Communication for CIDUI International Conference - http://cidui.upc.edu (5-7 July 2006), Barcelona


"Writing documents collaboratively in Higher education using Traditional vs. Wiki methodology (II): QUANTITATIVE results from a 2-year project study"

Xavier de Pedro * (1, xavier.depedro@ub.edu), Maria Rieradevall (1, mrieradevall@ub.edu), Pilar López (1, marilopez@ub.edu), Dolors Sant (2, dsant@ub.edu), Josep Piñol (3, josep.pinol@uab.es), Lluïsa Núñez (4, 5, lluisanunez@ub.edu), Miquel Llobera (6, millobera@ub.edu)

(* corresponding author)
(1) Dept. d'Ecologia, University of Barcelona (UB). Avda. Diagonal 645, 08028 Barcelona
(2) Dept. de Fisiologia Vegetal (UB). Avda. Diagonal 645, 08028 Barcelona
(3) Dept. de Biologia Animal, Biologia Vegetal i Ecologia, Autonomous University of Barcelona. Edifici C (Campus UAB). 08193 Bellaterra
(4) Dept. de Biblioteconomia i Documentació (UB). C/ Melcior de Palau 140. 08014 Barcelona
(5) Aplicacions, Àrea de Tecnologies (UB). C/ Melcior de Palau 140. 08014 Barcelona
(6) Dept. de Bioquímica i Biologia Molecular (UB). Avda. Diagonal 645, 08028 Barcelona

Group collaboration, Wiki, Cooperative learning.

(up to approximately 200 words)

If the first part of the results from the recent projects in innovation teaching using Wiki methodology for doing group assignments in university degrees showed the qualitative results (De Pedro et al. 2006), this second part focuses more on the quantitative results. Data came from three sources: (a) individual surveys to students using either Traditional or Wiki methodology, including closed questions (1 to 5), (b) a table where they auto-recorded the time invested per week and per type of tasks to complete the group assignment, and (c) their academic marks in the group assignments, evaluated with common criteria for both methodologies. Conclusions from the results obtained stated four main ideas: (1) Wiki methodology in big groups - 15 students - showed a clear enhancement in quality (higher marks) with less overall time devoted to finish the work; (2) Results for smaller groups were not clear, and performance using Wiki methodology seemed to depend on other factors; (3) an "editor in chief" is very important and needed for higher final quality of the work produced, regardless of methodology followed, even if this task was apparently facilitated by Wiki methodology; and (4) students using Wiki methodology devoted less time than the ones using traditional methodology in the items: "writing the work", "exchanging files and other material", and in some cases, in "structuring" and "homogenisation of the style, markup, and content" of the work, as well as in "meetings in person".

i. Objectives

The next implantation of European credits system ECTS entails a trend to incorporate autonomous and guided work from students, linked to semipresentiality (blended learning) in teaching of university degrees (Colás, 2005). The realisation of group assignments requires from a good organisation of their members to be efficient on putting the information of the work in common, to argue and to solve doubts, to elaborate summaries... At present, there are not many accessible tools to enhance this kind of interaction among students or among teaching staff when they have difficulties to meet in person as frequently as desired. And many of the computer tools that exist and might be used aren't either localized to our language, or they are just proprietary software (regardless of the price you'd have to pay to get them), which does mean (or may very well mean in the mid run), among other issues, that it would be too expensive to use and improve to the budget of the public educative centers.

And beyond the specific computer tools to be used, new methodologies of group work are needed to enhance the "cooperative learning" (Johnson & Johnson 1986), and to promote cooperation more than simple competition while doing assessments.

Thus, our main goal was to test ways to improve the efficiency of students making group work (in fact, cooperative learning), diminishing the ratio of number of hours dedicated respect to the final quality assessed in that group work.

We also aimed to improve the quality of tutorship while the evolution of the group assignments from blended-learning activities.

In this first communication, we focus on the qualitative data collected from surveys to students where they could comment in free open fields whatever they thought or felt about their process while completing the requested group assignments. In a further communication (De Pedro et al. 2006) we focus more on the quantitative aspects of their results while performing those group assignments.

ii. Description of the work

Introduction

This experience is framed within the two projects (totally within the first, already finished, and partly with the second, still in active development) entitled:

1. "Design, implementation and evaluation of experiences of collaborative work in teaching experimental sciences"
   ("Disseny, implementació i avaluació d'experiències de treball col·laboratiu en la docència d'assignatures de ciències experimentals", AGAUR, Ref.: 2003 MQD 00167, also known as "UniWiki Project" - http://uniwiki.ourproject.org ; already finished).
   .
2. "Analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of the use of Wikis to improve the quality of the evaluation and tutorship of the blended learning and teaching"
   ("Anàlisi dels avantatges i inconvenients de l'ús de Wikis per millorar la qualitat de l'avaluació i tutoria de l'ensenyament i aprenentatge semipresencial"; ICE-UB, Ref.: REDICE04, also known as "UniWiki-Redice Project" - http://uniwiki.ourproject.org/REDICE0406 ; still under development)

New tools of collaborative work have been experimented in these projects (De Pedro 2004), with several subjects and degrees, mainly from experimental sciences (Table 1). The degree of adequacy of the new tools and methodologies employed to writing up documents in group has been evaluated later on (De Pedro et al., 2005a), in order to improve the performance and yield of the students that they have used them, with respect to those that have used traditional methodology, considering many factors that may affect them while learning at university (Figure 1).



