Abstract:

In 2016 one university and two university colleges merged, creating Nord University. Consequently, several studies underwent major updates in the period 2017 to 2019. One of these updates resulted in a clearer and more pronounced focus on virtual teams in one online and asynchronous course called ICT1024 – Project work with ICT.

The course was part of an online study programme called ICT and Learning 2 within the framework of adult education. The students taking part in this study programme were predominantly teachers in lower and upper secondary schools, from all over Norway. Since the study programme was 100% online and asynchronous, with no meetings in real life, the ground was well laid for utilising virtual teams to solve the two obligatory tasks in the course ICT1024.

The aim of the course was partly to familiarise students with the concept of virtual teams and make them experience both challenges and benefits with this concept, and partly to learn about project management. In order to ensure that they paid equal attention to both finishing their assignments as well as reflecting on their own learning, each assignment demanded both a team reflection as well as individual reflections on their own learning experiences.

This paper reports on the findings of two separate anonymous student course evaluations, as well as written reflections from the students both as a team and as individuals. These findings shows that majority of the students found working in virtual teams beneficial for their learning process.

Keywords:

Virtual teams, project management, e-learning, adult education.