Ana A Carvalho
email: aac@ie.uminho.pt

ICT in Teacher Education: Developing Key Competencies in Face-to-Face and Distance Learning

Keywords: ICT, Key Competencies, WebQuest, Treasure Hunt, Concept maps, Podcast

This paper reports the training of 56 Teachers in ICT and Education

Course. This course included one week face-to-face and seven weeks in distance learning. Students developed several ICT competencies during theses weeks, reporting its use in their classes. A characterization of the subjects' digital literacy is presented, as well as their participation in chat sessions and in the forum, which were not mandatory but highly recommended. The majority of students did not participate in the synchronous and asynchronous communication facilities. However, those that participated in the chat sessions and forum debates completed all tasks and assignments. The students recognized the importance of learning about ICT and how it changed their teaching methods.

Introduction

This paper presents the challenge of motivating teachers to use and reflect about ICT, particularly Web 2.0 tools in teaching and learning, during a face to face week and seven weeks of online learning. The key competencies emphasized within this course are particularly related to ICT but also to the three broad categories identified by the DeSeCo Project's conceptual framework for key competencies: use tools interactively, interact in heterogeneous groups, and act autonomously [START_REF]OECD: The Definition and Selection of Key Competencies[END_REF]. The UNESCO's project "ICT Competency Standards for Teachers" stressed that schools and classrooms "must have teachers who are equipped with technology resources and skills and who can effectively teach the necessary subject matter content while incorporating technology concepts and skills" (p. 1) [START_REF]UNESCO: ICT Competency Standards for Teachers[END_REF].

The ICT and Education Course belongs to a training program -"Online Teaching and Learning & Professional Development of Teachers in the Republic of the Maldives" -supported by UNICEF Maldives and developed by the University of Minho, in Portugal, during the 2008 and 2009 academic years. It included four compulsory courses and three optional courses (Table 1). The compulsory courses lasted 80 hours, during eight weeks and the optional courses 36 hours during three weeks. All courses used the LMS (Learning Management System) Blackboard and were distance learning courses, but Teaching/ Teacher Education, Supervision and Monitoring, and ICT and Education courses had a face to face week in Male, Maldives, in May and seven weeks online. The face to face week was a requirement of UNICEF Maldives. The full program lasted 408 hours.

Eighteen Portuguese lecturers participated in this training program along with fiftysix Maldivian' teachers, who needed to update their knowledge about teaching and ICT. The language of the program was English, a foreign language for both lecturers and students. During the five face to face sessions in Male, students attended three two-hour lectures daily. The first went, from 8am to 10am, the second from 10.30am to 12.30pm, and the third from 2pm to 4pm.

At the University of Minho we suggested dividing the students into three groups thus giving them more personalized feedback and orientation during the activities. When in Male, we realized that this purpose was fundamental, not only to ICT as each student had access to a computer, but also to the other two courses as most students lack technical and scientific knowledge.

ICT and Education Course

The ICT and Education Course had four learning outcomes: assess website quality, use Web tools (blogs, podcasts, and Google pages), distinguish collaboration from cooperation and the implications for students' group work, and select and use WebQuests and Treasure Hunts with students. The syllabus attempted to familiarize students with technical words, tools, and pedagogical uses of resources available online. Concepts such as the Internet, the Web, Web 2.0 tools, social networking, connectivism, synchronous and asynchronous communication, collaboration and cooperation, searching the Web, criteria for evaluating websites, quoting and plagiarism, editing online, concept maps, WebQuest, and Treasure Hunt were approached and their pedagogical benefits discussed.

The main focus of this course unit was to motivate students to use and integrate ICT appropriately in the classes they teach. Theoretical aspects were discussed in the forum but the main purpose of all discussions was a reflection about its use in teaching contexts. We intended that our students applied the tools (blogs, podcasts, concept maps, etc.) and activities (WebQuest, Treasure Hunt) with their own students reporting their difficulties, enjoyments and reflections regarding its use.

We also intended that students work in groups in their own school to experience collaborative and cooperative activities.

Course Structure

As mentioned previously, this course had a face to face week in May 2008, 2 hours per day with each group of students (Table 2). This option proved to be appropriate for students as each one had computer access; however it was somewhat tiring for the tutor. She had six hours per day every day during the week, from Sunday to Thursday.

The other 7 weeks online only took place in March and April of the following year. Every week possessed the same structure: a new topic was introduced with readings and activities, there were two chat sessions at 8pm for students (and at 4pm for the tutor). They also had one or two threads in the forum helping them to reflect about the readings and activities of the week. Not all of the Maldivian teachers had Internet access at home therefore; they had to go to school at night if they wished to participate in the chat sessions. The time of the chat sessions was based on students' preference.

Students' ICT Characterization

During the first face to face session, students filled out a questionnaire regarding digital literacy. It included information about their gender and age, followed by eight questions: (1) their knowledge about online tools or resources , (2) if they had a blog, podcast or website; (3) if they used some of the tools or resources listed in item 1; (4) if their school had a website; (5) frequency of access to Internet resources with their students; [START_REF] Won | Bhutan "Support for Teacher Education" Project[END_REF] if the teachers publish their students' work online; and finally if they have a computer at home with Internet connection.

The questionnaire was filled in by 56 students, 32 male and 24 female. Most of the students (39) were aged between 31 to 40 years old, 12 between 20 and 30, and 5 were older than 41. They were very interested in participating in this training program and were selected by the Maldivian Education Department. They were from different atolls, but a small group of two to five students belonged to the same atoll to support each other and to work collaboratively.