After a pilot experience, TikiWiki CMS/Groupware collaborative portal web site (http://tikiwiki.org) was chosen as the main environment to enhance asynchronous communication and cooperative learning among students, as well as the basic environment of work for lecturers (Figure 2). Some courses were offered for training students on the tools and methodologies used, but unluckily only a few students joined them from the ones that would participate in the subjects later on. On the other hand, other students joined also the courses, and they were highly satisfied with them, according to the Students' Evaluation of Educational Quality (SEEQ) survey they had to fill at the end of each one of them.



In this communication, qualitative results from the cited projects are shown, whereas most of the quantitative results are shown in another communication (De Pedro et al. 2006).

Methodology

In the experience reported here, Wiki methodology was tested compared to traditional methodology (see below). A Wiki (Cunningham, 1998), in brief, is a simple tool that allows writing documents in web pages, easily editable by anyone of the group just with a simple web browser, plus it keeps a history of versions from the document, and it allows easy markup and access control. Wikis have been introduced in teaching and learning scenarios fairly recently (Schneider 2004, Prendes 2006).

Big and small groups of pupils have been used, in subjects of 1st and 2nd cycle, of several university degrees, and with several types of collaborative writing assignments or works (Table 1). In total, they have participated in the experience (in either way) more than 230 pupils, 10 teachers, 10 subjects among the first and second period of four months of the year and among the 5 different university degrees being implied, of two universities and an ascribed centre.

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Opinion from lecturers was collected through meetings in person, and opinions from students was collected through individual surveys, which included closed questions (answers ranging from 1 to 5) and empty spaces every several questions to allow extra comments. Students had to hand in the answered surveys to their teachers at the end of the term inside a closed envelope labeled with their name on it, and they were not opened until the grading of the group work was completely finished.

iii. Results and Conclusions

Results

Lecturers

The opinion from the teaching staff about the advantages and disadvantages of the Wiki methodology compared to the traditional is summarised in Table 2.

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In first cycle students (for example, “Functional Ecology”-ECOFUN, “Health and Environment”-SIMA), we have detected that:

• They have difficulties to organize themselves in work groups.
• They have difficulties to synthesize the information, since it is easier for them including information from digital sources than adapting it to their context and synthesizing the sometimes too long texts.
• First cycle students learn quicker and accept better the new methodology than those of the second cycle, even if this varies among degrees.

On the contrary, in second cycle students (for example, “Evaluation of Environmental Impact”-AIA, “Applied Ecology-UB”-EAUB, “Applied Vegetable Physiology”-FVA), we have detected that:

• In general, they can organize themselves much better than first cycle students and they have previous experience in working in teams (distributing work, assuming roles inside the team and taking profit more efficiently of the effort and time invested).
• Many of the teams have not been of new formation but the members already knew each other and had collaborated or are collaborating in other assignments or subjects of the degree
• They are people with resources that tend to know already how to 'move' themselves at university and use the available resources quite efficiently
• Depending on the details of size and type of assignment for work groups, the Wiki methodology has been little or very accepted:
  • In some cases, the grade of acceptance of the Wiki methodology has been very low (subject FVA) partly attributable to the fact that they are in their last year of the degree (their priority is to finish, they take many subjects in some cases, and they don't have time to learn novel methodologies, especially if they have other tools that they manage well enough, even if they lack some of the needed features for group work that Wiki technology includes)
  • In other cases of subjects in last course, they found positive and negative aspects (subject “Applied Ecology, Environmental Sciences, UAB” - EAUAB). In the positive part resides the facility of distance interaction among them and the fact that, at all times, there is only one “good” copy of the document. It is also positive the fact that the students manage to learn the new technology with little training and information (expressly) given by their lecturer, since their handling of the Web technologies seemed enough for this type of applications. In the negative part resides the fact that they were not too used the Web environment of work, and that the final format for the document was not Web format but paper format.
  • Nevertheless, in the case of “Evaluation of Environmental Impact”-AIA, of third course, the students have accepted very well the new Wiki methodology, since for the type of work that they had to do and for the big size of the work groups (15 persons), they were foreseeing that it would facilitate very much the work to them. This way, Wiki has meant a tool and methodology very well valued by students for the comments in class at the end of the course (from both those who could use it, and also from those who had to use the traditional methodology).

Lecturers have the impression that if students could have work at an standard Office software environment (either Microsoft or OpenOffice, for example) which could work agile and quick enough for the group work, the success had been much more important. However, the speed of using standard office documents combined with Web folders (Webdav protocol) was not good enough for students nor lecturers, after a pilot experience that was deployed at the early stages of UniWiki project, besides many other handicaps for the web office methodology use in educational scenarios with the current development of technologies (De Pedro 2005a).

Students

On the student side, there where a total of 229 surveys and 223 self-recording tables collected of invested time (divided in methodologies and subjects in Table 3).

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A count of the extra comments voluntarily written by the students in their surveys in the blank fields is shown in Table 4, classified by type of methodology and feeling.

