THE USE OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOLS TO SUPPORT

THE COORDINATION OF COLLABORATIVE LEARNING

Marcelo Augusto Rauh Schmitt

Instituto Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil

Liane Margarida Rockenbach Tarouco

CINTED, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil

Keywords: Collaborative learning, Coordination, Project management, CSCL.

Abstract: Coordination plays a fundamental role in collaborative learning. When collaboration is supported by

computers, automatic coordination mechanisms must be deployed. This paper aims to study the possibility

of transfering project management tools commonly used in work contexts to learning contexts. We propose

a coordination model that makes the change of area feasible, and that favours learner’s autonomy. Two case

studies were carried out and a new tool was built in order to test the hypothesis. The results of the current

research suggest that project management tools are viable alternatives to automatic coordination support, as

long as they are used under a proper paradigm.

1 INTRODUCTION

There is a general agreement that collaboration

among students and teachers is an essential

instrument in the learning process. According to

Johnson, D. W., Johnson, R. T. and Smith K.,

(2007), cooperative learning is an accepted

instructional procedure and it is used worldwide in

all levels of education. The same authors sustain that

“cooperation, compared with the competitive and

individualistic efforts, often results in higher

achievements, long term retention of what is learned,

critical thinking, creativity in solving problems and

more willingness to persist”. Although there is still

some controversy about the words “collaboration”

and “cooperation” (Resta and Lafarriere, 2007), in

the present paper, the expression “collaborative

learning” is used to describe learning which happens

with intensive participation of students who interact

with each other and with the teacher for construction

of knowledge. According to Dillenbourg, Baker,

Blaye and O’Malley (1995), in collaboration the

focus is on the mutual engagement of participants

and in cooperation the focus is on the division of

labor. To the authors, cooperation is achieved by

splitting the task into independent sub-tasks, while

in collaboration there is a division into intertwined

layers. Therefore, collaboration is a term that better

defines the active participation of students. But it

should be noted that, sometimes (Johnson, Johnson

and Smith, 2007), authors use the term cooperation

to refer to the same type of process.

The theoretical foundation for advocating the

benefits of collaboration in learning can be found in

the traditional studies of Vygotsky (Vygotsky,

1998). According to the Russian researcher,

collaboration among peers is an essential action for

learning, as it expresses the heterogeneity that exists

in groups and helps the development of strategies

and skills to solve problems due to the cognitive

process implicit in interaction and communication.

Social interaction is a way to access a wide source of

data used as a basis for anyone to develop and learn.

Based on Vygotsky, it is possible to state that an

individual performs better when he works with more

prepared ones. His definition of the Zone of

Proximal Development (ZPD) highlights the value

of collaboration. He defines ZPD as the distance

between the actual level of development, which is

identified as the capacity of independently solving

problems, and the level of potential development,

identified as the capacity of solving problems with

aid. Social interaction is, therefore, a way to learn

345

Augusto Rauh Schmitt M. and Margarida Rockenbach Tarouco L..

THE USE OF PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOLS TO SUPPORT THE COORDINATION OF COLLABORATIVE LEARNING.

DOI: 10.5220/0003474203450352

In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CeLS-2011), pages 345-352

ISBN: 978-989-8425-50-8

 2011 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

and develop. Learning is favored by a collaborative

environment. Teacher’s mediation, as well as

interactions with other colleagues through the

learning environment, has positive impact for a

better use of the student ZPD. What was only a

potential level of development can more easily be

achieved. Morishima et al. (2004) summarize the

benefits of using a collaborative learning

environment through the expressions “learning by

teaching” and “learning by observation”.

Considering that collaborative learning brings

benefits to the cognitive process, it is natural to use

information technologies in order to support

collaborative activities. The study field that

researches the use of computer systems to support

collaborative learning is commonly known as

Computer Supported Collaborative Learning

(CSCL). Over the years, several researchers have

been devoted to this subject and a variety of

disciplines are related to the issue: psychology,

sociology, education. In addition to these disciplines,

one central point of research in CSCL is technology.

For Järvelä, Häkkinen, Arvaja and Leinonen (2003),

the purpose of CSCL is to support students so that

they can learn efficiently. According to Suthers

(2006), CSCL has an obligation to design

technology that effectively supports collaborative

learning. According to Soller, Martinez, Jermann

and Muehlenbrock (2005), the current focus of

research is the identification of computational

strategies that positively influence group learning.