All of them knew Google, 48% YouTube, 34% blog, 27% Movie Maker, 20% Wiki and Flickr, 16% hi5, 9% Podcast, 7% WebQuest, 5% Treasure Hunt, and one individual knew Second Life and Delicious (Table 3). These results showed that the students required an ICT update. When inquired if they had blog, podcast or website, only a few answered positively (Table 4). Only 11% had a blog, 9% a website, and 5% a podcast. When asked if they used the tools or resources presented in table 3 with their students, only 30 participants answered affirmatively (Table 5). From those (30), almost all of them (29) use Google, 4 students WebQuests, 2 blogs, and one YouTube and Treasure Hunt. These results evidenced the need to update these teachers. This need to update teachers to ICT competencies is supported by UNESCO [START_REF]UNESCO: ICT Competency Standards for Teachers[END_REF] and by authors such as Richardson [START_REF] Richardson | Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms[END_REF] or Siemens [START_REF] Siemens | Knowing Knowledge[END_REF]. With regard to a school website, 22 of the participants indicated that their school had one. A large group of teachers (46%) rarely used the Internet with their students, and 11 never did (Table 6). Only 7 used the Internet daily, 8 weekly, and 4 monthly. Later on they explained that some schools had a computer lab but most of them only contained one or two computers for staff use. The government was sensitive to this problem and was making an effort to update the Internet connection and buy computers for the schools. This situation occurred in other countries such as Malaysia reported by Kader [START_REF] Kader | Malaysia's Experience in Training Teachers to Use ICT[END_REF] and Bhutan by Won [START_REF] Won | Bhutan "Support for Teacher Education" Project[END_REF]. Only 5 participants published their students' work online. Finally, we asked them if they had a computer at home with an Internet connection (Table 7) because this was a prerequisite for the courses online. As we may verify in Table 7, 93% of the participants had a computer at home, but only 71% had an Internet connection. Some of them had to use school facilities during the course, particularly for the chat sessions at late evening.

The Face to Face Week

The students completed a questionnaire regarding Digital Literacy. They were introduced to the ICT and Education course and its learning outcomes. Particular emphasis had been placed on the weekly goals that intended to create a new framework about learning methods and Web 2.0 tools, such as blogs and podcast. Students had to distinguish Internet and World Wide Web, create their own blog and podcast, and reflect about the implications of new literacies for learning (Table 8). Simultaneously, it was very important that they felt comfortable and familiar with the LMS Blackboard thus, every day they had something to do to remember its functionalities. The technical preparation for distance learning as well as the comprehension of the role of a distance learner is very important. Mason [START_REF] Mason | The university: current challenges and opportunities[END_REF] states:

"Those who have poor study habits, lack self-discipline or motivation, have been educationally disadvantaged, or are driven almost solely by extrinsic reasons for wanting a degree, tend to find the student-centred pedagogy bewildering, too demanding, or too much hard work. (…) Students do need a gradual process of learning to be self-directed. They need training and practice in ICT skills such as research, analysis and management of web-based resources; they need a studentfriendly online environment that encourages and rewards interaction. They also need supportive tutoring to help them adapt their study patterns from linear working through textbooks and lecture notes to interactive engagement with ideas, resources and other students" (p. 65-66). The students were very interested. For some, everything was new and a few were unable to distinguish an e-mail address from a URL. One of the problems that occurred when they created a blog was to remember its URL and password. They were able to upload a picture, embed a video, and incorporate a link into blog posts. I used Richardson´s [START_REF] Richardson | Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms[END_REF] and Siemens' [START_REF] Siemens | The art of blogging. Elearnspace: Everything elearning[END_REF] ideas about the use of blogs in educational contexts. "Blogging is a genre that engages students and adults in a process of thinking in words, not simply an accounting of the day's events and feelings" (p. 20) [START_REF] Richardson | Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms[END_REF]. It is important that blogs be used as places of critical thinking and analytical writing and reflection. They can be used as class portals, e-portfolios, collaborative space, etc. Richardson [START_REF] Richardson | Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms[END_REF] also considered that there is no better way to understand the impact of the Read/Write Web than by becoming a part of it. This was one of the main purposes of the week.

The podcasts were introduced, mentioning several ways to use them in education. For example, to record local stories or historical events, to challenge students to do a group project, to invite students to report their group work, to summarize content, and so on. The podcasts created by the teacher or the students have a good impact on listeners, as reported by studies conducted by Carvalho et al. [START_REF] Carvalho | Influence of Podcasts Characteristics on Higher Students' Acceptance[END_REF], [START_REF] Carvalho | A Taxonomy of Podcasts and its Application to Higher Education[END_REF], Salmon et al. [START_REF] Salmon | Informal Mobile Podcasting And Learning Adaptation (IMPALA)[END_REF] and Frydenberg [START_REF] Frydenberg | Principles and Pedagogy: The Two P's of Podcasting in the Information Technology Classroom[END_REF]. Students like hearing their teachers' voice as stated by Durbridge [START_REF] Durbridge | Audio cassettes[END_REF], Richardson [START_REF] Richardson | Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms[END_REF] and Carvalho et al. [START_REF] Carvalho | Podcasts in Higher Education: Students and Teachers Perspectives[END_REF]. All students created their first podcast using Podomatic. In the following session, the software Audacity was introduced and students recorded their episode. Next, they uploaded it to Podomatic. In the class, it was referred again "that's what the Read/Write Web is all about: being able to share what you create with others" (p. 118) [START_REF] Richardson | Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms[END_REF].

