AT&T Fellows Final Report: Dennis Groth

AT&T Fellows Final Reports

May 2006

Name	Dennis Groth
Title	Informatics
Department	Informatics
Campus	Bloomington
Project Title	Examining the relationship between perceived project risk and the use of collaborative learning environments
Project Goal	Determine the extent to which collaborative learning environments like Oncourse CL contribute to measurable success on projects.
Type of Technology Used in the Project	Oncourse CL

Executive Summary of Results

The focus of this project is to closely examine the linkages between project risk and the use of the collaborative learning systems. In particular, the project will measure the use of collaborative systems at fixed intervals over the course of the academic year and compare this use to the students' perceived risk assessment for their projects. Project risk, especially for novices like students is particularly fluid. While completing their capstone project students learn how to identify, quantify and mitigate risks that they
encounter. Our hypothesis is that frequency of use of collaborative technologies is correlated with perceived project risk. We will use the method described by Tiwana and Keil (The One-Minute Risk Assessment Tool, Communications of the ACM, November 2004) to measure risk factors by rating on a scale of 1-10, where 1 is low and 10 is high, students' answers to the following questions:
A. Fit between the chosen methodology and type of project.
B. Level of customer involvement.
C. Use of formal project management practices.
D. Similarity to other projects.
E. Project simplicity (lack of complexity).
F. Stability of project requirements.
Along with the risk measurements, we are collecting the type and frequency of technology used by the students while completing their projects. This self-reporting will be used to determine the correlation with project risk.

Need for the Project

The project will provide critical insight into how student group work is impacted by using collaborative learning systems. Many courses involve students in some type of group activity, some of which are significant projects. This group project work is increasingly seen as important by industry, so any information that we learn that improves success factors for projects will be valuable.

Use of Technology

tech_use

Instructional Design Plan

Our expectations were that students perceived risks would change as time progressed, and as their use of collaborative technologies increased. So far, we have measured changes in perceived risk, but the correlation with collaboration technologies has been somewhat mixed. The teaching plan involves weekly meetings with the students, in which issues are discussed. The instructor uses the risk data to guide the discussion towards areas where the students have indicated a higher degree of risk. The project will be easily understood by other faculty members.

Potential to Impact Student Learning

The project exposes specific risk factors that lead to success or failure in projects. Because the solution to the issues uncovered by the measurements will be encountered over and over in their future careers, the students are learning how to deal with the issues
in a managed and professional manner. The class involves more than 100 students each year working on around 30 projects.

Assessment Plan

See the article.

Plan for Colleague Development

I am an active mentor of my colleagues, who frequently ask me questions about the use of Oncourse. In addition, I have been a strong advocate for the use of Oncourse as project sites for various school committees. The complete results from this project will be disseminated through a talk that will be scheduled for the Fall, and through a published paper. Based on this project I would advise the use of a quantitative measure that keeps track of the health of a project. In one quick view the instructor/manager can get a good sense of
where projects might be at risk of failing.

Final Comments on Project Results

The project resulted in extensive knowledge of how students perceived their projects were at risk. Although there was not strong correlation with the use of OncourseCL, there was a strong correlation with the use of collaborative tools in general. The strongest
relationship was exhibited through traditional meetings, which would point to possible enhancements in OncourseCL to facilitate virtual meetings.

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