Faculty of Computer Studies, Information Technology and Computing Team Working in Distributed...

Faculty of Computer Studies,Information Technology and

Computing

Team Working in Distributed Environments

( M253 )

Prepared By: Dr. Luai Al Shalabi

Prepared by Dr. Luai Al Shalabi

Introduction and Overview

• M253, Team working in distributed environments is a practical course on working in distributed (or virtual) teams – teams in which the members are not located together.

• Students will be assigned to a team of between 4 and 6

students.

• On M253 students are not always required to meet the other members of the team face-to-face, since all collaborative work can take place remotely, online.

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Prepared by Dr. Luai Al Shalabi 3

Introduction and Overview – Cont. • The major feature of the course is its focus on practical, collaborative

work rather than private study. • There are no units associated with the course. Instead, there are written

study materials in the form of Resource Sheets, which can be downloaded from the course website.

• The Resource Sheets will help students to develop the specific skills that

they will need in order to carry out and report on the activities that they will undertake in collaboration with their team.

• Of equal importance to the Resource Sheets are three Activity Sheets

called Scenario. Within the context of the scenario, each team will be expected to complete a number of tasks.

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Introduction and Overview – Cont.

These tasks could include:• An analysis of the problem described in the

scenario.• The design, development and evaluation of a

prototype solution.• Preparation and presentation of a final report

on the team’s investigation into the scenario.

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Assessment

The course is assessed through:

• Two tutor-marked assignments (TMA1 and TMA2), both TMAs are carried 20% of the total mark (10% for each).

• MTA: 30% of the total mark• Final Exam: 50% of the total mark.

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Assessment – Cont.

• The two assignments are described in Activity Sheets, which can be downloaded from the course website.

• Students will find the first TMA in an Activity Sheet called Milestone 1 and the second TMA in an Activity Sheet called Milestone 2.

• A significant portion of each assignment is prepared as a team effort, which will spread the workload.

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Assessment – Cont.

• Each assignment will take the form of a progress report, which teams will submit to their tutors, as follows.

1- A team submission for the assignment. This will report on progress in completing the tasks and the team-work processes that the team has been engaged in. Each team will prepare and submit this part of the report as a team.

2- Short reports prepared by each individual within the team. This allows student to describe his/her own experience of working in the team and his/her reflection upon the team-working process.

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Prerequisite Knowledge

We have assumed the following.

• Students already possess study skills that they will have obtained through prior study at Level 1 or Level 2 with The Arab Open University. These skills will include reading and writing skills, and time management.

• Students are able to use a personal computer, are competent with word processing and the use of communication software such as electronic mail, and have access to the internet.

• Students have prior experience of using forums or an equivalent electronic conferencing system.

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Computing Facilities

Ensure that students have:

• regular access to a computer that meets the minimum specification for the course.

• regular access to the internet. • a web browser such as Internet Explorer.• word-processing software, for completing the

assignments.

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AOU Network Services

• In order to study M253, student will need to have access to the branch online system (LMS) and the course forum.

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The Branch Online System

• M253 uses the online system for submitting and retrieving assignments.

• The document that student submits with his/her answers to a TMA must be readable in Microsoft Word and must be able to include diagrams. Any version of Word from Word 97 onwards is suitable. Tutor will mark The TMA electronically and will use Microsoft Word to enter comments and scores.

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Course Components The course has several components, as follows.

• The Course Guide. • A Study Calendar that can be downloaded and printed. • An Expanded Study Calendar that provides a detailed summary of student

activities week by week. • Resource Sheets, which we have provided as background reading for

students to consult during the course. • Activity Sheets, which describe the major tasks that students team should

undertake during the course. • The Online Applications CD-ROM. • The course website. • A team forum and wiki.

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Activity Sheets • The course has been structured around three Activity Sheets that

describe the main practical activities on the course. They are Milestone 0, Milestone 1 and Milestone 2.