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The extra comments voluntarily written by the students in their surveys in the blank fields (Table 4) show that, the students value very positively the collaborative writing methodology based on Wiki because:

• it allows them cooperating without travelling to meet,
• it allows them observing the development of their mates' work,
• it is a dynamic communication tool,

Some of them point out their interest in knowing new tools or the security to have their data on the Internet, (apparently) "free from accidents or viruses".

The negative valuation of Wiki methodology, usually comes from connecting problems to Internet o from the lack of time to learn the specific Wiki markup. Most of the negative valuations correspond to problems in organisation: too big or disperse groups, or work organised inadequately. A group declared that they lacked time to deepen at the same time in the three activities:

1. the writing work itself
2. learning the methodology of working in group
3. learning the Wiki technology

In order to illustrate some precise examples, three literal comments are shown of each type below, among the total number of those comments collected

Three examples of POSITIVE comments expressed after working with the WIKI methodology

1. "The time that you devote to it is minor than if it was traditional methodology and can be coordinated with many more people"
2. "It has not been necessary to meet out of the university since we could make it through the wiki"
3. "In FVA I do not use the Wiki because my colleague of work is not very in favor, so we let it be. Anyway, I have to say that the idea is very good, I think that for the works in group (especially when they are mass groups, of 4 people, for instance, I mean) it is a great thing. I always thought, and here the question is already personal, that four persons in front of a computer, once everybody successfully get to meet a day (one of the most usual handicaps ), it is very little productive. I find it more "efficient" if we create general ideas when we meet in person, and then being able afterwards to work each one at his/her home. The fact of sharing files and seeing what the others have been changing is perfect, and if we add up that the forum already goes very well for the hourly incompatibilities of the members of the group, then we have a good combination."

Three examples of NEGATIVE comments expressed after working with the WIKI methodology

1. "I believe that working with the Wiki can serve to facilitate the exchange of information but that it is necessary that the people of the group meet in person to argue how to do it..."
2. "I have lost a lot of time on reworking lost texts (6 or 7 occasions), suffering because you cannot make a backup while you work"
3. "I think that the Wiki can only be useful if all the members of the group have daily access to Internet and the habit of using it"

Three examples of POSITIVE comments expressed after working with the TRADITIONAL methodology

1. "I have not had any problem to communicate with the members of the group since that we are together in the class and taking profit of the same spare hours is very helpful"
2. "I think that the meetings in person improve the work much more, they are an enrichment for the person"
3. "All the possible doubts that we have had, have been able to ask directly to the teacher and this is also well"

Three examples of NEGATIVE comments expressed after working with the TRADITIONAL methodology

1. "I think that we were too many people and that we have not been enough identified among ourselves. Perhaps it is that I am not used to make works in big groups"
2. "Too big working group, so that it is very difficult to be able to meet altogether or even simply a representative of each group"
3. "Difficulty in organizing the work, lack of spirit of group"

“Good practices for Wiki methodology” proposal

The methodology for writing documents collaboratively and cooperative learning based on Wiki (“Wiki methodology”) comprises two aspects to allow sharing information, and following changes with an always ready available copy of your merged version (or any previous version, if needed):
(1)a Wiki-like philosophy or conception of the way of working (what e called "Wiki philosophy", from now onwards), as well as
(2)a Wiki-like computer technology ("Wiki technology", according to definition and initial prototype of Wiki from Ward Cunningham, 1995).

The "Wiki philosophy" means that:

1. . people need to lose the fear of that the other people see the non-finished working documents of everyone, and that they could contribute changes. Every person allows that his document of work should be read and modified by other persons of his/her group of work, along the whole process of writing
2. . people is encouraged to participate with their colleagues work (making a proposal of changes already modifying the other person's document), at any time and at any part.

The "Wiki technology" allows that:

1. it is possible to apply the most common markup to a document in a simple and quick way (here it comes its name, since “Wiki-Wiki” means “quick”, in Hawaiian language), without having to raise the hands of the keyboard
2. any person could see and/or modify the information of the document. Permissions can be granted easily for documents and groups of users, so that many scenarios of collaborative work can be configured
3. it is possible to get notice by e-mail (or RSS feed syndication) when someone comments or does changes on a page of the document, emphasizing first the specific changes made to the previous version
4. changes introduced between any pair of versions of a document can be easily visualized later on
5. content that has been modified or erased (by oneself of by other people) can be recovered, if needed

Thus, a "Good practices with Wiki methodology" proposal can be suggested, after the experience acquired in UniWiki project, including 3 generic plus 7 more TikiWiki-related items (even if other similar Internet platforms, such as Mediawiki, dfWiki, eWiki, etc, would need similar procedures to perform these common tasks when editing documents through “Wiki methodology”):

1. It is convenient to prevent students from aiming to define the structure of his work through telematic means (forums, Wiki, e-mail). It is necessary to define concisely an initial structure of the work. This can be due to teachers suggest an initial concise structure to start working as well as help distributing tasks and tentative work calendar, or due to students define it in meetings in person in front of a blackboard, or similar.
   
   
2. Big work groups need Wiki technology Wiki. Some groups of 4 people each have taken profit out of Wiki methodology, but others have not. Work groups from 8 people onwards did take profit of Wiki methodology indeed (Functional Ecology'05, Evaluation of Environmental Impact'05; De Pedro et al. 2006).
   
