5. Computer conferencing and collaborative learning in Digital Equipment Corporation

5.1 A knowledge network

Digital Equipment Corporation is the world's second largest computer company, with about 120,000 employees worldwide. Computer conferencing, employing the VAX Notes conferencing system, is very widely used in Digital, and in that respect, the company is a valuable case study of the potential for collaborative learning.

In October 1991, the index of publicized computer conferences on Digital's internal network showed 1876 individual conferences. Their subjects ranged as follows:

• Products (virtually every Digital product, past, present or in development has a conference devoted to it. Indeed, the very first widespread VAX Notes conference in Digital was used to discuss the development of the VMS operating system);
• Work-Related Subjects (e.g. Computer-Aided Manufacturing, Gateways, Marketing, Standards, Digital's History);
• Valuing Differences (e.g. Black Issues, Christian Perspectives, Hispanic Issues, Learning Disabilities);
• Employee Interest (e.g. Amateur Radio, Boston Red Sox, Home Improvements, Twin Peaks, Vegetarian Interests, in addition to conferences about living in the districts in which Digital has major facilities).

Anyone in Digital can establish a computer conference, on their own network node (if they have one), or, with the agreement of their system manager, on the computer which hosts their account. As there is no requirement that conferences be publicized, no-one really knows the number of conferences on the network, and the list of publicized conferences is probably only the tip of the iceberg.

People using these conferences span the company: from Vice Presidents to contract staff, from the sales force to circuit designers, from Boston to Australia.

No-one forces anyone to start a conference, nor to contribute to one, and so their number and vitality is a sure sign that they are serving some function for the people who use them. Those functions are various, but the work-related conferences, about research, products, services, and strategies, are used for the following:

• as a means of preparing for, following-on from, and often instead of, face-to-face meetings amongst product and business groups;
• for managing projects and collaborations dispersed over geographies and time zones;
• for brainstorming and testing ideas on new strategies from a wide variety of perspectives;
• for company-wide feedback on products, services, initiatives and policies.

But in addition to these rather directed uses of conferencing, it is commonplace for conferences to be used as a place for people to exchange information about the company and its products, services and policies. These conferences are, then,

• pools of knowledge or information banks about specific subjects;
• organization-wide 'help desks' and directories of who has expertise on what subject.

Conferencing in Digital has become, according to David Skyrme who has written extensively on this [17], a "knowledge network". Within Digital, people who want to know the answer to a question look into the directory of computer conferences, and then to individual conferences. If the answer isn't there, then they will post a question, and in most cases someone, somewhere in the world, will reply with an answer. Even if an answer isn't forthcoming, a browse through a conference will often identify people who are working in a relevant area, who can be contacted directly through electronic mail or telephone.

It is also interesting that it's common for a number of people to reply to a question with different answers, provoking the questioner to think more clearly about his or her query. Or browsing in a conference will alert someone to something they didn't think was a question. Conferencing in Digital, therefore, not only provides people with access to a network of knowledge and knowledgeable people, but interactions with others through conferencing helps to develop the process of enquiry.

5.2 A learning network

The central thesis of this paper is that in addition to being a powerful corporate resource as a knowledge network, computer conferencing in Digital is also a collaborative learning network.

Section 3 identified the power of people learning from their peers through interacting with them. What computer conferencing does for Digital is to enormously widen the community of peers from whom one can learn. Rather than being limited to learning from the people with whom one works day-to-day, or can travel to meet, or from the people who have found time to put their knowledge and experiences into documents, it is possible to interact with people across the whole company.

Whom one is likely to see day-to-day is perhaps surprisingly limited by physical co-location. In a study [13] of 500 scientists and engineers in a large industrial development laboratory, it was found that people on the same corridor collaborated five times as often as people simply situated on the same floor. Collaboration dropped off sharply when people were situated on different floors, and continued to decline logarithmically as distance increased.

