Designing Technologies for Hybrid Collaboration

Summary

The students are introduced to relevant concepts and aspects for recognizing, analysing and designing technology to support hybrid collaborative interaction, while reflecting on the consequences of the technologies. This includes understanding how hybridity matters to the tools and processes of collaboration and unpack how hybridity matters when it confers an asymmetry on the coordination that occurs within the interrelated concepts of collaboration.

Learning Outcomes

On completing this module the students should be able to:

• recognize hybrid collaboration aspects in technologies.
• describe relevant hybrid collaboration aspects of technologies in oral and visual form.
• analyse and integrate hybrid collaboration aspects in the design of technologies.
• reflect on consequences of technologies on the hybrid collaboration.

Teacher Guidance

This teaching activity consists of two main components, a lecture and an accompanying exercise. The expected length of the lecture is 30-45 minutes. The exercise can be given varying amount of time, but a couple of hours is recommended giving a total duration of about 3 hours.

1. In the lecture (40 minutes),the teacher introduces students to relevant factors in designing technologies for hybrid collaboration. 
2. For the exercise (60), the students in small groups practice the task given in the exercise.
3. The teacher checks what the students are doing (3 minutes / group) and advises on aspects to consider. 
4. The students share their practice outputs with peers (20 minutes), and gain access to peers’ outputs as a model for their practice. 
5. The teacher chairs a class discussion (30 minutes), asking for reflections on experiences, and consolidating the lessons learned.

It is recommended that students read the recommended literature before the teaching.

Recommended Readings

Thomas Neumayr, Banu Saatçi, Sean Rintel, Clemens N. Klokmose & Mirjam Augstein (2021). What was Hybrid? A Systematic Review of Hybrid Collaboration and Meetings Research. Manuscript in preparation for submission to the Journal of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (JCSCW).