   
3. Initial structure of the document can be modified or even lost as time passes, and redundancies of information can appear, etc. There is needed periodic work of restructuring and synthesizing of the introduced information. It can be thought (a priori) that any person might take part in this task, but the experience in this project has indicated that the figure of “Editor in chief” for the joint work is crucial.
   
   Then, some additional recommendations can be given (more Tiki-related, in this case):
   
   
4. It's advisable to define a structure of pages Wiki (book-like collection of Wiki pages, with the featured named "Structures" in Tiki).
   
   • Make single Wiki pages to be as small and divided in sub-pages as possible, in order to avoid the attempts of simultaneous editions of the same content (remember that, up to present date, no Wiki engine can cope with merging the changes from simultaneous edits of the same page; a “Concurrent Versions System” -like tool would be needed instead). In case of attempt of simultaneous edition of Wiki pages of TikiSheets?, Tiki would warn the user that another using is editing this content before him/her, and haven't saved or canceled edition yet.
   
   
5. In case of small tables, include them directly in the text with the proper Wiki format, so that these tables are created and will be editable directly within the body of the Wiki page.
   
   
6. In case of big tables, on the other hand, include them through the “wysiwyg” tables that are included in the Spreadsheets feature in Tiki starting in 1.9 version onwards (http://doc.tikiwiki.org/Spreadsheet - also known as TikiSheets)
   
   
7. In order to include graphs:
   
   1. In case of common graphs (pie chart, multi-line, multi-bar, stacked bars), TikiSheet? feature can generate graphics (figures) directly from the web spreadsheet in Tiki, and you can dynamically include them inside Wiki pages (changes in spreadsheet data will automatically update the figures shown in Wiki pages).
   2. In case of need of more complex or different graphs inside Wiki pages:
      Generate them with your favorite software (there are very nice free software tools to create them), and you need to convert them to bitmap images (like photos; formats *.jpg, *.png, or *.gif), either by exporting the graph as such through your software, or by taking a computer screenshot when the image is viewed and cropping it to your needs (different procedures depending on the operating system in the computer). Once the image is in the hard drive, then select it and press “Upload picture” from within the Wiki page edit form.
      In order to include many graphs generated from external software programs, an easy procedure to convert all of them from graphs in OpenOffice Calc or MS Excel (for instance), into single images on disk could be to save the spreadsheet as html - Web page. Image files should be either in the same directory as the generated html file, or in a folder of the same name as the html file, depending on the program). Then they can be uploaded as images or photos to the Wiki page as previously described.
   
   
8. The powerful “Category system” in Tiki can be used if some dynamic information and coordination is desired regarding the pages that are in on-going process, or just need to be polished, spell checked, improved markup, etc. (or already finished). Even if this would require some more training from students since they may not be used to categorizing content (web or desktop content). Each single object in Tiki can be categorized into one or many of the defined categories (http://doc.tikiwiki.org/Categories).
   
   
9. Once the edition of all the pages is finished, it is possible to export (“print” in Tiki language) at once the whole structure of Wiki pages in html. This can be done with the option "Wiki > Print", in the main menu, through selecting the “structure” of pages to print. This would be the equivalent procedure of working with a master document and sub-documents with standard Office software programs.
   
   • Saving as web page on hard disk from Internet browser is needed again, selecting as “Full Web page” (or similar option, depending on the browser).
   • Then a conversion of the html document on hard disk to common office document format is needed. From OpenOffice (OOo) , an extra step is needed and thus it will be explained here to illustrate a possible procedure. Open the html document with OOo (everything will be inside a single-cell long table). Select the whole content from inside the single cell of the table (the full contents of your document), copy it and paste it into a new (blank) OOo Writer document. Save this new document as text document (either ".sxw" or ".odt"). Then you can already edit the document as wished in that Office suite with normality (modifying styles and formats if needed, including a paginated initial index, header and footer, numbers of pages, etc.).
   
   
10. Before printing the final version in paper, the tasks from the " Editor-in-chief " figure/s are very recommended, as previously reported:
    
    • synthesizing ideas,
    • deleting repetitions,
    • unifying styles and markup (that will be the minimum, thanks to the unified ".css" stylesheet employed by web portals such as Tiki does)
    • improving the spelling and grammar of the text. A good dictionary (online or paper) and standard office spell check tools may help the editor in chief for this final review, specially when the most of the students didn't pay attention to this issues. Some help to reduce duty load at the end for the editor in chief, would be to promote single users to take care of it, and to use spell checking online tools while still editing through the web forms in the Wiki. These could be, for instance, the “Konqueror” Web browser for spell checking almost any language at real time while writing, for GNU/Linux, or also recently through the “Google toolbar” for any operating system, in case your language is supported.
    • make a copy of the document in ".pdf" (there are nice free software tools which produce them, such as OpenOffice, PdfCreator, for instance.
    
    

    Conclusions

    • Teaching staff stated positive items of Wiki methodology (easiness and speed of access, version control, registry of who, when and what changed in each document, ...), even if some minor disadvantages were also noted.
    
    
    • Students from all subjects using Wiki methodology showed in surveys less negative comments regarding the difficulties of the methodology to accomplish the group work, than students with traditional methodology
    
    
    • Letting others to see or modify your work is worth, even when it's not finished and you fear that others read your "work in progress" which may be messy or with important gaps.
    