During the last face to face session, we approached the new literacies as a concluding session of the topics focused. We stressed that for more than a hundred years we have defined being literate as being able to read and to write, although those core abilities are central to learning, they are no longer sufficient to ensure understanding [START_REF] Richardson | Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms[END_REF]. Writing is no longer limited to text, we can use words, audio, video, and photography. It is difficult to deny that more and more we have become a multimedia society. We can combine many forms of writing into a process of "rip, mix, and learn", taking a piece of content here and another there, combining it to produce powerful text and nontext messages and interpretations [START_REF] Levine | Rip. Mix. Learn…The digital generation, social technologies, and learning[END_REF]. Readers of the Web content must learn to be active consumers instead of just passively accepting it as legitimate. The classroom of the Read/Write Web is one seamless transfer of information, of collaborative, individualized learning, of active participation by all class members. It is marked by the continuous process of creating and sharing content with wide audiences. Our students are learning that their voices matter, that people are reading and responding, and that their ideas count. Moreover, when writing, for example in the blog, "ideas are presented as the starting point for a dialogue, not the ending point" [START_REF] Siemens | The art of blogging. Elearnspace: Everything elearning[END_REF]. By inviting students to become active participants in their own learning, we teach them how to be active participants in their lives and future careers. Teachers will have to see themselves as connectors, of content and of people. To use Web 2.0 tools effectively, educators must learn to use them effectively. They need to become bloggers and podcasters, to use other social tools effectively with their students. Teachers need to think of themselves as coaches who model the skills that students need to be successful and motivate them to strive for excellence.

Students were invited to keep their blogs and podcasts updated, until the next distance learning sessions of this course.

Learning ICT Online

The second week of the course started in March 2009. Every Saturday an announcement regarding the weekly activities was posted on the LMS and was sent by email to students via Blackboard. It included the topic that would be learned, the readings, the chat sessions timetable, the deadline for answering the forum questions, and students were reminded to read the week's guidelines in Course Documents. If they preferred, they could listen to a podcast with the announcements of the week. As they were familiar with the tutor, listening to her voice could have a motivational effect on them, as mentioned previously [START_REF] Richardson | Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms[END_REF], [START_REF] Durbridge | Audio cassettes[END_REF], [START_REF] Carvalho | Podcasts in Higher Education: Students and Teachers Perspectives[END_REF], [START_REF] Carvalho | Integrating new technologies into blended learning environments[END_REF]. A slide presentation and the readings were also available in the Course Documents.

The second week was devoted to reviewing the concepts approached during the first week and to debate Prensky's paper about Digital Wisdom [START_REF] Prensky | Sapiens Digital: From Digital Immigrants and Digital Natives to Digital Wisdom[END_REF].

The third week focused on WebQuest which was also the topic of the first assignment. Students had to select a WebQuest and analyse it, based on a grid developed by the tutor. Then, they invited their students to solve it in class and they had to report their reactions -if they liked it, if they solved it autonomously, if they learned the topic addressed in the WebQuest, and finally what were the advantages of using the WebQuest in learning. As during the chat some students mentioned that they did not have Internet connection in the school or computers in class, they only responded to the last item. In her assignment one student wrote: "It was really a great experience. They [the students] were very much involved in the activity. Even the two groups had a competition. Each group wanted to complete the task before the other. I found that the students enjoyed the webquest very much and they wanted to do more tasks. Also, I found that they were solving problems eagerly. I believe that if we could use such activities and facilities in our classrooms more often, the pupils would be more motivated".

Another student said:

"Solving WebQuests has many advantages for students because it includes higher level thinking, questions to be answered or solved and problems which are related to real life. To solve a WebQuest, students have to work in pairs or group, which promotes their social skills. In my opinion solving a WebQuest has the following advantages: WQ encourages critical thinking and cooperative learning, active learning, students have to make sense of what they are reading, it motivates students, and it improves students' synthesis, analysis, and evaluation skills".

The fourth week was about Treasure Hunt and students had to compare its structure with that of WebQuest. They were invited to create a Treasure Hunt in their own blog. They could send the tutor their Treasure Hunt before editing it online. After publishing it on the Web they invited their students to solve it.

During the fifth week they had to evaluate website quality, based on Alexander and Tate's criteria [START_REF] Alexander | Web Wisdom: How to evaluate and create information quality on the Web[END_REF],Web Site Evaluation [START_REF] Schrock | Web site evaluation & Internet lesson plan guide[END_REF], 23 Quality Criteria [START_REF] Treadwell | 23 Quality Criteria. Teacher@work: internet tools for teachers[END_REF], the Ten C's for Evaluating Internet Resources [START_REF] Richmond | Ten C's for Evaluating Internet Resources[END_REF].

The sixth week focused on meaningful learning and modelling with technology according to David Jonassen [START_REF] Jonassen | Modeling with technology: mindtools for conceptual change[END_REF]. Some audio podcasts containing excerpts from the book were available on the Blackboard, particularly for students that did not have access to the book. A native speaker was invited to read the book excerpts.

In the following week, the topic was concept maps and students had to read the chapters related to it in Jonassen's book [START_REF] Jonassen | Modeling with technology: mindtools for conceptual change[END_REF] or listen to the podcasts. Students had to install Cmap tools and create a concept map; afterwards they should use it with their students. A tutorial about Cmap Tools was available for them. The second assignment was a report about the use of concepts maps by teachers or by their students in the classroom.

During the last week, the connectivism purposed by George Siemens [START_REF] Siemens | Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age[END_REF], [START_REF] Siemens | New structures and spaces of learning: The systematic Impact of Connectivism, and Networked Learning[END_REF] and Stephen Downes [START_REF] Downes | Seven habits of highly connected people[END_REF] was introduced. Two important concepts in the digital age were distinguished: quoting and plagiarism, showing how one cites references. Finally, the collaborative and cooperative learning and its implications in group work was stressed.

The students had a final exam in October in Male.

Students' Participation in the Chat Sessions and Forums

Students' participation in the two weekly sessions and in the forum threads was not mandatory but highly recommended. Only a small group of students participated in the forums. In all fourteen chat sessions the number of participants ranged from 4 to 15. We realized that the students that participated in the chat sessions could clarify their doubts. Most of the time, they asked for questions about the topic under discussion. Some were checking what they knew regarding the subject at hand while others were learning it as they did not read the proposed d reading material.

