When Do Distributed Student Teams Work?

Abstract

The authors analyzed 2500 communication activities of student teams engaged in global software development projects during an 18 month period to determine the temporal behavior of students engaged in distributed group activities. The data revealed a number of daily, weekly, and project regularities, which provide insights into how distributed teams use their time. The results from this study show that students often work outside of the normal workday. Students' work habits are sometimes determined by where they live and what tasks they are performing. Moreover, students tend to work on group projects in cycles, which follow a start-middle-end pattern. Knowledge obtained from this study should provide insight into current empirical research on computer-supported collaborative learning by defining the different time variables that can be used to compare temporal patterns of online teams. © 2012 IEEE.