    
    • The role of "Editor in chief" is very important and needed for higher final quality of the work produced, regardless of methodology followed. This task is apparently facilitated by Wiki methodology.
    
    
    • If some "good practice" recommendations are taken into account, there is a higher possibility that wiki methodology increases the efficency of writting documents cooperatively, respect to traditional methodology.
    
    

    Acknowledgements

    1. AGAUR-DURSI, Authonomous Government of Catalonia (2004 - 2005): Ref. 2003MQD00167
    2. UB-REDICE (2005-2006)
    3. Ourproject.org server and admin Vicente (vjrj)
    4. Library of Biology Faculty (UB)
    5. Tikiwiki.org community, and Sylvie Greverend in special, for her kind and highly skilled technical support with coding and debugging features used by UniWiki project.
    
    
    

    iv. Bibliography

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    • Cunningham, W., 1998. "The wiki wiki web. WWW". http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiWikiWeb (15 de setembre de 2004).
    
    
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    • De Pedro, X., 2005a. "Comparació de mètodes de redacció col·laborativa en la docència i aprenentatge", at Aplicacions educatives lliures i innovadores de les TIC: recursos i experiències, Associació Espiral, Educació i Tecnologia, Barcelona. ISBN: 84-609-5733-0. (document: http://uniwiki.ourproject.org/dl73 )
    
    
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    Notes from the journal

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Communication for CIDUI International Conference - http://cidui.upc.edu (5-7 July 2006), Barcelona ( pdf - 1.08 Mb | Wiki-slides)

"Writing documents collaboratively in Higher education using Traditional vs. Wiki methodology (II): QUANTITATIVE results from a 2-year project study"

Xavier de Pedro * (1, xavier.depedro@ub.edu), Maria Rieradevall (1, mrieradevall@ub.edu), Pilar López (1, marilopez@ub.edu), Dolors Sant (2, dsant@ub.edu), Josep Piñol (3, josep.pinol@uab.es), Lluïsa Núñez (4, 5, lluisanunez@ub.edu), Miquel Llobera (6, millobera@ub.edu)

(* corresponding author)
(1) Dept. d'Ecologia, University of Barcelona (UB). Avda. Diagonal 645, 08028 Barcelona
(2) Dept. de Fisiologia Vegetal (UB). Avda. Diagonal 645, 08028 Barcelona
(3) Dept. de Biologia Animal, Biologia Vegetal i Ecologia, Autonomous University of Barcelona. Edifici C (Campus UAB). 08193 Bellaterra
(4) Dept. de Biblioteconomia i Documentació (UB). C/ Melcior de Palau 140. 08014 Barcelona
(5) Aplicacions, Àrea de Tecnologies (UB). C/ Melcior de Palau 140. 08014 Barcelona
(6) Dept. de Bioquímica i Biologia Molecular (UB). Avda. Diagonal 645, 08028 Barcelona

Group collaboration, Wiki, Cooperative learning.

(up to approximately 200 words)

If the first part of the results from the recent projects in innovation teaching using Wiki methodology for doing group assignments in university degrees showed the qualitative results (De Pedro et al. 2006), this second part focuses more on the quantitative results. Data came from three sources: (a) individual surveys to students using either Traditional or Wiki methodology, including closed questions (1 to 5), (b) a table where they auto-recorded the time invested per week and per type of tasks to complete the group assignment, and (c) their academic marks in the group assignments, evaluated with common criteria for both methodologies. Conclusions from the results obtained stated four main ideas: (1) Wiki methodology in big groups - 15 students - showed a clear enhancement in quality (higher marks) with less overall time devoted to finish the work; (2) Results for smaller groups were not clear, and performance using Wiki methodology seemed to depend on other factors; (3) an "editor in chief" is very important and needed for higher final quality of the work produced, regardless of methodology followed, even if this task was apparently facilitated by Wiki methodology; and (4) students using Wiki methodology devoted less time than the ones using traditional methodology in the items: "writing the work", "exchanging files and other material", and in some cases, in "structuring" and "homogenization of the style, markup, and content" of the work, as well as in "meetings in person".

i. Objectives

This communication is the second part of the one entitled "Writing documents collaboratively in Higher education using Traditional vs. Wiki methodology (I): QUALITATIVE results from a 2-year project study" (from now onwards, called as “the first part”, De Pedro et al. 2006). This one focuses more on the quantitative results obtained in the frame of the two projects cited there (UniWiki – 2003MQD00167, and UniWiki-Redice 2005ICE-UB).

We wanted to know if Wiki methodology reduced the need to use some other ways of distant communication, if it reduced typical organizational problems at doing group assignments, if students obtained better yield of the time invested, and also the degree of satisfaction that students obtained using each methodology. Moreover, we wanted to know if Wiki methodology allowed reducing the time invested onto some tasks commonly needed to complete the group work.

ii. Description of the work

Introduction

The results shown here are framed within the same context as reported in the previous communication (De Pedro et al. 2006).

Several TikiWiki sites were configured (Figure 1), one for each subject participating in the UniWiki project, to allow single cooperative virtual communities for each subject (one per subject , Table 1).



