual teams. These soft skills go far beyond traditional bargaining and communication skills. They require efficient and effective handling of advanced and complex technical communication media. Foremost they require the development of the cultural awareness and social skills necessary for communication with partners whom they do not know personally, who come from different cultures and with whom interaction is only possible via technical media. They also require the development of skills for an effective collaboration and knowledge exchange.

2. Experiences from three teaching activities

The proposed project will enable students of business, management and information systems to gather experience in the "virtual work environment" during their regular course of studies by introducing internet-based co-operation and negotiation tools into classes being simultaneously taught at the participating institutions. This project builds upon the core competencies of the participating institutions and several successful activities recently undertaken by the participating institutions in which over 250 undergraduate and 20 graduate students participated.

Since 1997, four organisations have collaborated in the active use of information technologies for the purpose of teaching undergraduate and graduate courses. Three key activities have been undertaken:

1. Negotiation activities, in which students from participating institutions represent different sides in a bargaining problem and bargain via internet-based negotiation tools.
2. Co-operative activities, in which students of participating institutions form "virtual teams", who co-operate in the joint solution of a common task.
3. Modelling activities in virtual reality, which are used to transport the ideas of a virtual organisation in the field of management education and especially in Human Resource Management.

2.1 Negotiation activities

In 1997 Carleton University School of Business and the Department of Business Studies of the University of Vienna undertook togheter with the the Abo Akademi University, a joint teaching project with the use of INSPIRE, a Web-based decision and negotiation support system (http://www.interneg.org/inspire). The system has been used to teach communication and negotiation skills, impress cultural differences and awareness on students, and provide an understanding of cross-cultural business negotiations. Over 200 students from Austria, Canada and Finland used the system as one of their major assignments. This project has been used in the following courses:

• Negotiation Management, International Business, Marketing, Tools for Decision Making, Topics in Business Information Systems;
• ; and
• University of Vienna: .

As a part of the assignment, students prepared reports with the analysis of the negotiation process and its integrative or distributive characteristics and analysis of the differences between their partners' and their own actions. An example report is given in Appendix 4, other reports are available from: http://interneg.carleton.ca/interneg/training/inspire/reports.

2.2 Co-operative activities

In 1999, three project partners organised a joint teaching effort focussed on virtual collaboration. Eleven teams from three universities have been set up each comprising of four to six students from at least two countries. The project was a course assignment at the following institutions:

• and
• University of Vienna: Information Management Seminar.

The teams represented a virtual consulting organisation which was to provide recommendations to a client regarding the selection of particular business information system. Each team compared several systems (e.g. executive information systems, data mining systems). They used methodologies available on line and a Web-based decision support system. Each team prepared a joint report that is available on the Web (http://orgwww.bwl.univie.ac.at/TeachPro). Students have also written short summaries of their individual experiences. In the latter they have stressed the relevance of the project for their professional careers (especially the part-time graduate students), their ability to quickly learn to use tools for communication and collaboration, the role of problem structuring and project management, and the impact of cultural differences. As one graduate student wrote in conclusion:

3. Objectives and scope

The three teaching activities were highly successful and greatly appreciated by students from all participating countries. They allowed students taking different courses to participate and share their knowledge gained in these courses. We consider the multidisciplinary use of information technologies (IT) as one of the key benefit of these activities. First, it teaches students that IT plays important roles in all managerial activities. Second, it teaches communication skills both between national and professional cultures.

The three activities outlined above helped to gain first experiences in the organisation of joint teaching project via the Internet. Our experiences and students' enthusiasm proved the validity of these activities. It also led to the interest to participating in these activities by other universities from Canada, Italy, Sweden and Poland.

3.1 Objectives

The main objectives of this project are to:

1. expose the participant students to various forms of forming, designing and operating a virtual organisation;
2. provide innovative teaching and learning facilities for the establishment of virtual teams that make joint decisions and engage in negotiation activities;
3. provide deeper understanding of different culturally motivated approaches to problem solving, decision making and negotiation styles;
4. engage students in collaborative activities in a global range that require IT; and
5. establish the infrastructure for other universities to join the collaborative activities in virtual settings.

These objectives will be achieved through three types of teaching activities:

3.2 Curriculum

The project members are offering courses in the areas given in the table below.

3.3 Integration of Activities

Activities will be integrated as standard components of these courses. The following table indicates the planned use of activities within courses:

4. Project organisation

The organisation of the proposed project and the specific tasks listed below aim at the fulfilment of the objectives and at the strengthening of the ongoing collaboration between the institutes, the establishment of infrastructure for the delivery of teaching modules, seminars and courses via the Web.