The seven forums included nine threads. The number of respondents ranged from 12 to 14. They had time to think about their answer, and for each reply the tutor wrote a constructive comment.

At the end of the course, after submitting their assignments, the students were invited to complete a course unit evaluation questionnaire, but only six did so. Half of them participated in the forum threads and chat sessions. Those that did not participate provided different reasons. One reported technical problems in accessing the Blackboard platform and he did not have Internet access at home. The student wrote: "During the ICT course I had a dial up connection at School, its speed is 21kbs. I travelled to nearest TRC [Teacher Resource Centre] but uploading and downloading materials is expensive and only during the daytime. Night travelling is not possible and the next day cannot report to school if I do so". Another student did not participate in the forums or in the chat sessions, because "I was too busy with my job due to certain unavoidable reasons. I wanted to participate in the forums and chat but I could not. But I read the chat recordings". The third one answered the forums threads but she could not participate in the chat sessions, she said: "I completed all the forum work but it was very difficult for me to participate in the chat sessions as I was in Australia at the time. The time for the chat session for us was 2 o' clock in the morning. Anyway, I participated in many chat sessions too".

A student commented the following strategy: "you [the tutor] had listed the list of participants for the chat sessions and forums. That was one of the best things you did to get the participants to pay attention to the course unit".

Final Remarks

Some particular situations arose during the course due to the students' lack of ICT key competencies and the failure to read the recommended texts. Sometimes in the chat sessions some students were writing in Dhivehi to help each other, particularly in the first sessions. Some of them did not read the papers before the chat and most of the time the tutor was explaining the subject rather than clarifying their doubts. Due to this fact, one student wrote: "the chat session was not much useful as many of the participants were out of the topic". When Cmap Tools were introduced, they mentioned having some difficulties in installing it. So, during the chat session I was explaining what they should do. Then, the download time generated a sort of race. It became fun because some of them downloaded faster than others, and they were providing details about the download percentage.

During this course unit some students were in Australia taking another course and there was a 6 hour difference, so at 8pm (chat session) it was 2am in Australia. Some of those were complaining about the time of the chat sessions.

The University sent to Maldives twenty books per course. Some students did not get the Jonassen's book, but "we managed to get the copy of the units that u recommended for us to read from another school". The podcasts about the book were intended to help those that had difficulties in getting it. A student that listened to podcasts indicated that he listened to the podcasts about the book, "because I did not get the book, I love reading rather than listening". One student that read the book also listened to the podcasts. She commented "I preferred listening to the podcasts about the book". This student is the only one that indicated that in other distance learning courses she would like to hear the teacher's voice giving advice or guidelines, all other respondents preferred reading the guidelines. All others preferred to get written feedback instead of audio. In a study conducted in Portugal [START_REF] Carvalho | A Taxonomy of Podcasts and its Application to Higher Education[END_REF] the students liked receiving audio feedback. The different reaction of the Maldivian students may be justified by the fact that the tutor and the students were not native speakers therefore, reading a text would probably be easier to understand.

On a five points scale ranging from poor to excellent, students considered very good or excellent: the relevance of the course unit contents, the organization of the course in modules (one per week), the guidelines for the week, the adequacy of the assignments compared to the aims of the course unit, and the support from the teacher. They mentioned that the course unit contents were useful for their job.

The students were asked to give a free comment about the ICT in Education course. Their comments were positive and showed the impact of this training in their professional life: "The course unit was very interesting and we learned a lot which can be used in our educational system". Another student wrote: "I have learnt how to use WebQuests and Blogs for the teaching purposes and in the capacity of a teachers' educator as well. ICT is something without which we teachers cannot just teach these days". One student recognized not only the importance of the course but also the need to update the equipment and the Internet access in schools: "ICT course is a very useful one. I learned a lot from this course. I introduced some of the components to my colleagues and they also found them very useful. For me, the main difficulty is that most of our students do not have Internet access. We are unable to use (in the class) what we have learned from this course but gradually parents are also becoming aware of the importance of the Internet and we can use this in the class very soon. It is also important to note that our classrooms are not ICT friendly classrooms. However, we are using the Teacher Resource Centre to teach some lessons using the smart board. Anyway, I found that this course is very useful to me". This initiative of training teachers first and updating the system after is much better than the other way around. Finally, one last comment to synthesize everything: "The ICT course unit was the most useful unit for my personal and professional development during this course. As you can understand, during the face to face week, many of us were not able to explain much about podcasts, blogs, WebQuest, Treasure Hunt, concept maps, web tools etc. But after completing this unit, now we are the first batch of people who can explain to many of the Maldivian teachers and students these useful things for the teaching and learning process of our students and teachers".

We may conclude with John's and Wheeler's [START_REF] John | Teachers and technology[END_REF] words, now these "teachers hold the key to future developments" (p. 15) and with their commitment to ICT use, many of the opportunities to innovate and transform education and learning will be seized.

Table 1 .

 1 Training Program Structure

	Compulsory and Optional Course	Course Units
	Units
	Compulsory Course Units	-Teaching/ Teacher Education
	Duration: 80 hours each at	-Supervision and Monitoring
	10hrs/week	-ICT and Education
		-Online and Distance Education
	Optional Course Units	A	-School Administration
	Duration: 36 hours each at		-School Management
	12hrs/week
		B	-Change Management in Education
			-Educational Management and
			Leadership
		C	-Behaviour Management
			-Special Educational Needs

Table 2 .

 2 ICT and Education Course Structure

	Course duration	Course structure
	Face to face week	-Participants characterization
	[May 2008]	-Introduction to ICT
		-Introduction to Blackboard facilities
		-Create a blog and post comments to their
		colleagues
		-Create a podcast (audio)
		-New literacies.
	7 weeks online	Each week:
	LMS: Blackboard	-A new topic was introduced
	[March-April 2009]	-2 chat sessions (1 hour each)
		-Forum (1 or 2 threads)

Table 3 .

