Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/56805
McCord Hall Top-ranked excellence requires facilities that match. We're building the future of business. A world-class facility for a world-class business school Home to 10,000+ students and 600+ faculty and staff, the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University continues to expand. Opening in 2013, McCord Hall is a state-of-the-art 129,000 square foot facility: u A new career center and technologically advanced team rooms u 30% less water and 35% less energy than similar facilities u A solar array that returns power to the campus grid Learn more at building.wpcarey.asu.edu facilitated with teamwork rooms in Wimba, a bisynchronous com- munications tool. Teams can use Wimba for voice and video com- munications; they also can use its whiteboard function to collaborate on presentations and other activi- ties, which they can archive for future retrieval. Wimba is used for real-time class meetings, as well as for office hours. Finally, teams can post asynchronous communications to team discussion boards, which include a Q&A discussion board available to everyone in the class. Sparking Excitement We did not know whether or how well the students from two universi- ties would interact across six time zones through only voice and written communications—especially when one group was unfamiliar with the online tools required. In an online exit survey, students reported having a good learning experience, although they admitted that overcoming the time difference and organizing their projects at the beginning of the course was dif- ficult. The group that was unable to meet executives at the West German company indicated that the inability to visit the firm was a limitation—and yet, this team wrote the most detailed plan of all four groups. The biggest shortcom- ing students reported was the lack of video conferencing, although we deliberately did not use that feature. We felt that the amount of data that video conferencing requires could overload our system. What we found most surprising was that students did not consider cultural differences to be significant challenges in their collaborations. Many said that managing the time difference and language barrier was more challenging. But we have been incredibly pleased with the results. Manag- ers at all four firms told us that they found the information the students provided useful. Last fall, we offered the course again, this time to graduate students, to deter- mine whether the course is more appropriate at the undergraduate or graduate level. We've increased enrollment to 15 students from each campus, and we're incorporating video conferencing. At the end of the semester, we repeated the stu- dent exit survey, and we will com- pare results with last year's survey. Eventually, we hope to make this course an established part of the curriculum at both schools. The course excites students from both universities, because it allows them to work with success- ful businesses, international col- leagues, and the latest collabora- tive technologies. More important, it gives them valuable insight into the challenges and opportuni- ties they're likely to face in their careers. Edward Romar is a senior lecturer in management and marketing at the Col- lege of Management at the University of Massachusetts Boston. BizEd March/April 2012 35