History: aw1l 2.1 Introduction

+ 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).

+ ^::(unavailable - see the link at the bottom of the pagae to the pdf instead )::^ ::Figure 1. Some possible factors affecting low yield from students at university level (adapted from De Pedro, 2005b)::

+ 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.

+ ^::{img src=img/wiki_up/Captura_uw__pral.jpg }::^ ::Figure 2. Main web site for coordination of the ))UniWiki(( project, where optional training for students and teachers was held a total of 10 times along the two years of the project.::

+ 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).