Preparing Computing Students For Culturally Diverse E-Mediated IT-Projects

Abstract: We present an account of an undergraduate team-based assignment designed to facilitate, exhibit and record team-working skills in an e-mediated environment. By linking the student feedback received to Hofstede’s classic model of cultural dimensions we aim to show the assignment’s suitability in revealing the student's multi-cultural context. In addition to anecdotal evidence we also present a quantitative analysis that shows that the desired learning outcomes have been met. In a further discussion we show how the qualitative data collected can be used to quantitatively determine a cultural fingerprint of the groups that is useful to predict the team’s suitability for a given task in a real-world project. Preprint (pdf), Slides (ppt). Reference: Preparing Computing Students for Culturally diverse E-mediated IT-Projects, Conrad, M., French, T., Maple, C., Zhang, S., Procs. IADIS International Conference e-Society 2005, 93-100 Google it!