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Session 2642

Using E-Teams Lucy C. Morse University of Central Florida

Abstract Teams have become a mainstay in the workforce and teamwork is essential within modern industry. As more and more companies require employees to function in teams, engineering schools have begun to use teams as part of the training for careers in industry. The formation of teams can easily utilize the talents from different functions, locations, and organizations. Now the functioning of industry in a global environment has led to formation of virtual teams. As more schools incorporate distance education into their setting, virtual teams or e-teams are becoming a part of engineering education. The use of the e-team technique in a distance education engineering course is not without problems. Since there is no timeworn body of experience to draw from, team members and the professor have to be open to experimentation, often discovering in hindsight what makes an e-team successful.

I. Introduction For the last two decades teams have become an integral part of the workforce and teamwork is essential within modern industry. One of the eight guiding principles for management of the modern enterprise that Betz gives is teaming. 1 Workers today must be able to work together in interdisciplinary teams to carry out and coordinate the operations of the enterprise. As more and more companies require employees to function in teams, engineering schools have begun to use teams as part of the training for careers in industry. The formation of teams can easily utilize the talents from different functions, locations, and organizations. Now the functioning of industry in a global environment has led to formation of virtual teams. These virtual teams, unlike traditional teams, must accomplish their objectives by working across distance and time and by using technology to facilitate collaboration.

In the last few years higher education has undergone many changes, but a significant change has been in the increased use of technology in the classroom. Now faculty on many campuses deliver instruction with the use of technology rather than the traditional lecture approach. Education at a distance is one of the ways technology is used and there are a wide variety of distance education approaches. This continuum ranges from the paper-based correspondence courses to the more technical approaches as two-way video/two way audio real time courses. 5 As an increasing number of schools incorporate the many approaches to distance education into their setting, the virtual team of industry has become the e-team of engineering education. One of the main reasons teamwork has been able to become virtual is because technology has advanced to make cyberteaming possible. 3

There are two primary categories of variables that make virtual teams more complex. These are:

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Morse, L. C. (2000, June), Using E Teams Paper presented at 2000 Annual Conference, St. Louis, Missouri. 10.18260/1-2--8809