Establishing an electronic collaborative learning environment in a university consortium: The CIRCLE project

Abstract

The Consortium Interactive Research on Collaborative Learning Environments (or CIRCLE) project, was designed to examine (a) how the distance among remote universities can be bridged electronically; and (b) how this bridge can be used to develop truly collaborative learning with shared, distributed student and faculty responsibilities. Although the problem of “distance learning” based on the model of instructional television has been well-studied, the problem of collaborative distance learning, based on a design team model, poses new technological and psychological issues. The CIRCLE project was designed to develop a model of four-way instructional collaboration that places relatively small demands on existing university technological resources. Thus, this project focused on an examination of the human resources, the nature of video and audio interaction, and simple schemes for synchronous computer-based communication. The results of a number of collaborative trials indicated that interaction over high bandwidth video channels worked well with little training. However, the trials also indicated a need for better synchronous computer-based media to facilitate interactions. Further, the trials raised a number of technical, social, and task constraints that influence the effectiveness of the interactions.