Creating hybrid distributed learning environments by implementing distributed collaborative writing in traditional educational settings

This paper summarizes three field experiments involving distributed collaborative writing (CW) in traditional educational settings creating a hybrid form of distributed education. One finding shows that specialized collaborative tools allowed for parallel work, group awareness, and coordination, providing substantial advantages over traditional word processors in distributed CW. However, it was also found that advanced CW tools alone did not provide optimal results in distributed CW groups; such groups also needed high levels of process structure, which can be delivered through carefully constructed scripts. Moreover, it was found that introducing face-to-face meetings in distributed CW work did not necessarily provide advantages over work that was performed in all-distributed settings. Given these findings, this paper concludes by discussing the contributions, implications, limitations, and future research possibilities for hybrid-distributed education.