• Milestone 1 and Milestone 2 constitute formal assignments, in that each of them describes a series of tasks that must be completed by a certain date.

• Milestone 0 Activity Sheet contains a formative assignment that is designed to help students team work together at the start of the course.

• The Scenario is a case study that forms the context for Milestones 1 and 2.

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Milestones and Deliverables

• On M253 we have tended to use the terms milestone and deliverable when referring to the Activity Sheets. These terms are often used in project management. A milestone denotes a key event on a project. Key events are the completion of each of the Activity Sheets (the assignments).

• The term deliverable refers to the end products of a project or to a definable result of an intermediate stage of the project. So the documents students submit for each TMA are the deliverables that students will be producing on the course.

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Activity Sheet milestone0

• Towards the beginning of the course there is an Activity Sheet called Milestone 0.

• The activities on this Activity Sheet are not formally assessed.

• Successful completion of the activities leading up to Milestone0 provides an important underpinning for the later, assessed, deliverables. It also helps the team members get to know each other, to define and allocate the team roles and responsibilities that students will need.

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Activity Sheet Milestones 1 and 2 • Each of Milestone 1 and Milestone 2 describes a series of

activities. The deliverable that the team must produce is the team report.

• As a separate task, student must write his/her own commentary on the report.

• Each of the two Activity Sheets has two parts: one that the team completes and the other that each member in the team completes as an individual.

• These Activity Sheets are based on the Scenario Activity Sheet.

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Staged Release of Activity Sheets

• The Milestone 1 and the Scenario Activity Sheets will be made available during Study Week 4. The Milestone 2 Activity Sheet will be published during Study Week 7.

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There is more than one solution to the Activity Sheets

• The nature of the activities and their associated deliverables is such that they are purposely open to different interpretation by different teams.

• There is no one correct submission at the milestones, nor is there a single best approach to meeting the course deadlines.

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Resource Sheets

• The Resource Sheets are short documents on topics that are relevant to the course. We can think of the Resource Sheets as replacing the units or set books on other courses.

They have been written in order to: • help students with the practical work.• help students with communicating and collaborating with

the other members of the team• give students some background and context to the practical

activities that students will be undertaking. 9/9/2009


Resource Sheets – Cont.• Resource Sheets can be studied in any order and independently of

each other. So, they are not published as units. • Students should note that a Resource Sheet will not cover a topic in

great detail.

• Resource Sheets are intended to give overviews of the topic and examples of the sorts of approaches that students might consider adopting.

• Students might well find their selves consulting other books, journal articles, documents and websites that they feel are relevant to the course.

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CD-ROM

• Remind students to use the Online Applications CD-ROM and to read its associated documentation. The CD-ROM contains much of the communication software that students might wish to use.

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Course Website

• The course website is an integral part of the course and students should aim to visit it regularly. On the website students should find the following information.

• The Course Guide. • The Study Calendar. • Links to other AOU sites and systems such as online forums. • News from the course tutors. • Documents to download, including the Activity Sheets and

Resource Sheets.

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Forums

• Each team is provided with its own forum. It is important that students check this on a regular basis, since the team forum will be one of the major ways in which team members will communicate with each other. Tutor may also use it to communicate with students, and he/she will also dip into it to see how the team is progressing.

• Student will find a link to the team forum from the M253 course website. Computer Center at your branch will help you technically to generate these forums.

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Studying the Course ( For Students )

• For students, the key to successful study of M253 is to let students work efficiently and effectively to a schedule they put for themselves with some help from their tutor.

• This schedule gives students plenty of time to complete the activities described in each Activity Sheet before the deadline.

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What the Course is About

• M253 is a course on experiencing and evaluating shared decision-making (at a distance).

• Alternatively, that it is a course on carrying out a team project where the members of the team are not co-located – in other words, a distributed team.

• The Resource Sheets cover a number of topics that will help students to develop the skills and acquire the knowledge that they will need in order to study the course and complete the activities.

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Learning Outcomes • The learning outcomes for M253 describe what student should know,

understand and be able to do when student have successfully completed the course.

