Conducting cross-institutional collaboration: evaluating a wiki as boundary object

Catherine Smith & Dr Margo Blythman Pedagogic Research Group, 26 November ‘09

Funded by:

Creative Interventions

Project partners:

Ways it’s being used:

- Public account of the project- Progress reporting- Dissemination- Repository for project outputs- Survey entry point- Reflection.

Best things:

- Promotes feelings of involvement- Provides insight into the team dynamics - Reduces isolation for core team members - Makes project concrete & material- Showcases project to outside world - Potential for bringing others into the project- Encourages collaboration- Playful potential - Everything is together in one place.

Issues: user engagement and confidence

Can be difficult for academic staff to admit they do not know how to do something.(Moron-Garcia, 2006)

Issues: confidence & preferences

• Technology often seen as something that can make current educational systems more efficient.

• In practice may not transform how people learn since tendency to build on one’s own best current experience of learning.

• If this is face to face or phone then people tend to want to continue with methods that they know work for them. (Sheehy & Bucknall, 2008)

Issues: confidence & preferences

Most academic staff did not use digital technology when studying themselves and ‘their values are thus predominantly those of the face to face paradigm’ (Newland et al, 2006, p.41)

Issues: team size & organisation

• Organisationally, the wiki was an extra rather than the core communication object of the project.

• The ‘soft knowledge construction’ (Kimble, Hildreth & Wright, 2000) of solving problems together, developing working practices and building community knowledge through stories could more easily happen face-to-face or by phone.

Issues: time

• Most academic staff experience lack of time as a considerable pressure in their lives (Clegg & McAuley, 2005).

• Time is a lived experience (Adam, 1998). • Time constraints affect the use of various

communication media.• Concerns amongst academic staff about the

time involved in mastering then implementing these new ways of working.

Time cont.• Time pressures are a key barrier to many academic

staff using learning technologies. Perceived as yet another time consuming innovation and is resisted irrespective of its perceived merits. (Davies & Smith, 2006)

• Main issue - the time required to learn new skills and decisions are made on the basis of a balance of time needed for initial investment with perceived benefits.

• Development of skills in this area are not perceived as leading to career progression. (Newland et al, 2006)

• In Creative Interventions several respondents referred explicitly to ‘not having time to’ and ‘time priorities’.

Issues: public/privateWheeler and Wheeler (2009):• the awareness of ‘hidden audience’ one has as a

contributor to a wiki. In their study very few visitors to the site left comments so it was not possible to gauge reaction adding to the sense of this hidden audience.

• the public nature can lead people to steer clear of controversy and this can make writing for the wiki feel less personal.

Moron-Garcia (2006): the importance of clear delineation between the public and private and explicit decision-making on what goes where.

Kerawalla et al (2008): sometimes respondents were conscious of how they wished to present themselves to different audiences.

Issues: structure

In blended projects virtual interaction slowed down then built up again after a face to face meeting. Face to face had an important role in building relationships. (Kimble et al, 2006)

Emerging themes:

- How the wiki was conceptualised

- Audience & purpose

- Intersection of the private & the public

- Emotional responses to technology

- Strategies for increasing participation.

Recommendations:

• Decide as a team exactly what you want the wiki forIf the wiki is going to have discussion function, what kind of discussion and amongst whom?

• How are you going to engage participants? (posing direct questions, asking for advice, thanking for help, using writing techniques for readers, Kerawalla et al, 2008)

• Decide on your position between accessibility and control.

http://creativeinterventions.pbworks.com