There are three main activities in collaborative

learning: cooperation, communication and

coordination (Singh, 1989; Fuks, Gerosa, Raposo

and Lucena, 2004). Without coordination there is no

guarantee that tasks will be done in the proper way,

at the right time and with necessary resources (Fuks

et al., 2004). Coordination is an essential part of

collaboration and students need to devote some

effort to it (Janssen, Erkens, Kirschner and

Kanselaar, 2010; Moguel, Tchounikine and Tricot,

2010; Anaya and Boticario, 2009; Wang and Woo,

2010). Stahl (2004) argues that CSCL systems

should be designed, among other things, to support

the collaboration and to structure its coordination.

Kim and Kim (2008) state that learners need

adequate support for the coordination of

collaboration. To Hesse (2007) the need for a

coordinating structure appears to be even more

urgent in computer-mediated settings than in face-

to-face ones.

Because coordination plays an essential role in

collaboration and collaborative learning

environments must provide solutions to that subject

(Hesse, 2007; Wang. and Woo, 2010), the usage of

project management tools was studied. Those tools

have been used for many years in the Computer

Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) context,

which has a different focus than CSCL Stahl (2006,

page 287). Nevertheless, we believe that CSCL

research can take advantage of that technology.

The main question of this study is: “Can a

project management tool, initially created to benefit

cooperative work, contribute to the coordination of

collaborative learning?” In order to test the

hypothesis, a coordination model was defined and

two case studies were carried out.

2 COORDINATION MODEL

It is possible to coordinate the learning process

through collaboration scripts, which are educational

models that can structure collaborative learning,

outlining the sequence of activities of a group.

Roles, phases and activities may be defined

(Dillenbourg and Hong, 2008). However, the use of

scripts brings with it the risk of restricting

collaboration (Dillenbourg, 2002) and the

effectiveness of scripting is a highly contested

matter (Stahl and Hesse, 2010). Heinze and Procter

(2006) conclude that either unguided or very

structured collaboration are not satisfactory in a

community of practice. It is clear that some balance

has to be established. The same idea is corroborated

by Schneider (2009).

Although a certain degree of freedom is

important for learning communities to develop,

activities with highly interdependent tasks are not

well coordinated only by social protocol (Fuks et al.,

2004). Explicit coordination mechanisms are

necessary. Avouris, Margarita and Komi (2003) also

support that idea in a study about the use of

conceptual maps as collaborative learning

environment. They conclude that the use of explicit

coordination mechanisms make students argue at the

meta-cognitive level of the activity and externalize

their strategies, a fact that helps them deepen their

collaboration, and lead to improved learning.

When students collectively construct knowledge,

it is fundamental to organize what will be realized.

Besides the teacher, pupils themselves coordinate

their activities. Carell, Herrman, Kienle and Menold

(2005) sustain that while teachers are responsible for

defining the task, a collaboration plan has to be

developed by the students themselves. When

students collaborate in a project, even when the

ultimate goal is defined by or negotiated with the

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346

teacher, steps to achieve such goal are, usually,

elaborated by members of the group. Sub-tasks and

deadlines are established. The process is reviewed

and new directions are taken at some moments.

Without planning, collaboration does not happen and

the final objective is not achieved.

The definition of sub-tasks allows students to

picture more abstract steps and to refine them in a

top-down way of thinking. Collaboration is a

cyclical process (Fuks, Raposo and Gerosa, 2003)

and this kind of top-down definition of tasks reveals

this constant renegotiation that leads to the

establishment of new tasks. Those mechanisms

should not be viewed as a limitation of the

collaboration process since the scheme of

collaborative work done by those who are

collaborating facilitates the attainment of the desired

goal. De Graaf, De Laat and Scheltinga (2004) go

further in the idea when they argue that there is no

need for students to work collaboratively during all

the stages of a collaborative task. Tasks can be

subdivided and integrated later.

A non-script approach does not imply the

absence of structuring. The basic premise is that

students, along with the teacher, define a

collaboration schema appropriate to the specific

context and they organize their activities based on it.