Each TikiWiki collaborative portal site was later on manually configured to host different work groups, since AulaWiki module to automatically allow and configure work spaces was not yet developed by then (De Pedro & Reyes 2006). Each work group had manually created by the teacher their own private forum, file galleries, Wiki pages, ... as many TikiWiki resources, and as private or public as needed for the specific case of configuration needed for each subject.

Methodology

We defined in “the first part” what we called Traditional methodology and Wiki methodology (De Pedro et al., 2006), and we use the same terminology here.

Permission denied

Data shown here (Table 2) were collected through individual surveys (Annex 1) with closed questions (answers ranging from 1 to 5), plus individual sheet per student containing a table to allow them to record the time they invested to fulfill their tasks in the group work ("self-recording table", from now onwards; Annex 2). Students had to hand in the sheets to their teachers at the end of the term inside a closed envelope labeled with their name on it, and they were not opened until the grading of the group work was completely finished.

Permission denied

The last set of data came from the academic marks they obtained from the grading of their group work, which was performed without taking into account the type of methodology deployed by students (same criteria for grading the final document made in group through any of the two methodologies).

iii. Results and Conclusions

Results

There where a total of 229 surveys and 223 self-recording tables collected (divided in methodologies and subjects in Table 1 in the accompanying communication; De Pedro, 2006).

Among the items answered in the collected surveys, some results are shown specifically for the subject "Evaluation of Environmental Impact, course 2004-2005" ("AIA 0405") in detail, from which the more extensive and balanced data-set was gathered (circa 30 students with Traditional methodology versus circa 30 with Wiki methodology).

Methodological issues:

Students with Wiki methodology did not use as much the more common ways of communication (phone, chat or instant messaging, e-mail) and of exchange of documents (floppies, USB-drives, ...), but they employed more the Wiki technology. Moreover, meetings in person were reduced in the groups of students that followed Wiki methodology.

Organizational issues

In general, first-cycle students showed less difficulties to hold meetings during the week than those of second cycle. This is totally justifiable due to the bigger dispersion in subjects of last-years students, in spite of the case that subject was compulsory or optional in the degree.
The difficulties of internal organization inside groups were very heterogeneous, and they did not seem to be tied to the work methodology but more to the characteristics of each group of students.

Marks and time yield

In very big work groups (AIA, 15 students for group) there is a clear advantage in the yield of the time invested for the students that worked using Wiki methodology respect to the ones using Traditional, with more frequent occurrence of high marks, for the same or less time invested (Figure 2).



In smaller groups (2-4 pupils for group, generally), where it is not essential to use special methodologies of work in group, there are not evident differences, and the success in the use of the tool might be more related with other factors:

• students were appropriately motivated by teachers
• students controlled, previously to their use in class for production, the functioning of the new tool that they were going to use. This would imply that all students would have joined necessarily some suitable specific guided formation on the Wiki methodology, and on the correct use of the Wiki technology
• students had difficulties to meet in person (all the members of the work group), with as much frequency that they felt it was necessary for them
• students didn't refine at the end the writing, markup, grammar and spell checking, removing duplicities of information, synthesizing again, if needed, etc.

Student satisfaction

There are some differences in the perception of the satisfaction about the method between the pupils of first cycle and those of second cycle. On the one hand, students of first cycle compulsory subjects, if they can meet every day in class and that are more usual to the multimedia technologies (Functional Ecology), then they need more tutelage and direction of the work, and they do not seem to appreciate the advantages of the methodology so much. The students of optional subjects of the first cycle that can not meet every day in class (because most of them work besides studying, as it happens in SIMA "Health and Environment" from Nursery degree), they do appraise it indeed more positively than with the traditional method.

Students of second cycle feel satisfied and recognize the advantages of the Wiki methodology, especially regarding the subject AIA and EAUB. In some specific cases, however, they did not use the tool due to technological handicaps and because they were not used to this methodology of work.

"AIA 0405" specific case study
Students that used Wiki methodology showed a higher satisfaction degree for the tool than the students that didn't use it but knew about it because their colleagues told them the details (Figure 3), and they showed a little less satisfaction regarding the Internet connection (Figure 4). This could imply that even if some colleagues tell a student about some advantages and satisfaction using Wiki methodology, they only become satisfied with it when they try it themselves and have a good experience with it (and not just due to comments from the teacher or their colleagues about it).

Figure 3. Satisfaction of students about Wiki methodology. Case of subject "AIA 0405

Figure 4. Satisfaction of students regarding the Internet connection. Case of subject "AIA 0405

Students that worked with Wiki thought the the methodology they used served them to increase their final quality in the work and document, and the ones who used traditional methodology didn't think that their work methodology helped them as much as their colleagues with Wiki methodology thought (Figure 5).

Likewise, all students thought that Wiki methodology facilitated that they could interact with the parts of the document led by other members of the work group, and that the other ones could interact with theirs. This can be deduced from that students with Wiki methodology had the feeling that it allowed them to improve their interaction (Figure 6), and the others declared that traditional methodology, with which they worked, didn't facilitate this expected (and pursued by lecturers as a goal from the subject objectives) interaction among students.

