Abstract
<p>This paper presents a study of the use of wikis to support online group projects in two courses at the UK Open University. The research aimed to investigate the effectiveness of a wiki in supporting (i) student collaboration and (ii) tutors’ marking of the students’ collaborative work. The paper uses the main factors previously identified by the technology acceptance model (TAM) as a starting point to examine and discuss the experiences of these two very different user groups: students and tutors. Data was gathered from students via a survey and from tutors via a range of methods. The findings suggest that, when used in tandem with an online forum, the wiki was a valuable tool for groups of students developing a shared resource. As previous studies using the TAM have shown, usefulness and ease of use were both important to students’ acceptance of the wiki. However, the use of a wiki in this context was less well-received by tutors, because it led to an increase in their workload in assessing the quality of students’ collaborative processes. It was possible to reduce the tutor workload by introducing a greater degree of structure in the students’ tasks. We conclude that when introducing collaborative technologies to support assessed group projects, the perceptions and needs of both students and tutors should be carefully considered.</p>
Highlights
Group projects can help students to learn collaboratively about course topics and present their knowledge creatively
When the codes allocated by each researcher were discussed, it was found that, where code allocations differed, this was usually due to difficulty in deciding whether a comment was related to usefulness (PU) or ease of use (PEOU)
The research explored the perceptions of students on using the wiki for the group project, and the reactions of tutors who were required to mark the group work
Summary
Group projects can help students to learn collaboratively about course topics and present their knowledge creatively. Successfully integrating group work into courses has its challenges, in a distance learning or e-learning context. This paper discusses the implementation of a group project in a distance learning setting, and the role of communication technologies in supporting this implementation. The paper presents research findings on an initiative, which took place over several years, where wikis were used for online group projects in a course on information and communication technologies at the UK Open University. The aims of this initiative were to enable genuine student collaboration online and to support tutors in the fair and efficient marking of the group projects
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