How people in virtual groups and communities (fail to) interact

Abstract

In 4 different research projects taking place in our department, students, teachers, researchers, policymakers and policemen are communicating and interacting through shared electronic work spaces between face to face meetings. The students interact about their studies in pedagogy. The teachers, researchers and policymakers interact about ICT in higher education. The researchers are from different universities all over Europe and interact between meetings about their collaborative research project. The policemen interact about drugs and new policy issues in the police organisation. The projects have similar theoretical starting points (social constructivism, knowledge building, shared understanding), as well as their differences. One project is focusing on community building. Another on reaching common understanding through grounding. A third is looking at work place learning and a fourth focuses on intercultural understanding and the role of language. Data are mainly the protocols of collaboration. In some projects additional data refer to interviews and video protocols. Apart form the interaction data in the virtual work space, also the face to face interactions are analysed. After an overview of thecontexts and methods of the projects, the paper will present an overview of ways to reach shared understanding and inhibitors of interaction and communication in these various environments.