In order to use a project management tool to support

coordination of collaborative learning it is necessary

to define a coordination model that produces

collaboration and that is compatible with such tool.

Concerning activity planning and control, project

management tools have four main elements: the

project, the tasks associated with it, the team

members and the team leader (figure1).

Figure 1: Class diagram of project management tool in

CSCW context.

Activity organization consists in defining the

project, with goals and deadlines; defining tasks

necessary to execute the project, which also have

associated goals and deadlines; and controlling

execution. The ultimate purpose of teamwork is to

build a product and the team leader has a

preponderant coordination role (figure 2). The

project is not a group construction. It is a

corporation choice or a boss decision. Not even task

definition is a collaborative activity; it is done by the

leader who may consider some suggestions.

Figure 2: Use case diagram of project management tool in

CSCW context.

Clearly, this model may fit into a cooperative,

but not into a collaborative work. It corresponds

simply to a division of labor regulated by the boss.

The team does not elaborate a plan of collaboration

and the leader is much more than a facilitator.

Considering that students should regulate the

coordination of collaborative learning – defining

tasks, deadlines, objectives and control points –

working like this is inadequate. However, this

coordination model, which leads to a cooperative

work, is not enforced by the tool. It is the common

way to use project management applications.

To be coherent with criteria like interaction,

participation and autonomy levels, such coordination

model must not be reproduced in collaborative

learning. Project management tools need to be used

under a new paradigm. A new coordination model is

proposed. The proposed model has four main

elements: the project, the tasks, the team members

and the team leader. Team leader is replaced by

teachers and team members by the students. A

project is coordinated by one or more teachers, it

belongs to a group of students and it has one or more

tasks associated (figure 3).

The leading role played by the boss is replaced

by the guiding role played by the teacher, and tasks

are not communicated to the students, but built by

them (figure 4). Students suggest different paths that

will conduct to knowledge building and the teacher

regulates such paths. The autonomy level of learners

will be dynamically determined. As there is no

universal balance, the coordination model must

allow a flexible role adjustment. There is a

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347

predefined coordination schema that allows users to

create different collaboration schemas.

Figure 3: Class diagram of project management tool in

CSCL context.

Figure 4: Proposed use case diagram of project

management tool for CSCL context.

By claiming that students should have active

participation in project definition, we are not

affirming that they will define the content to be

learned or the skills to be acquired. The teacher has

the responsibility to define learning objectives and

most suitable activities to accomplish the final goal.

Students may propose different activities and the

teacher has to decide if they will lead to the intended

goals. Figure 5 corresponds to a state diagram of that

interaction. The teacher's role is to stimulate

discussion and to evaluate whether the proposed

project will allow students to actually reach the

overall objective. From the definition of an activity

by the teacher, students are encouraged to create a

project. The teacher assesses whether the project

fulfills the goals. If students are not capable of

proposing meaningful project the teacher may

intervene in the process. Some groups make better

use of autonomy than others.

After defining the project, tasks must be detailed.

Figure 6 presents the state diagram of the task class.

Students create a collaboration model specific to

their learning context. It is the teacher's role to verify

if the created model is really a collaborative model.

Figure 5: Proposed project state diagram for CSCL

context.

Sometimes, it is necessary to redefine tasks.

It is also important to control task execution.

Again, students and teachers perform that activity

together.

Figure 6: Proposed task state diagram for CSCL context.

3 CASE STUDIES

Two case studies were carried out in order to

analyze the use of a project management tool

according to the proposed model to support

collaborative learning. Both studies were conducted

in a post-secondary course that prepares apprentices

to work as computer programmers.

In both experiments, students had to use a project

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management tool in order to coordinate their

activities in a distant PHP Programming Language

discipline. At the end of the discipline, students

should be able to develop computer programs using

PHP. The students already had the necessary

background to easily learn a new programming

language because that discipline was offered in the

last semester of the course.

To study the use of a computational tool in

collaborative learning it is essential that students and

teacher work under this paradigm. Discipline

assessment was based on projects that should be

realized by groups of two to five students. Group

members were chosen by the students with no

intervention of the teacher. They should interact

among themselves and with the teacher while

implementing a system using PHP. The definition of

the system was a group responsibility. The teacher

controlled if the project would create collaboration

and would permit the achievement of the discipline.

