Overcoming Obstacles to a Cross-Global Collaborative Classroom

Abstract

Collaboration involving two sets of students studying the same subject but residing in separate countries is difficult due to synchronization problems, time differences, and language barriers. The authors describe how the Internet-based Blackboard™ platform was used to connect U.S. and PRC undergraduate marketing research students. While Blackboard's vision is to be a global pedagogical bridge, and it has excellent features, synchronization, time zones, and language difficulties still had to be surmounted. This paper describes how the authors used Blackboard and overcame these obstacles.