Mid Sweden University

The aim of the article is to evaluate how Distributed Concurrent Design works during collaboration in a distributed system development project. We studied collaboration between emergency authorities in Sweden and Norway developing a demonstrator for emergency training. Evaluation criteria were people, processes, and tools. We have used a multi-method approach with the evaluation criterion as a lens. Findings has so far shown that distributed concurrent design works as a method in system development projects but much effort must be put on planning, management and training in available tools.

Digital spaces designated for learning need to invite to social learning. Oftentimes, however, students express feelings of loneliness in their learning in online courses. Making the students more visible to each other is hence crucial. In this article we present a study of students' self-presentations. We find that they are rather unelaborated, and we propose an alternative solution to making students identities visible within the learning space. Our proposed solution is a separate system that can be plugged into any digital learning system: the edentity.

Social learning is dependent on social interactions. I am exploring ways to promote interaction in Digital Learning Spaces. As theoretical framework I use the types of interaction between learner, instructor and content. That learners feel isolated and lonely in DLSs is a problem which comes at high cost for social learning. My aim is to promote social interaction by offering the edentity: a system for making participants visible to each other by creation of a digital student identity. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2013.

Social learning is essential in digital learning spaces. However, it can be hard to know who fellow learners are, due to the limited amount and quality of available cues. This lack of social presence could have negative effects on participation, which is the base for social learning. The aim of this paper is to theoretically explore the implications of an explicit digital student identity. Drawing on literature on participation, presence, interaction, and identity, I propose a student e-dentity with the purpose of enhancing social presence and awareness. The implication of such an e-dentity is a more transparent social environment within digital learning spaces.

In this paper, we explorefeedbackin a Digital Learning Environment (DLE), based on a study performed in a Swedish military training context. DLEs makeuniformlearning possible, while allowing interaction (as opposed to a text book). However, it is unclear how interaction should be designed to be beneficial in auniformlearning situation.Feedbackis needed in DLE, both for the learning itself, and for the functionality of the system. Through an evaluation framework theuniformlearning situation is evaluated andfeedbackis mapped onto interaction lanes. Balancedfeedbackhas the potential to offer a beneficial DLE foruniformlearning. Although the importance offeedbackis known in theory, our study shows that practical implementations lack completefeedback. Hence, we propose a design guideline to implement balanced (relative to the framework)feedbackin general, and to pay specific attention to Feed-Forward when designing DLEs. © 2011 ACM.