COLLABORATIVE DISTANCE LEARNING VIA DESKTOP VIDEOCONFERENCINGl

Desktop videoconferencing (DVC) with fully interactive collaboration software has recently emerged as a viable cominuIiication mediuin. These systems incorporate multiple collaboration technologies (e. g., voice, video, a mutually controllable shared software screen via dynamic data sharing) into a familiar and integrated desktop environment (i.e., windows-based personal computer). The designers of this technology are promoting it as a key enabler to support distributed teams of knowledge workers in ietwork organizations (Forbes 1993). It is also being promoted as a vehicle to deliver collaborative distance learning (Business Week 1994). We report on an experiment which assessed the efficacy of DVC for enabling collaborative distance learning. Since collaborative learning requires rich interaction between learners, it was hypothesized that face-to-face teams would exhibit greater learning and satisfaction than nonproximate teams which communicated via DVC.