Using Wikis to facilitate team work: German and Irish students' perspectives

Abstract

Enhanced collaboration among multicultural European countries is necessary for effective enterprise development and innovation. The current climate of an increasingly competitive global economy provides opportunities to explore alternative methods of enterprise sustainability including the creation of collaborative clusters of individuals working together towards a common goal. A key challenge for higher education institutions is how best to provide authentic collaborative environments and learning activities that simulate real life scenarios, where the participants may come from pan-European and/or non-European locations. This paper presents a comparative analysis of the usage and of the outcomes of wiki technology in a learning environment in Industrial Engineering. The results show the benefits and highlight also the crucial aspects when introducing this innovative approach as a supporting tool for collaborative work.