 3 ICT tools or resources known by students (n=56)

	ICT tools or Resources	f	%
	Google	56	100
	Blog	19	34
	Podcast	5	9
	Wiki	11	20
	YouTube	27	48
	Flickr	11	20
	Delicious	1	2
	Hi5	9	16
	Movie Maker	15	27
	WebQuest	4	7
	Treasure Hunt	3	5
	Second Life	1	2

Table 4 .

 4 Students' presence online (n=56)

	Web 2.0 tools and website	f	%
	Blog	6	11
	Podcast	3	5
	Website	5	9

Table 5 .

 5 Tools and resources used in classes (n=30)

	Tools and resources used in	f	%
	class
	Google	29	97
	WebQuest	4	13
	Blog	2	7
	Treasure Hunt	1	3
	YouTube	1	3

Table 6 .

 6 Using Internet resources with students (n=56)

	Frequency of Internet use	f	%
	with students
	Daily	7	13
	Weekly	8	14
	Monthly	4	7
	Rarely	26	46
	Never	11	20

Table 7 .

 7 Computer and Internet connection at home (n=56)

	Computer	and	Internet	f	%
	connection at home
	Computer			52	93
	Internet connection		40	71

Table 8 .

 8 Contents of the first week

	Session	First week contents
	1	Internet and World Wide Web.
		Blackboard: an introduction.
	2	Blog: features, and learning implications. Create
		a blog.
		Blackboard: Chat.
	3	Podcast: characteristics, and implications in
		learning. Create a podcast.
		Blackboard: Discussion board (forum).
	4	Record a text in Audacity and save it as mp3.
		Post it in Podomatic. Insert a picture.
	5	New literacies and its effect in learning.
		Blackboard: upload a file to Discussion Board,
		Digital Dropbox, and Group Pages.


Darío Rodríguez
email: darodriguez@unla.edu.ar

Rodolfo Bertone

Ramón García-Martínez

Collaborative Research Training Based On Virtual Spaces

Keywords:

A possible strategy for training researchers is to provide integrated research cores with researchers-in-training under the guidance of a senior trained researcher. Information technology and communication have enabled the construction of virtual communities formed by individuals who may be far away physically but who are cognitively close, hence giving rise to collaborative research training models. In this context, this paper formulates an approach to identify the elements of the work space of a research group devoted to research training and to assess the technological feasibility of virtualization of such elements.

Introduction

Several authors [START_REF] Rivera | Los Semilleros de Formación de Jóvenes Investigadores: la Experiencia de ASPA[END_REF] [2] [3] [START_REF] Rodríguez | Consideraciones sobre el Uso de Espacios Virtuales en la Formación de Investigadores[END_REF] have noted that the research team can be made up of individuals who do not belong to the same institution or even the same country, and that the only requirement is that these individuals share the sense of belonging to a certain research group. Information technology and communication have enabled the construction of virtual communities formed by individuals who may be far away physically but cognitively close [START_REF] Moreno | para el Análisis de los Procesos de Formación de Investigadores en las Universidades Colombianas[END_REF]. In this context, the massive use of the Internet demands a new conceptualization of notions such as research groups, research training, peer publications, socialization, and cooperation, among others. Virtualization has fostered the notion that groups are definitely not the sum of individuals but the result of a network of symbolic systems, practices, rituals and reflections. In this network of exchange of meanings among researchers regarding the object and the research project, a kind of virtual school is built where status is granted and research products are valued.

This paper introduces a possible theoretical framework (Section 2) in which the various definitions that the community has built upon research and projects (Section 2.1), training of researchers (Section 2.2) the concept of research communities (Section 2.3), and the relationships between interpersonal communication, researcher training and R&D groups (Section 2.4) are presented. It also introduces a collaborative model for researcher training (Section 3) where the concept of research and research plan (Section 3.1) and the dynamics of the research group associated with the model (Section 3.2) are described in context. The technological feasibility of visualization of the model described (Section 4), identifying elements of the work space and their features, and exploring the technological feasibility of virtual work space by the construction of a web-based software artifact prototype is discussed. Finally, the conclusions and future lines of work are presented (Section 5).

Theoretical Framework

In this section, different aspects of the theoretical framework that the community has developed such as research, research projects, research training, research communities and their relation to the training of researchers are presented.

Research and Projects

Inciarte and Torres [START_REF] Inciarte | La línea y los grupos de investigación, de investigación como estrategia para la formación de investigadores[END_REF], propose that investigation is an ordering axis of research activity, having a rational basis and allowing for the integration and continuity of the efforts of one or more individuals, teams or institutions committed to the development of knowledge in a specific area. Its identification permits to establish levels of detail and specificity to address problems whose need to be solved is evident and shared. This, in turn, forms a teaching and learning scheme focused on research that has the following advantages:

[a] it promotes openness to criticize various unrestricted aspects or approaches to unique paradigmatic visions, convergence and divergence of concepts, approaches, methods and paradigms, dialogue, reflection and analysis of the deep and fruitful work of researchers-in-training. That is, openness to be observed by colleagues and strangers.

[b] it provides an excellent space to develop the research-learning process.

[c] it help to project the research allowing for an effective use of knowledge upon practice.

Research Training

Sánchez [START_REF] Sánchez | Formación de investigadores en posgrado. Un proceso pedagógico por atender. XX Congreso Nacional de Posgrado[END_REF] argues that the training of researchers presents a pedagogical relationship in which three stages that will become the common axes of analysis may be identified:

[a] The interaction with the social environment (subjects and objects involved in the learning process).

[b] The individual appropriation or internalization on the part of the subject of knowledge generated by his/her research community.

