Requirements Analysis to Support Equal Participation in Hybrid Collaboration Settings in Higher Education

Abstract

In the transition from COVID-19 back to regular life, hybrid collaboration has gained increased attention. Currently, hybrid collaboration settings in higher education are not sufficient to support equal participation between co-located and remote students. In a first step, we conducted a literature review on the characteristics of co-located, remote, and hybrid collaboration settings involved in successful collaboration. The characteristics of these three types of collaboration were then used to identify design elements for hybrid collaboration settings that support equal participation in small-group work in higher education. In a second step, we designed an initial hybrid collaboration setting for higher education and implemented it in an exploratory study to identify additional features that support equal participation and to analyze collaboration between co-located and remote participants. From the results of this analysis, we identified 16 requirements to support equal participation in hybrid collaboration settings in higher education, which can serve as the basis for implementing and evaluating proposed solutions in a next step.