A similar, earlier, study confirmed that it is only very small groups who can truly co-locate [4]. It found that 25% of technical workers whose offices were less than 5 meters apart were likely to talk to each other once a week. At 10 meters or more, fewer than 10% were likely to talk once a week. When offices were 30 meters or more apart, the probability of workers talking to each other was the same as for those whose offices were miles apart. With the potential for collaborations through physical co-location being so low, the effect of 'electronic co-location' is significant, especially in anything other than a small organization.

Another aspect of conferencing which contributes to its learning potential is its constant availability at the place of work. It is not necessary to make special arrangements to 'get at' some knowledge - one doesn't even have to leave one's desk. That means that people can consult the information pool anytime they need to know something. If and when they get an answer through conferencing, it can be immediately applied in the work situation which provoked the question.

Knowledge acquired through the network is, then, often sought and applied actively in the context of real work issues. Not only is this an efficient process from the point of view of work effectiveness, but it fits exactly with a core concept of collaborative learning, again described by Hiltz [10] "... knowledge is not something to be 'delivered' ... but rather something that emerges from active dialogue among those who seek to understand and to apply concepts and techniques".

Finally, that conferencing networks offer the potential for learning outside formal educational channels was brought home to me in the case of a young man who works in our group. This young man is 21, and is a specialist in VAX system management, hypermedia, and DECwindows/Motif programming. He joined us four years ago having completed a Digital-sponsored information technology awareness course in the local town, after leaving school at 15 with almost no qualifications. Virtually everything about his specialities that he has learned since he joined Digital has come from participation in conferences. He has attended a couple of formal training courses, but he has gained most of his expertise through conferencing. When he has encountered a work-related problem that he cannot solve himself, his first reaction is to consult the network, and then to search and research for the answer or for someone who can tell him the answer.

6. Does collaborative learning really happen in networked organizations?

So far I have sought to show that the use of computer conferencing in a networked organization is a propitious environment for collaborative learning. I have also declared my strong belief that collaborative learning happens all the time in a networked organization like Digital. However, what empirical evidence can I submit that this is true?

Unfortunately, it is difficult to find examples of organizations formally recognizing or attesting to collaborative learning through conferencing. As Bannon says (in the context of how people learn to use networks) " .. note how little work has been done on the way people learn from each other, from colleagues in actual settings .." [5]. I believe that this is because learning is associated with formal educational events - such as courses, or media - such as manuals, and learning from peers goes unremarked. Put another way, people experience learning as they work, as part of their personal development, and they do not necessarily identify any particular channel of learning outside those that are well signposted.

However, if one looks at surveys of the use of conferencing for work-related activities, there is evidence that at least strongly suggests that collaborative learning takes place. In an early study, Hiltz [9], surveyed a user community of about 100 academics using the EIES conferencing system in 1977. She included (amongst a very comprehensive question set) a few questions which addressed what to me are aspects of learning. She asked how use of EIES increased the stock of ideas that might be useful to the respondent; changed their view of their work in relation to that of others; provided leads, references and other information useful to work; and increased others' familiarity in the respondent's work. On all these questions, respondents' scores were positive about EIES.

Likewise, in their questionnaire study of about 300 users of the COM computer conferencing system in Sweden, Adrianson and Hjelmquist [2] asked how conferencing contributed to non-educational work tasks. Users ranked COM highly for getting information, opinions and ideas, and spreading information - again, components of learning.

It is noteworthy, however, that in these and other studies of work-related computer conferencing, there are rarely direct questions about learning. While I take the Hiltz and Adrianson & Hjelmquist data as suggesting that learning was likely to be taking place, because of the value attached to information-sharing, none of the questionnaires explicitly asked respondents to comment on the value of conferencing for learning from others. It is only in studies of computer conferencing used for explicit educational purposes, such as Hiltz's evaluation of the virtual classroom [11] that one finds explicit assessment of the value of conferencing for collaborative learning.

