collaboration

Collaboration in the ‘cloud’ helps develop key skills


Microsoft Lync, SharePoint, and other technologies facilitate collaboration across three continents for students in this innovative class.

collaboration
Students work in cross-continental virtual teams to complete research assignments that focus on effective decision-making.

In today’s world, businesses are grappling with the need to equip their employees with state-of-the art technology—and the skills necessary to deal with the continuous information overload employees face.

As a faculty member in the Biology Department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, I speak for many of my colleagues when I say preparing our students for success in this globally connected world is a high priority.

We have to be diligent in ensuring our students have both the hard and soft skills needed to be successful. We have to make the time in our classrooms directly applicable to our students lives once they leave our campus.

Technology has the power to help us accomplish this high order. It continues to alter and increase the level of core competencies needed to succeed in the real-world of work.

More than 25 years ago, Shoshana Zuboff predicted this when she wrote in her 1988 book In the Age of the Smart Machine that “learning is no longer a separate activity that occurs either before one enters the workplace or in remote classroom settings. … Learning is not something that requires time out from being engaged in productive activity; learning is the heart of productive activity.”

This stuck with me and plays a big role in my teaching. We live in a global society where technology is erasing boundaries. Our students need to be ready to compete in this marketplace. Understanding how to use technology for collaboration with people around the globe ensures our students are ready.

Five semesters ago, I teamed up with Murray Scott from the National University of Ireland (NUI) and developed a senior-level course that connects the workplace and the classroom and provides students the valuable skill of global collaboration through the use of technology.

The goal of the collaboration is to provide students with a college-to-career experience where they learn to make effective decisions using real-word data while working with a global team.

Every week in this course, “Effective Decision Making in the Age of Cloud Computing,” students work in cross-continental virtual teams to complete one of seven content-based research assignments that focus on effective decision-making through collaboration. We try to simulate what a global team feels like.

To help ensure the experience is like what they will experience in their professional lives, our students use Microsoft-based technology they will encounter when they leave the classroom.

Next page: Examples of student projects

This semester, our virtual teams are conducting research projects that examine the “inner workings” of major companies on topics such as Business Intelligence and Social Media. Then, they analyze the decision making process for those companies and draft a business plan incorporating what they have learned.

To complete these projects with team members overseas, students use Office 365 Education for all aspects of their team assignments; Lync 2013 to video or audio conference; SharePoint Online 2013 to share and submit assignments; Word and PowerPoint 2013 to develop material; and Outlook to schedule and manage team meetings.

Today, our course has expanded to three continents: North America, Europe, and Africa. Our students work in cross-collaboration teams with Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) students from the University of Massachusetts Amherst; Business Information Systems (BIS) students from the National University of Ireland (NUI) Galway; and Management of Information Systems (MOIS) students from the American University in Cairo, Egypt. In 2014, we’ll be adding students from Novgorod State University in Novgorod, Russia.

Through pre- and post-assessments on student learning outcomes, students have reported increases in their set of “hard skills” when using the multiple components of Office 365 Education, and increases in their set of “soft skills” such as collaboration and communication used during their virtual team interactions.

These results are encouraging, because these are the skills our students need to be successful. A recent International Data Corporation (IDC) study  found that “soft skills” such as communication and collaboration—along with “hard skills” like Microsoft Office—are essential for high-growth, high-wage jobs of today and the future.

The success of our students has been inspiring, and the skills they gained from our course have proven valuable. One student from UMass Amherst cited the virtual collaboration skills he gained from this class in helping him get into medical school.

Another student thinks her experience with Office 365 helped her get promoted when her accounting firm deployed the software, because of her willingness to step up and help train her colleagues.

A student who graduated from the NUI campus in late 2012 leveraged his global team work and Office 365 experience to succeed in the IT department of the company he works for to troubleshoot problems with colleagues around the globe.

We have proof that our course is accomplishing our goal to prepare our students not just for a job upon graduation, but also for success in today’s globally connected and competitive economy, with the skills necessary to adapt as technology continues to alter the workforce and world.

Gino Sorcinelli joined the faculty at the University of Massachusetts Amherst for the fall 1994 semester. Prior to his arrival at UMass Amherst, Gino spent six years in the private sector working as a human resource director for a large multi-line insurance company.

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