Figure 5. Perception from students that the methodology they used improved final quality of the work. Case of subject "AIA 0405"

Figure 6. Perception from students that the methodology they used improved interaction among the members of the work group. Case of subject "AIA 0405"

Time invested by items

It could be analyzed only in four subjects (AIA-0304, AIA-0405, EAUB and SIMA). Some of the items were specific of each subject and their comparison has no real meaning in practice for all subjects, since the survey, common to all, contained questions about items that were not used at all in some subjects, but were in others.

Thus, we highlight (in bold) some items out of the 16 proposed (Annex 2), due to its interest for the global comparison:

• T1 = Choosing the topic
• T2 = Searching information
• T3 = Structuring the document information,
• T4 = Writing of the work,
• T5 = Including images in the document
• T6 = Process of giving homogeneity to style and content,
• T7 = Final markup to the document, in web page
• T8 = Final markup of the document, in paper,
• T9 = Preparing oral presentation
• T10 = Exchange of files and materials,
• T11 = visits-interviews with topic experts
• T12 = Journeys,
• T13 = Tutorship in person with teacher/s
• T14 = Tutorship by telematic means with teacher/s
• T15 = Meetings in person of the members of the group, and
• T16 = Telematic communication among the members of the group: phone, wiki, e-mail, chat, etc.

The time devoted to structuring the work (item T3) is not necessarily inferior using Wiki methodology respect to traditional methodology, even though there was an exception (AIA 0405).

The time devoted to writing the work (item T4) has been inferior with Wiki methodology. This is a positive result of support to the Wiki tool and methodology.

Another aspect that we wanted to explore was if the Wiki methodology favored the process of giving homogeneity to the markup, style and content of the work (item T6). Students from AIA and SIMA subjects that worked with Wiki methodology dedicated less time to giving homogeneity than those with traditional methodology, except for the EAUB subject, having in all cases similar presentation quality. It remains unclear if these differences in results are only a consequence of the type of methodology or a consequence of the different interest and commitment of each working group in the matter of work.

In all experiences, Wiki methodology saved, in average for the whole group, about 50% of the time invested on final markup of the work (item T8), compared to students working with traditional methodology. But the teaching staff felt that the single students that made this markup did not have to invest less time through Wiki methodology than the ones with traditional methodology. Suitable data was not collected to verify this hypothesis.

In general, Wiki methodology enables a time saving in the exchange of files and materials (item T10) of about 50%.

Regarding the time dedicated to journeys (T12), even though it seemed that the Wiki methodology saved time in general, results were not conclusive since the time for journeys was tied to the specific characteristics of each work (there were works where longer journeys were required for interviewing experts, and on this matter, Wiki methodology was not able to bring savings).

The time devoted to meetings in person (T15) was in global reduced with Wiki methodology in a clear way, even though in a single case the results were inverted (EAUB).

"AIA 0405" specific case study

On the one hand, students that used Wiki methodology invested less time in (Figure 7):

• choosing the topic (item 1 or T1),
• structuring the document information (T3),
• homogenization of the single discourse of the document (T6),
• exchange of files and other material (T10), and
• meeting in person of the work group members (T15).

On the other hand, Wiki methodology meant a major inversion in time, respect to traditional methodology, in:

• including images in the document (T5, although there were very little students that included images in the document, in both work methodologies).
  This result was expected since we there was a misconfiguration of TikiWiki in our specific hosting provider, which was solved long ago, but after the experiences were carried with students in the framework of the project reported here (course 2004-2005). By then, students had to upload images not directly to the single page were they were going to use them (as explained in De Pedro 2006, which is probably less time consuming than including them in MS Word documents), but they had to upload them to "Image Galleries" feature, search them there, copy their link, and go back to the text document to include them there by manually adding some wiki code to reference that image in that position. This longer and more manual process obviously meant longer times to include images, and also some disagreement from students (and teachers), of course, which had to learn the process to include them in the wiki page already. Many students didn't include images in the wiki pages, but waited to have the final OOo Writer or MS Word document to include them there, at that final stage of the group work, just before printing it in paper.

Tutorship (T13, T14) is not commented here but in a next section (below).

Tutorship

Students who had worked with Wiki methodology invested more hours of tutorship in person in all cases with data ("AIA0405" and "SIMA"; both with the same teacher) than their colleagues with traditional methodology. They had to do some extra meetings inside class hours for showing them the basic functioning of the Wiki technology and solving doubts, since only between 5 % and 10 % of the those students had done the specific extra course (convertible as "free choice" credits) on Wiki technology offered. Looking at data from these specific students who attended the extra course, the time they invested in tutorship in person was much lower than the average (data not shown).

"AIA 0405" specific case study
Time dedicated to tutorship in person was higher in students with Wiki methodology (Figure 8), whereas it was the opposite when tutorship was requested through telematic means (e-mail. forums, internal Tiki messaging, etc.) was much lower in students with Wiki methodology than in those who used Traditional methodology, for the most relevant case ("AIA 0405"), where students knew already e-mail, web browsing, searching information in computers, etc (Figure 9).

The different tutorship in person might be referred to their biggest need to consult the teacher the topics what are bring written in the Wiki or discussed in the electronic forums of the subject. Whereas students from traditional methodology would already speak more in person among the different members of their work group, and therefore, they would need less to go to the teacher to consult basic things.

