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Innovative Practices in Teaching Information Sciences and Technology pp 221–238Cite as

Chronicles of the Partially Distributed Team Project

Learning to Teach Students to Collaborate in Global Teams

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Abstract

This chapter describes the development and evolution of the Partially Distributed Teams (PDTs) project, which is designed to prepare students to work in global teams. I discuss key milestones in its transition from a small project involving regional teams into a global project where several thousand students have participated from over a dozen countries across five continents. I share my experiences as one example of how a small, “off-the-cuff” undertaking evolved into a large, sustained effort. I highlight my missteps along the way and the changes that ensued to improve the project and move it forward. The evolution of the project has been empirically driven, based on data collected from student participants as well as my own observations as project lead and participating instructor.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The PDT project became a research vehicle to study distributed teams. I collaborated with a set of researchers through the remainder of the project, most notably S. Roxanne Hiltz, Mary Beth Rosson, and Linda Plotnick. I do not detail research methods in this chapter, however these can be found in published papers.

  2. 2.

    I owe a special thanks to Fred Niederman for his help in designing the stakeholder analysis portion of the project.

  3. 3.

    I am grateful to Murray Turoff for his work on developing the Radiological Incidence Management System (RIMS) task.

References

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Acknowledgements

The PDT project was funded in part by National Science Foundation grants 0623047 and 0736981 and by grants from the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence at The Pennsylvania State University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of IST, The Pennsylvania State University, Building 330H, University Park, PA, 16802, USA

    Rosalie J. Ocker

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  1. Rosalie J. Ocker
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Correspondence to Rosalie J. Ocker .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. College of Information Sciences and Technology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA

    John M. Carroll

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© 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Ocker, R. (2014). Chronicles of the Partially Distributed Team Project. In: Carroll, J. (eds) Innovative Practices in Teaching Information Sciences and Technology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03656-4_19

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03656-4_19

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-03655-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-03656-4

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