3.1 Case Study I

3.1.1 Method

In the first experiment, students were supposed to

coordinate their activities using the eGroupware

(http://www.egroupware.org) project management

tool. Fifty students of a remotely taught

programming language (PHP) discipline participated

of the study. The majority (82%) had no experience

with PHP.

Moodle (http://www.moodle.com) was used as a

Learning Management System (LMS). That was not

a challenge for the students because they were used

to the learning environment. Most of the course

disciplines make use of Moodle as a manner of

supplying learning objects, defining tasks and

communicating with students either synchronously

or asynchronously. All fifty students were

accustomed to that environment.

Students should use eGroupware to establish

objectives, phases, deadlines and responsibilities, as

well as to control project progress. The teacher

should use it to track activities and intervene when

necessary.

At the end of the discipline, all groups presented

their finished projects to all colleagues and to the

teacher. Afterwards, they answered a questionnaire

about the experience. The first four questions were

intended to investigate if the project management

tool contributed to the occurrence of collaboration

and to identify its positive and negative aspects. The

last question was meant to identify whether students

had any kind of restriction against collaborative

learning that could lead to bad results not related to

the project management tool.

3.1.2 Results

Only 16% of students would have preferred to do the

project individually. And the reasons appointed by

those students were:

• Difficulty of organization;

• Lack of participation of colleagues;

• Loss of autonomy.

The case study was thus performed with a group

of students prepared to learn the discipline content,

used to computer tools and without significant

objections to collaborative learning. It is important

to notice that the first two items are related to

coordination issues.

Although students were stimulated to

continuously use the project management tool, its

use did not correspond to the expectations. Only five

out of twelve groups used the software to plan and

refine their projects. Even those groups used

eGroupware more as a tool to present the

development of the project to the teacher than as a

method to coordinate group work. No more than

36% of the students reported frequent use of the

tool, but 90% considered it useful. The main aspects

that were considered positive were the possibility of

structuring and organizing all activities and

monitoring the project. These are coordination

activities.

The reason for low usage was not, therefore, the

lack of usefulness of the project management

tool. The most important reasons for not having a

continuous use of the tool were the difficulty, the

interface and the use of other tools (72%). The fact

that these were computer science students, combined

with a set of suggestions given by them to improve

the system (table 1), lead to the conclusion that the

project management tool should be integrated with

other communication tools and, preferably, should

be part of an environment already known by the

student.

Table 1: Students' suggestions to improve eGroupware in

CSCL context.

Suggestion Occurrences Percentage

Interface 20 57%

Training 5 14%

forum tool 3 9%

version control tool 2 6%

e-mail alerts 2 6%

communication tools 1 3%

link with other tools 1 3%

chat tool 1 3%

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Coordination, communication and cooperation must

all be integrated to produce collaboration. The use of

a single tool to manage one aspect of collaboration

was not reasonable for the students. They did not fail

to coordinate their activities. They found solutions in

other tools that they knew before and that

incorporate email, instant messaging and forums.

This case study also revealed the difficulty of

performing a deeper analysis of the collaborative

process without proper logs. A corporate project

management tool stores definitions, phases,

deadlines, responsibilities. However, to analyze

collaborative learning process one needs to observe

the students' proposals, discussions, changes of ideas

and even the teacher's interventions. This kind of

monitoring is essential for CSCL research and is

also important for the assessment of activity

progress. A project management tool for educational

purposes must have mechanisms to make the whole

process more visible. If in the world of work the

most important thing is the final product, in

collaborative learning the most important thing is the

process of knowledge construction, and that process

has to be logged.

3.2 Case Study II

3.2.1 Method

Aiming to avoid the limitations faced in the first

experiment, a project management tool integrated

with Moodle LMS was developed. In this paper, that

tool is referred to as CLPMtool (Collaborative

Learning Project Management Tool). CLPMtool is a

project management plug-in for Moodle that

explicitly implements the coordination model

proposed in section 2. It also aggregates a Gantt

Map, a forum and a chat for the group in the same

interface (figure 7).