In conclusion to this section, it seems that the potential of computer conferencing for collaborative learning in organizations is largely unrecognized. That may be because recognition of collaborative learning anywhere is only recent. While there are theoretical reasons to point to a tight fit between work-related conferencing and collaborative learning, it is difficult to find empirical evidence from the workplace, although I offer statements from WBSI's participants, and observations of Digital's conferencing behavior, and of one case in particular. Although researchers into conferencing have found evidence that people readily share information through conferences used for work, they have not asked those respondents directly if they felt they learned anything through conferencing. One is tempted to ask if the concept of learning at work was that outlandish.

As this is a chapter in the research section of this book, it seems appropriate to state a formal null hypothesis. My null hypothesis is that "collaborative learning does not occur when computer conferencing is used for work-related purposes and outside formal educational processes". In the rest of this paper, I shall assume that this null hypothesis has been disproved.

7. Promoting collaborative learning through computer conferencing within organizations

As my argument is that an organization's use of conferencing for work and for collaborative learning are operationally inseparable, the factors which promote collaborative learning certainly include those which promote conferencing's use for work. The extent of a "conferencing culture" is related to:

• the nature, availability and access to conferencing technology,
• the intellectual and communicative abilities of the people in the organization,
• the familiarity of those people with the conferencing tools,

• the number, relevance, vitality, and (in some cases) the adequacy of moderation, of the conferences themselves,
• the extent to which distributing and sharing information is valued within the organization.

In this list I omit the social dynamics of conferencing within small groups (see for example [1, 3, 12, 14]). This is because the pattern of computer conferencing at issue here is organization-wide. It occurs across hundreds, even thousands of people, the majority of whom are unknown to each other, and who would not consider themselves members of a group, and who do not a priori communicate extensively with each other.

It seems particularly important to concentrate on the type of organizational culture which values the sharing of information, because it is this shared information which populates the collaborative learning infrastructure. Again, I use Digital as an example. In passing, however, it is worth noting the hundreds of Valuing Differences and Employee Interest computer conferences, mentioned earlier, that Digital hosts on its network. In addition to their role in other respects within the company, they themselves have contributed to the development of a conferencing culture, particularly amongst employees who would otherwise not be attracted to the medium.

In terms of people's behavior, computer conferences which sustain a learning network are themselves sustained by people spending time sharing information with others. That means reading conferences, writing unsolicited information into them, writing specific replies to people's questions and discussion points and engaging in dialogue with them. If we consider people's motivations in engaging in this type of behaviour, one can identify the following utilitarian uses of conferencing:

• when contributing to conferences is in direct support of departmental goals, such as circulating material to a wide readership, or soliciting feedback on products, services and policies for which the group has responsibility;
• when contributing draws attention to their personal skills or to the work of their group.

However, there remains a great deal of conferencing activity which does not seem to fit into either of these two directly-rewarding paradigms. This is when people altruistically spend their time writing unsolicitedly about things that others could find valuable, debating with others, and responding to other people's requests for information. In Digital, such activity is informal, at the employee's own discretion, must not compromise job goals, and I have never heard of it being rewarded through the formal career advancement processes.

This behavior within Digital has been described by Skyrme [17] as one of the company's principal cultural characteristics. Building on Skyrme's analysis, the values which underpin this culture appear to me as follows.

• Collaboration and mutual support: Information is the company's, and not the personal possession of individuals. What is good for all of us is good for each of us.
• Openness of communications: Contributors trust others to act in the company's best interests with information they gain from conferences, to cite the source of valuable information, and particularly not to use it to harm the originator.
• Informality: Valuable information does not have to be exchanged at power lunches - getting it the right place is the key mandate.
• Knowledge not position authority: Information and opinions are never 'right' until tested amongst one's colleagues.
• Lack of hierarchy: People do not necessarily know or care about the organizational level of those who read what they write, even when explicitly criticizing corporate actions.
• Self responsibility: You and you alone are responsible for what you write into a conference. If you transgress, the moderator or your peers will certainly point it out to you.
• Self-judgement: There is a lot of material in the conferences, and no-one tells anyone to use any of it. You and you alone are responsible for what you make of what you find there.