4.1 Tasks

The following tasks have to be performed for each type of activities. While the structure of tasks is similar across activities and important synergies can hopefully be realised between different types of activities, specific characteristics of each type of activities have nevertheless to be taken into account. The tasks to be performed involve:

Development of cases

Creation of a technological infrastructure

Training

Material development

Preparation of Web-based guides and teaching materials, development of self-assessment tools and training of teaching assistants who organise and manage co-operation and negotiation activities is necessary for an effective delivery of this module. Canadian and European students learning together in a situation of direct competition may realise the cultural differences. Online management games (e.g., PLUS-P) will serve as a platform for learning "management in action„. For the IS courses several cases will be developed, including cases for the Management of Information Systems course describing the roles of IS consultants in organisations, interactions between IS professionals and users, and issues of the introduction of new technologies in organisations.

Development of evaluation criteria

4.2 Students

The project is aimed at students at the graduate (or comparable) level at participating institutions, majoring in the subject areas taught by project members. We expect that at least 1,900 students from the participating universities will be taught during the project duration. This number will increase with new institutions joining the project. The approximate numbers of students per course and university are given below.

Most of the tasks outlined in the preceding section are independent of the number of students involved and allow for a significant project expansion. Exchange possibilities will be offered to top performing students involving about three students from each participating institution. These students will form local support teams for the subsequent groups.

5. Language and cultural preparation

The current language of communication is English. However, part of this project will involve the development of teaching modules in French and translation of the INSPIRE Web-pages into French to be used by the IS students from the Universite du Qebec a Hull and the International Business students from Carleton University. This will allow us to expand the teaching collaboration and involve universities where French is the language of instruction.

6. Multilateral Collaboration

Although Web-based co-operation and negotiation can take place between any countries in the world, the specific setting of a joint project between several EU member states and Canada offers particular advantages to this project. First of all, compared to a project that takes place solely within EU member states or only in Canada, the transatlantic aspect of the project enriches the spectrum of internet-based communication. Between the EU states and Canada, communication has to cross not only geographic distances, but also different time zones, which requires different types of communication.

Different cultures and university systems also enhance the value of this project as an experience in global co-operation and negotiation. This important facet of the project is highlighted by the fact that Canadian partners also include institutions from both the French and the English speaking parts of Canada. Another benefit for Canadian students is exposure to the specifics and internal operation of the European internal market and the Euro zone.

An additional benefit of a joint EU-Canadian project is the specific knowledge of team members at Carleton University in the development of Web-based negotiation tools, which otherwise could not be brought into a project at the EU level.

7. Evaluation and sustainability criteria

The tasks specified in Section 4 describe the deliverables by which this project can be evaluated. Immediate output of the project will consist of:

• a set of teaching materials to be used in Web-based communication and negotiation assignments;
• the necessary infrastructure comprising hardware, software as well as the technological and organisational know-how required to organise such courses; and
• methodologies to evaluate the performance of students in such settings.

The project evaluation can also be based on the number of developed teaching modules, the number of offered courses and the number of participating students. An additional criterion is the integrative nature of teaching allowing students taking different courses to work together and complement their acquired knowledge to solve a common problem. Performance data will be collected during the project's duration as part of the ongoing evaluation process.

These resources and know-how will be used after completion of the initial project. The institutions participating in this project will continue and possibly increase student exchange after the project. Student exchange is an enhancement and it is required for the effective project implementation. A significant higher number of students, however, will gain experience in the necessary technological, social and cultural skills required for their future work environment through internet-based activities rather than physical contact.

The proposed project is sustainable as the existing and acquired infrastructure allows for its continuation beyond the three-year period. Our current activities (see Section 2) have shown the feasibility to conduct joint Web-based teaching on a small scale. The requested funds aim at the development of a more permanent infrastructure and know-how, beyond the three activities currently undertaken and participating universities. Marketing of the program to the business communities will begin immediately so that by the end of year three, the project will be self sustaining, with scholarships and internships provided by the private sector.

During the second and third year of the project we will seek corporate sponsors who would allow to expand and enhance the set of proposed activities and involve other universities. It is also expected that our experience gained during the project would allow for the provision of training modules for the corporate sponsors.

8. Student mobility matrix

9. Planning timetable

One goal of this project is to merge the existing competencies of the partners in internet-based teaching as early as possible in the project. Actual classroom use of developed teaching material should therefore start at early stages of the project, even if components are not complete. The following timetable thus gives a tentative schedule indicating important milestones of the project.

The expertise achieved during the first two years of the project and teaching materials and software tools will be used to establish a permanent infrastructure for collaborative teaching. This infrastructure will be used to provide teaching modules and virtually delivered courses to all participating institutions and also to other universities from Europe and Canada. Planning for the project extension will be initiated in Summer 200X with the expectation that other universities will join in Spring 200Y.