The second experiment was carried out with eight

students divided into three groups. Like in the first

experiment, students were supposed to learn

Figure 7: Screen of CLPMtool.

the PHP programming language, and most of them

(six) had no experience with the language. The same

procedures used in the first experiment, regarding

project and task definitions, were used in the second

one. Besides the questionnaire answered by students,

data were collected from CLPMtool logs. The

following actions were registered by the system:

• Project Description View;

• Project Description Edition;

• Project Status Update;

• Task Creation;

• Task List View;

• Task Status Update;

• Task Deletion;

• Gantt Map View.

All these logs are related to coordination

activities. The user may be organizing (edition,

update, creation and deletion) or controlling (view)

the development of collaborative work. Therefore,

the observation of those events allows identifying

how the tool contributes to the coordination of

collaborative learning.

3.2.2 Results

All four groups used CLPMtool and all students

found the tool useful. They considered it beneficial

to organization, control and communication. Table 2

presents a summary of logs generated by CLPMtool

during the experiment.

Table 2: Access made by students and teacher to the

CLPMtool in case study II (S =Student, T=Teacher).

Access type

Hit number

Group 1 Group 2 Group 3

S T S T

Project Description

View

35 11 100 46 64 37

Project Description

Edition

1 0 2 0 0 1

Project Status Update 0 1 0 3 0 1

Task Creation 5 0 3 4 0 3

Task Edition 14 2 26 14 14 4

Task List View 44 20 102 74 27 56

Task Status Update 6 6 13 8 3 3

Task Deletion 0 0 1 0 0 0

Gantt Map View 6 0 24 3 4 0

Total 111 40 271 152 112 105

Group 2 had more hits because it had four

members. Analyzing planning activities (project

description edition, task creation, task edition and

task deletion), it is possible to notice a difference of

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autonomy among the three groups. Group 1 defined

its project and all its tasks, group 2 established the

project and three out of four tasks, and group 3 had

all the activities defined by the teacher. In order to

control the evolution of collaborative work, students

and teachers often accessed the task list.

Integrating a project manager tool with the

virtual learning environment made possible to

overcome the problems identified in the preliminary

study. CLPMtool logs demonstrate that students

effectively used the tool. Values related to task list

view, and even Gantt Map view, indicate that

students’ actions did not limit to produce the

requested planning like in the first experiment.

Students used CLPMtool to get situated and to

control the execution of collaborative process.

Logs also reveal the multiple collaboration

schemas produced by the coordination model. While

in the most autonomous group (group 1), the number

of teacher hits were less than half of students’, in the

less autonomous group (group 2), the number of

teacher hits overcame students’. The same

coordination model organized collaborative

activities with different equilibrium points between

students’ freedom and teacher’s guidance.

4 CONCLUSIONS

Coordination mechanisms must be deployed to

support collaborative learning. Software solutions

can help coordination especially with remote

students. Project managers found in corporate

environments, commonly used to organize

cooperative work, seems to be an important

alternative, but its use does not guarantee

collaborative activities. The coordination model

usually associated with such tools does not promote

collaboration. Therefore, the pure transposition of

project manager tools to an educational context is

not sufficient to ensure its utility: it must be applied

under a different paradigm.

We consider that the responsibility for

coordination is collective; students must be actively

involved in structuring their activities, under the

supervision of the teacher. Students should suggest

collaboration models according to each learning

context, avoiding the use of pre-formatted scripts.

Therefore, a coordination model that makes use of

the existing project manager taxonomy, but favours

collaborative work was proposed. That model does

not create a rigid collaboration scheme because it

does not establish how team members collaborate.

Instead, it defines the way students organize their

actions. A group of learners can structure their

work, with teacher’s guidance, in accordance with

its objectives, without limiting it to a particular

paradigm of collaboration. The coordination model

hereby presented permitted that groups with

different characteristics could create their own

collaboration schema.

The two case studies support the hypothesis that

a project manager can help collaborative learning

coordination through mechanisms that clarify

activity planning and monitoring. The two

experiments demonstrated that project management

software can be useful in coordinating collaborative

learning, as long as they are used under a paradigm

that promotes collaboration and that they do not

create an interface burden to the students.

Although CLPMtool is just an implementation of

the proposed coordination model, it proved to be a

valid alternative to promote collaborative learning

through Moodle VLE. Future works will try to

implement automatic mechanisms that will favor

and control the participation of all group members in

coordination activities.

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