It would be wrong to get too misty-eyed about Digital's culture, and the way in which it supports open information-sharing. Of course, there are types of information which are not openly shared, and groups who do not share information. However, the culture summarized above is pervasive in many areas of the company, and is distinctive to people who encounter it for the first time.

8. Promoting collaborative learning through computer conferencing in educational contexts

Two exercises have sought to institute collaborative learning through computer conferencing in educational contexts.

Hiltz [11] briefly describes the set-up of a study involving students in a writing seminar at Upsala College. Hiltz says "All of their writing assignments were done in small groups online, and the students were asked to critique one another according to the guidelines provided by the instructor". In her evaluation, Hiltz found that those students who took advantage of this design to collaborate with the instructor and other students valued the approach, but there is a suggestion that this was only true for those students, and not for the class as a whole.

Suzanne Regan [15], at California State University Los Angeles, used the BESTNET educational network to offer a media course in which students not only worked with her to design examination questions, but their answers were visible to each other online, using the VAX Notes conferencing system. A student could choose to enter the first reply to the question, or wait to enter a later reply having read the preceding ones. They knew that Regan, as the instructor, would assign grades on the basis of the value-added of each student's answer, rather than on the basis of the common material regurgitated. Regan asked the students to join with her in marking each of the assignments, online, and obtained a general consensus as to the allocation of grades.

Unfortunately, it is not clear what the instructor did in either of these cases to engender a collaborative learning culture amongst students. Since the effect of cultures on information-sharing is a topic of conversation in organizational life [7, 19], networked organizations may have something to share with the educational world about building cultures which support collaboration. It is possible that the dimensions of collaboration and mutual support, openness and trust, lack of hierarchy, self responsibility and self-judgement are as applicable to the collaborative classroom as they are to the collaborating organization. In this respect, it is pleasing to note that the BESTNET project is embarking on a research program with Digital to understand collaborative learning cultures more fully.

9. The pay-off to organizations if education is collaborative

If the organizational world can help the educational world build collaborative cultures, there is every reason to believe that both parties would benefit. A recent book on distributed computer-based working in commercial organizations [7] highlights the need now being expressed by industry to form collaborating teams with widespread skills. (The book also gives an excellent overview of the organizational issues discussed in this paper.)

For example, one major aerospace company is now building work organizations which depend on the performance of multi-disciplinary teams rather than individuals. One of the barriers to team formation, however, is the individualistic view of achievement and reward held by employees. To illustrate: the company has a strategy to change its reward system so that people are paid on the basis of the performance of the team to which they belong, rather than their individual contribution. Consider your own reaction to being paid on the basis of the performance of your group or department. Consider also the parallels between team-based reward systems in the organizational context, and class-based reward systems in the educational context.

It seems that a barrier to achieving team-based work organizations is people's socialization by a competitive, individualistic educational environment. Hiltz [11] has already noted the desirability of collaborative learning as giving people experience which will ready them for teaming in later life. If collaborative learning can emerge, perhaps spearheaded through computer conferencing, as a design for educational processes, it may prepare people more readily to accept work arrangements in which teaming and collaboration are necessary.

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Author's notice

DECwindows, VAX, VAX Notes and VMS are trademarks of Digital Equipment Corporation. Motif is a trademark of Open Software Foundation Inc.

Views expressed in this paper are those of the author, not of Digital Equipment Corporation.

NOTICES

This paper

Please cite this paper as: Gundry, John, "Web 0.0 Social Media". Paper from Knowledge Ability Ltd, Malmesbury UK. Published at www.knowab.co.uk/socialmedia.html. September 2006.

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