TY - JOUR
T1 - A Case study of offshore development across IS courses
T2 - Lessons learned from a global student project
AU - Davis, Alanah
AU - Germonprez, Matt
AU - Petter, Stacie
AU - Drum, Dawna
AU - Kolstad, Jake
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - As global, virtual teams become more prevalent in the workplace, it is imperative that we, as educators, prepare IS students for this trend. Offshoring, virtual teams, and globalization are themes often discussed in the classroom, but students rarely experience these concepts. This paper is a case study of three globally distributed universities worked together on a project in order to equip students with knowledge and experience about these trends in an IS context. In spring 2008, students from a technical management course in the USA, a project development course in the USA, and a programming course in India worked in teams to propose, design, develop, and test software prototypes. The case study in this paper presents the three phases of this project: 1) planning, 2) execution, and 3) reflection. The planning phase includes the identification of teams, tasks, and technology. The execution phase includes challenges and successes that can be avoided or enhanced in future iterations. Finally, the reflection phase presents lessons learned from the student and instructor perspective as well as perceived value of the project across students, instructors, and industry representatives. In general, students perceived this project to be quite valuable for their future careers and successful as a learning experience, but the project was not without its challenges throughout.
AB - As global, virtual teams become more prevalent in the workplace, it is imperative that we, as educators, prepare IS students for this trend. Offshoring, virtual teams, and globalization are themes often discussed in the classroom, but students rarely experience these concepts. This paper is a case study of three globally distributed universities worked together on a project in order to equip students with knowledge and experience about these trends in an IS context. In spring 2008, students from a technical management course in the USA, a project development course in the USA, and a programming course in India worked in teams to propose, design, develop, and test software prototypes. The case study in this paper presents the three phases of this project: 1) planning, 2) execution, and 3) reflection. The planning phase includes the identification of teams, tasks, and technology. The execution phase includes challenges and successes that can be avoided or enhanced in future iterations. Finally, the reflection phase presents lessons learned from the student and instructor perspective as well as perceived value of the project across students, instructors, and industry representatives. In general, students perceived this project to be quite valuable for their future careers and successful as a learning experience, but the project was not without its challenges throughout.
KW - Collaboration
KW - Education
KW - Global offshoring
KW - Teaching case study
KW - Virtual teams
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U2 - 10.17705/1cais.02421
DO - 10.17705/1cais.02421
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:70349319297
SN - 1529-3181
VL - 24
SP - 351
EP - 372
JO - Communications of the Association for Information Systems
JF - Communications of the Association for Information Systems
IS - 1
ER -