<strong>Global collaboration </strong><strong>- a case study of GENSO project</strong>

In which ways can a global learning community be established to develop global collaboration knowledge and skills? In which ways can this community motivate and facilitate learning for its participants? What competencies can the participants gain through a self-organized, internationally jointed project work?

Through the case of GENSO project, this study intends to understand how a community of practice is designed and established by a group of engineering students who are interested and engaged in satellite operations. Situated in different countries in the world, they established an online community to work together and learning together. They devote themselves to this project driven by interest despite of huge extra workload. The cooperation is mainly carried out by online discussion, workshop for face to face meetings, document sharing and a by intensive use of a network based collaborative environment (tracWiki). Although they are practicing their satellite work in distance from each other, they develop a shared identity through this student satellite project.

Researchers enter this two year long project during its middle milestone - a workshop held in Aalborg University, Denmark in Nov 2007. This research will follow up the following stages of the GENSO project in order to examine how it functions as a learning community for students to learning together globally. Focuses will be put on the following aspects:

• Motivation of their participation and learning,
• Intercultural aspects in collaboration,
• Competencies,
• Self-evaluation of learning,
• Integration with their local curriculum and learning practice