Abstract:

Virtual learning environments are often associated with forms of virtual collaboration. Many studies report on the, often mixed, results of student collaborations from within the same population. Fewer studies have been done on cross-cultural collaboration platforms between geographically and culturally separated groups of students for learning more complex tasks. C-Campus is a cross-cultural and multi-disciplinary virtual environment with specifically tailored spaces for students to be able to learn, interact and socialize. In this environment the teachers and course developers can monitor and adjust the optimal learning conditions of the individual students. Students with diverse backgrounds from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden and Tsinghua University in China collaborated together on C-Campus for a course focussing on Future Highway Design.

The structure of the course and the assignments were designed to encourage creative thinking, personal leadership and discussion. Students were split into diverse groups to work on projects with different perspectives on their Future Highway. The discussions among students took place in the space for creative learning on C-Campus. At the end of the course, they were asked to peer review the other members of their group and to assess their own performance during the course.
This Pilot provided an opportunity to observe individual student behaviour and group dynamics in a multi cultural and cross-disciplinary settings. Data was gathered on all interactions in the groups, their teacher and mentor evaluations and the peer reviews among members in groups. An exit survey was also conducted on the ease of using the platform, on group activity and on the course itself.

In this paper we describe the relation between the data gathered from students interactions on C-Campus and the perceptions of performance by their peers and teachers. The data shows that interactions on C-Campus were a good indicator for the success of student learning and also to identify different types of behaviour. Having access to this type of data during the course can thus allow teachers to optimise learning for individual students and help nurture their abilities to work in multi-cultural and cross-disciplinary teams.
The paper contributes both a unique cross-cultural learning case study, and more insights in the role of specific forms of data collection for monitoring of learning success in such environments.

Keywords:

Learning Analytics, Cross-Cultural collaboration, Online virtual environments.