[c] The transformation into the design of a project that is crystallized in a creation to solve a problem in one area of knowledge.

Villarreal and Guevara [START_REF] Villarreal | Una Experiencia en Formación de Investigadores[END_REF] indicate that a possible strategy for training researchers is to provide integrated research cores formed by researchers-in-training under the guidance of a trained investigator with the following objectives: to collaborate with a project a senior researcher is developing and then generate his/her own project in collaboration with the senior researcher and under his/her guidance. In agreement with this, Moreno [START_REF] Moreno | para el Análisis de los Procesos de Formación de Investigadores en las Universidades Colombianas[END_REF] proposes that the core of scientific research today are the groups (or communities) working around specific research projects. Moreover, is based on the fact that the preparation of human resources in research is closely related to the creation of an academic community, and hence to the development of knowledge [START_REF] Serrano | Formación de Investigadores y Cultura Organizacional en las Universidades[END_REF]. In particular, the scientific communities express and embody epistemologies that circulate through fields and disciplines and that operate as a contextual indicator of the status of research training.

Research Communities

The lonely researcher is capable of generating knowledge, but is limited by the unidimensionality in training; then, the need to comprehensively approach reality is seen, and this requires various perspectives to be gathered in order to understand the subject. Hence, groups arose that are not a number of isolated projects put together, but a structure made up of individual interests trying to get acquainted with the same thematic area or nuclear problem [START_REF] Cely | Las Líneas de Investigación y la Formación de Investigadores: Una Mirada desde la Administración y sus Procesos Formativos[END_REF].

Sánchez and Granados [START_REF] Sánchez | Experiencias de Autoformación y Heteroformación de Formadores de Investigadores en el Campo Tecnológico[END_REF] define a research community constituted by: senior researchers, junior researchers, PhD students, advanced master students, and near graduation students. The research seminar (or workshop) is a practice established by the research groups to review the progress of their projects, so it becomes the natural structure that integrates this revision work. One of its advantages is its horizontality because it exceeds the traditional teacher-student relationship and fosters a relationship between colleagues. The collective space dynamics allows for autonomy spaces which conjugates the different experiences of all its members. It is a space of co-construction, in which everyone learns, clarify their doubts and enrich projects with inputs from the group. The uptake of training by a researcher in a research community will benefit him because he has not yet acquired the same amount of information that trained investigators have as for instance personal collections of publications and a network of personal contacts with research expert fellows that can reduce the need for extensive information search, and therefore improve the use of information skills [START_REF] Barry | Information skills for an electronic world: training doctoral research students[END_REF].

Interpersonal Communication, Training and R&D Group

The communication promoted within a research community is a factor that favors the development of its members who, in permanent interaction subject+subject or subject+research-object, contribute with their expertise to solve problems. This interaction is mediated by knowledge and experience from both the academic and the professional world, which are significant to those who belong to a particular research community. Communication through group sessions, open spaces for senior researcher to consolidate the progress a researcher under training has made while the latter can benefit from the comments he/she makes to his peers as well as from peer observations. Through sharing and collaborating in research groups, an interformative relationship among its members is developed that turns them into coconstruction spaces of knowledge which acquire a pedagogical value, since those who have access to methods and experiences developed by other researchers favors with the development of skills that are necessary for professional performance.

In this context, Moreno [START_REF] Moreno | para el Análisis de los Procesos de Formación de Investigadores en las Universidades Colombianas[END_REF] indicates that the group provides a source that makes the relationship between the apprentice (young researcher) and the researcher (principal investigator) possible. The apprentice learns by comparing his emerging knowledge with the mature knowledge of other researchers, not only in terms of management tools, which is sometimes unfortunately most important, but also from the expert judgments, which represent the most sophisticated investigative learning. That is why during this process, the guidance and advice of a senior researcher is essential to correct and encourage the progress of a researcher under training. His collaboration is crucial, his knowledge and experience devoted to guide and strengthen the performance of novice researchers allows for the development of skills that lead them to make innovative projects and generate knowledge and technology [START_REF] Sánchez | Experiencias de Autoformación y Heteroformación de Formadores de Investigadores en el Campo Tecnológico[END_REF].

Collaborative Model for Research Training (MCFI)

Rodriguez, Bertone and García-Martínez [START_REF] Rodríguez | Consideraciones sobre el Uso de Espacios Virtuales en la Formación de Investigadores[END_REF] propose a model for the training of researchers focused on collaboration. This model defines two aspects to be considered. First, the allocation of research topics, and second, the dynamics of group-oriented research to be "per se" an institution devoted to research training.

Online Research and Research Plan

The research group focuses on a senior researcher, who defines the research topics and generates the associated research plan. He establishes the research limits and determines the area of knowledge on which to apply the research plan. All members of the Research Group work in the same domain knowledge at different levels. The Senior Researcher assigns the research subjects (PhD dissertation, Masters, Specialty or Grade) under different levels of implementation of research considering the following premises: Doctoral Thesis, which generates new knowledge within the domain established by trained investigators; Master Thesis, which establishes the manner in which the knowledge developed by PhD students can be applied to an advanced development (i.e.: Expert system); Specialty thesis, which involves a documental research project or an exploratory experimental work. This is linked to master and doctoral students. Grade Thesis, which develops a software artifact related to a master or a PhD research project. These relationships are illustrated in the diagram in Figure 1.

Within the research plan various research programs are generated, each linked in its origin to the proposal of a PhD student. For example, Figure 2 shows how the nodes marked in Figure 1 correspond to a real research program in which projects are related thesis of four different institutions. The work of the master student completes the work began by the PhD student, thus generating his own project, chained to the doctoral student. This chain is completed by other theses of specialty and grade that are incorporated in the level immediately below the feeding chain and achieve the necessary feedback to verify and validate in real and concrete fields the doctoral student proposal.