On the other hand, the pupils who worked with Wiki methodology would have needed less time of tutorship through telematic means, since the Wiki would already allow to ask, to comment or even to discuss them all about specific things of their work or document without having to meet in person.

Figure 8. Time invested in "in person" tutorship. Case of subject "AIA 0405"

Figure 9. Time invested in tutorship through telematic means. Case of subject "AIA 045"

Not all students who worked with Wiki methodology were satisfied with the contributed support by their teacher to do the work (in the frame of the assignment in the practical classes of AIA subject), whereas those who used the Traditional methodology they did remained very satisfied (Figure 10). It can be deduced from here that, being the tasks and intended support from the teacher the same towards all groups of students (regardless of the work methodology they used), the difference had to be specifically on the work methodology based on Wiki. It has to be stated, also, that only four out of 31 students who used the Wiki joined previously the extraordinary course of 10 hours (convertible as "free choice" credits) on collaborative writing using Wiki. The rest received little more than two hours of formation / training in Wiki usage, distributed along the first two meetings in person with students within the practical classes of Evaluation of Environmental Impact. This way, it would be expected as logical that students who worked with Wiki methodology should remain with the sensation that it would have been more necessary for them to have had increased methodological support (because the support about the specific content from AIA subject was them same for all groups of students).



Consequently, it becomes important that fact that, students who have to use Wiki methodology, could previously receive a specific course to get used to Wiki methodology (no only to Wiki technology) through a slow, gradual and comfortable way. This way, they will be able to extract the maximum profit out of their work with the minimum disorientation due to the collaborative work methodology based on Wiki, whenever they have to use it at production level in real situations (other subjects at university or in their professional jobs out of university later on).

Conclusions

• Wiki methodology in big groups (15 students) showed a clear enhancement in quality (higher marks) with less overall time devoted to finish the work.

• Results for smaller groups were not clear, and performance using Wiki methodology seems to depend on other factors, which might vary among:
  • previous training using the Wiki technology,
  • motivation of the teacher to convince the students to give the new methodology a try
  • difficulties to attend meeting in person to discuss or write together the document.

• Students using Wiki methodology devoted less time than the ones using traditional methodology in the items: "writing the work", "exchanging files and other material", and in some cases, in "structuring" and "homogenisation of the style, markup, and content" of the work, as well as in "meetings in person".

• Students using Wiki methodology were more satisfied with the methodology for writing documents collaboratively than the ones with traditional methodology. those results came from the subject where bigger and more balanced data sets could be gathered to analyze answers from their surveys (AIA 0405).

• It is important that students who have to use Wiki methodology could previously receive a specific course to get used to Wiki methodology (no only to Wiki technology) through a slow, gradual and comfortable way, in order to extract the maximum profit out of their work whenever they have to use it at production level.

Acknowledgements

1. AGAUR-DURSI (2004 - 2005): Ref. 2003MQD00167
2. UB-REDICE (2005-2006)
3. Ourproject.org server and admin vjrj
4. Library of Biology Faculty (UB)
5. Tikiwiki.org community

iv. Bibliography

• De Pedro, X., 2004. "Dedicación temporal del alumnado a trabajos en grupo usando Wikis en entornos libres de aprendizaje colaborativo u Ofimática Web: análisis de un caso en ciencias experimentales". EDUTEC 2004, Educar con la Tecnologías: de lo excepcional a lo cotidiano: 6. (document: http://uniwiki.ourproject.org/dl70 )

• De Pedro, X., Rieradevall, M., López, P., Sant, D., Piñol, J., Núñez, Ll., Llobera, M. 2005. Disseny, implementació i avaluació d'experiències de treball col·laboratiu en la docència d'assignatures de ciències experimentals. Informe final (AGAUR, Ref. 2003MQD00167). (document: http://uniwiki.ourproject.org/ifuw )

• De Pedro, X., Rieradevall, M., López, P., Sant, D., Piñol, J., Núñez, Ll., Llobera, M. 2006. "Writing documents collaboratively in Higher education using Traditional vs. Wiki methodology (I): QUALITATIVE results from a 2-year project study". "4º Congreso Internacional de Docencia Universitaria e Innovación (IV CIDUI)."

• De Pedro, X. & Reyes, J. 2006. “TikiWiki en contextos educativos (II): los sistemas de evaluación de los aprendizajes”. V Jornadas de Software Libre, Universidad Politécnica de Cataluña (http://www.jornadespl.org; full text: http://gclub.ub.es/dl53).

• Dumais, M., 2004. "Technologie: Le Wiki, le tableau blanc de l'intelligence collective", en Le Devoir.com. (http://www.ledevoir.com), http://www.ledevoir.com/2004/05/03/53624.html

• Fernández, A., 2004. "Los wikis se extienden en Internet", in IBLNEWS, http://iblnews.com/news/noticia.php3?id=101774

• Goodnoe, E., 2005. "Wikis Make Collaboration Easier", a InternetWeek (http://www.informationweek.com), Aug. 29, 2005. http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=170100392&pgno=1

v. Annexes

Annex 1

Survey included here as pdf (4 pages - 150 Kb): http://uniwiki.ourproject.org/dl91

Annex 2

Table of self-recording time invested by students included here as pdf (1 page - 114 Kb): http://uniwiki.ourproject.org/dl92