• Each of the Activity Sheets has some learning outcomes associated with it.

The M253 course learning outcomes are divided into four main types: • knowledge and understanding.• Cognitive skills.• key skills.• professional and practical skills. 9/9/2009


Knowledge and Understanding:

Students should have knowledge and understanding of: 1- the issues and processes that relate to the

collaborative planning and execution of a project in a distributed context;

2- the roles, functions and dynamics of the members of a collaborative project, and the different ways of organizing teams.

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Cognitive Skills

Students should have developed and demonstrated the ability to:

3- gather and analyze requirements and prepare an appropriate specification, and plan a strategy for its solution.

4 - identify components of a problem and its decomposition along the two axes of time and the problem space.

5- understand constraints and resolve dependencies between the different components of a problem.

6 - appraise the project and its organization, management, process and outcomes.

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Key Skills

Students should have developed and demonstrated ability in: 7-planning and carrying out a team project in a

distributed and remote context.8 - planning and managing their own work in conjunction

with other team members (which will develop key skills in time management and organization).

9- writing, communicating and presenting information.10- making use of appropriate software to collaborate as

a team.

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Professional and Practical Skills

You should have developed and demonstrated the ability to: 11- use appropriate communication media to

support collaboration. 12- Undertake personal, administrative and

organizational activities associated with efficient team working.

13- work effectively as a member of a team.

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Study Support -Tutorial Support

• Tutors provide support and feedback by providing feedback on the deliverables that students submit at each of Milestones 1 and 2. Their feedback after each milestone will help students think about what they are learning.

• Tutor cannot interfere with the team dynamic since students ability to work together to resolve problems is a key part of students learning experience. Tutor can act as an adviser to the team.

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Study Support - Assignment Marking

• Tutor will have responsibility for reading and assessing carefully what students have submitted. Student can expect to receive two types of feedback.

1- Student will receive team feedback on how he/she could improve the way

in which he/she is working together (if indeed improvement is necessary). This is intended to help the team to develop and become more effective.

2- Student will receive individual feedback and guidance on his/her progress, as well as the overall mark that he/she has gained for the assignment. This will be personal and confidential and it will not be shared with other members of the team.

• Students must receive their marked assignments back from tutor about two

weeks after the deadline for submitting them.

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Study Support -Team Forums

• From time to time, tutor will monitor the progress that the team is making by dipping into and reading selected messages in the team forum. Tutor will have access to the team forum but other student teams will not have access to it.

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Collaborative Working

• The emphasis of M253 is on collaborative working. • It is important to reduce the likelihood of sub-groups

forming within a team and to encourage students to work with all the other members of the team.

• People often have to work, or interact, with a wide range of other people – some of whom you might not have willingly chosen to work with. Therefore, the ability to get on with and collaborate with a wide range of people, not just your chosen circle of friends, is an important life skill.

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Time Management (Some Advices to Students)

• Good time management is important. In this course, student will be working not only with his/her own time but also with other people’s time (the team members). Therefore, it is important that students manage their own time in order that they can work well with other people.

• The course team has not written a Resource Sheet on time management. However, there are many books available on the subject, and there is a Free Management Library website, at http://www.managementhelp.org/prsn_prd/time_mng.htm, to give quite good coverage of some of the issues and techniques that people can use to help with time management.

• It is recommended to each student to create his/her own study calendar for

the length of the course and communicate this to other fellow team members if he/she expects being unable to work on the course for extended periods.

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Project Log

• Feedback from a trial run of this course showed that people who felt it unnecessary to keep a project log usually regretted it later! So we strongly recommend that students use a project log to keep a personal record of their progress on this course.

• Students may note down their ideas, observations, activities and what they have found out.

• We expect students to include extracts from their project log in the various documents that they submit as part of the course assessment.

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References

ebook_m253_courseguide(08E)_e2i1_web984371_l1.pdf.

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Thank You for Your Attendance

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