Research Group Dynamics

As we move up the research levels, a general and global overview of the research process is obtained. The role of a senior researcher in the research process is to be a counselor and facilitator to the lower levels in the context of collaborative and participative learning [START_REF] Duart | Formación universitaria por medio de la web: un modelo integrador para el aprendizaje superior[END_REF]. The same research topic is approached at different research levels (PhD, Master, others), and in a natural collaboration an integrated process is achieved. The supervision takes place among high level training researchers interacting with immediately lower level training researchers. In comparison with the senior researchers, they are peers however they achieve research management and lower level researcher's contention [START_REF] Moreno Aguilar | Hacia una infraestructura de componentes para la construcción de ambientes de aprendizaje colaborativo[END_REF].

The relationship network that guide the distribution of research tasks involves a circular collaborative network [START_REF] Valerio | Herramientas Tecnológicas para la Administración del Conocimiento[END_REF] that contains the senior researcher (see Figure 3) centered in ideas-problems-solutions-references associated with the various research problems, in opposition to the classical model (radial network) in which the senior researcher is in the center and researchers-in-training can only connect with him.

Fig. 3. Network of relationships in the researchers training collaborative model

Under the cooperative and collaborative paradigm, the workshop or seminar of researchers-in-training coordinated by the senior researcher is the activity in which reviewing of research proposals occurs naturally and cooperation in seeking solutions for the emerging problems at each research project stage occurs naturally. In these meetings, each participant submits ideas, problems and possible solutions to the group and gets suggestions, criticisms and contributions of other members, under the supervision and guidance of a senior researcher. These tasks permits reporting the progress of each research project and receiving the corresponding feedback.

Technological Feasibility of Virtualization (TFV)

This section presents a developed work space which supports the collaborative model for research training in a distance teaching-learning manner. The work space has the following elements: a library of specialized publications, a repository of documents and a classroom where virtualized workshops or seminars are developed.

The classroom module is a virtual cooperation space where researchers can communicate in real time through video conferencing functionality using PC web cam and audio devices. The work space allows maintaining a channel of audio and video among multiple users simultaneously by using streaming video and voice over IP technologies. The researchers can exchange views and ideas in real time through a virtual whiteboard. Each member of the group can "draw" and make sketches, paste documents, images, and texts of any kind, while other participants see them in real time. This presents many challenges with respect to timing and transmission of data among distributed programs and achieving the performance needed to ensure quality is still an open issue. Some example of free access artifacts that partially address the functionality of this module are "Skipe" [START_REF] Skype | Sitio Oficial para Descarga de SKYPE[END_REF] which enables web conference between two people and "Virtual Whiteboard" [START_REF]Virtual Whiteboard -A Free Online Collaboration Tool[END_REF] which enables to share a web whiteboard among four people. Figure 4 presents what a web cam based on communication and virtual whiteboard facilities in the classroom module looks like. The publication library module allows to managing specialized publications relevant to the domain of knowledge related to the research plan of the group in digital forms (journals, transactions and conference proceedings). Some example artifacts that are used to address this functionality are: "IEEE Computer Society Digital Library" website [START_REF][END_REF], "ACM Digital Library" website [23], and "Directory of Open Access Journals" website [24].

The document repository module allows managing two different groups of documents: the scientific production of the group (articles, communications, theses, task reports), and documents of interest from other research groups in the same domain. The documents may be stored by members of the research group in different formats and different types (i.e., text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, images, audio files, video files), be classified according to specified criteria and shared among members of the group of researchers. It also provides a search engine to facilitate the recovery of documents. Examples of some artifacts that address this functionality are: "UBA-FI-LSI" website [START_REF]Laboratorio de Sistemas Inteligentes[END_REF] where PhD, master and graduate theses, papers and conference communications are listed and access to them enabled, and "GRISE" website [START_REF] Grise | [END_REF] which adds research reports (research documents) to previous example.

The intranet management module allows creating and managing research groups, users of the system, user profiles, permissions, parametric tables, documents, projects, scheduling conferences, and all functions necessary for the proper functioning of the platform dynamically.

Conclusions

The training of researchers involves interaction among persons who have different levels of professional and academic skills, on the one hand senior researchers and on the other hand various levels of trainee researchers. They constitute a community whose main activity is working on research issues within their discipline that become their focus of study.

Virtualization should allow for interaction among researchers located in different (and distant) geographical points, by creating a space to discuss research issues and exchange research documents that become the basis of virtual research groups.

We proposed a collaborative model for research training which is supported by a web-based collaborative software artifact. Besides, having a virtualized repository of scientific production of the research group constitutes the basis for two knowledge management tools, one being a record of the organizational memory and the other being a learning resource focused on a research topic. These tools ensure the flow of knowledge and work in a collaborative way inside the group.

Based on a balanced methodological model of higher education, we seek to identify technological media to virtualized training of researchers, making the needed resources that will help their learning process available to them; and making the senior researcher who guides them become a true facilitator for the acquisition of research skills.

The reality of our country (Argentina), with a few computer science research centers with capacity to train researchers at all levels, leads to the need of addressing the issue of alternative schemes for training researchers. The web communication technology for training researchers emerges as a possibility to set up research groups in which academic institutions with established research centers provide senior researchers while the rest of the university system provides the human resources to be trained in the research process.

In this context, this paper has explored the framework for research training, has introduced a scheme of collaborative training of researchers, and has presented a prototype of work space for the described virtualization scheme which runs in a single web software environment. On a following step, we expect to continue this work by defining the various related processes used by the collaborative scheme for training junior researchers, and to improve the developed software artifacts.

Fig. 1 .

 1 Fig. 1. Generation of research plan and allocation of research topics These programs are mutually independent but are part of the domain knowledge associated with the research line defined by the senior researcher.

Fig. 2 .

 2 Fig. 2. Real Research Program Example.

Fig. 4 .

 4 Fig. 4. Example of what a web cam based on communication and virtual whiteboard facilities looks like.

Acknowledgements. The Authors wish to thank Leonardo D´Onofrio and Fernando Uminsky who built the web-based software artifact (showed in Figure 4) used to prove the ideas presented in this paper.


Pascal Ravesteyn
email: pascal.ravesteijn@hu.nl

Johan Versendaal
email: johan.versendaal@hu.nl

Design and Implementation of Business Process Management Curriculum: A Case in Dutch Higher Education

Keywords: BPM, education, design, implementation

This paper describes a joint effort by two educational and scientific institutes, the HU University of Applied Sciences and Utrecht University, in designing a BPM course that not only transfers theoretical knowledge but lets students also experience real life BPM-systems and implementation issues. We also describe the implementation of the developed module with an indication of its success: it is now running for the fifth time, and although there continue to be points for improvement, over the years several scientific papers in the BPM domain resulted from the course, as well as a reasonable amount of students started their final thesis project in the BPM-domain.

Introduction

The adoption of Information Technology (IT) by organizations has grown tremendously in the last fifty years. During this period the focus of how IT is used has gradually changed from computational support to using IT as a means to realize more effective and efficient processes. One of the trends that have caused this change is the rapidly growing globalization in which organizations collaborate within and across supply chains around the world. Traditional IT support for these types of collaboration is expensive and the implementation of customized solutions does not live up to expectations [START_REF] Ravesteyn | Constructing a Situation Sensitive Methodology for BPMS Implementation[END_REF]. Consequently one of the domains receiving increased attention is that of Business Process Management. BPM can be considered a 'holistic' management approach that enables process orientation and improvement within organizations and aims at more flexible processes and information systems, thereby making organizations more agile [START_REF] Weske | Business Process Management: Concepts, Languages, Architectures[END_REF]. Based on the service-oriented architecture (SOA) paradigm BPM-systems enable analyses, modeling, execution and improvement of an organizations public and private processes thereby extending the usability of legacy systems and increasing the flexibility of processes [START_REF] Weske | Business Process Management: Concepts, Languages, Architectures[END_REF][START_REF] Hiemstra | An Alignment Model for Business Process Management and Service Oriented Architecture[END_REF].

The change towards process orientation in organizations requires a cross-functional perspective on processes and customers instead of a focus on hierarchy and functions [START_REF] Seethamraju | Enterprise Systems Software in Business School Curriculum -Evaluation of Design and Delivery[END_REF] and therefore emphasis has shifted from functional specialization towards processes [START_REF] Malekzadeh | Diversity, integration, globalization and critical thinking in the upper division[END_REF]. If we review the information systems curricula at Universities we notice that there is a growing attention for modules with a clear emphasis on business process analyses and automation. The importance of cross-functional integration and business process orientation has also been notified in the domain of business education; however, shortcomings in existing curricula are still there [START_REF] Seethamraju | Enterprise Systems Software in Business School Curriculum -Evaluation of Design and Delivery[END_REF].

This paper addresses the topic of BPM competencies in University education and provides an example on how to set up a process oriented curriculum, based on four years of experiences by two Dutch Universities that established a joint BPM course for both fulltime and part-time undergraduate and graduate students.

In the following section we describe related work on process oriented education modules. The third section describes the course design and content. The fourth section will relate the outcomes and the experiences of the students together with the lessons learned. In the final and fifth section we present some conclusions and suggestions for further improvements to the course.

Related work

As a start to this research, a study was conducted to find best-practices of other universities about the development of a BPM course [START_REF] Ravesteyn | In Search of Competencies Needed in BPM Projects[END_REF]. However despite the amount of research available on BPM there were was little in-depth information available on curricula that specifically addressed training in skills and competencies in BPM. Fingar [START_REF] Fingar | The MBA is Dead, Long Live the MBI[END_REF] stated that the curricula of MBA-courses at business schools are too focused on administrative skills and hardly pay any attention to (process) innovation. He suggests a curriculum in which a core of MBA topics (such as finance and accounting, quantitative analysis, economics, marketing and organizational behaviour) is integrated with modules that teach skills in business process management, business activity monitoring, process modeling, process improvement and simulation.

In Bandare et al. [START_REF] Bandare | A Structured Approach to Determining Appropriate Content for Emerging Information Systems Subjects: An Example for BPM Curricula Design[END_REF] a study is described that determines whether there is a large demand for business process modeling skills. For this 300 online job vacancies that explicitly mentioned process modeling skills were analyzed. Subsequently she organized a focus group representing potential BPM recruiters to validate and contextualize the findings. It should be noted however, that this study was focused on business process modeling skills and not the broader set of competencies needed in business process management projects.

Zur Meuhlen [START_REF] Muehlen Zur | Class Notes: BPM Research and Education[END_REF] reveals a more detailed view on the skills that are needed in BPM efforts. He distinguishes four different groups that are involved in BPM-projects: (1) executives, (2) business analysts, (3) systems analysts, and (4) vendors or systems integrators. Each group has different responsibilities and therefore needs a differentiated set of skills. For example, executives need to ensure process performance and compliance, and hence need skills in process analysis, governance and portfolio management. In contrast systems analysts are responsible for the implementation of the process and its corresponding information systems and therefore need skills in process modeling, workflow implementation, user interface design and systems integration. In his paper Zur Meuhlen does not only provide insight in BPM skills, he also presents a preliminary list of universities that offer BPM programs.

While the papers mentioned above are interesting none of them describe how to develop a curriculum in BPM or experiences in teaching. The only paper that does focus on the development process is by Recker and Rosemann [START_REF] Recker | Teaching Business Process Modeling: Experiences and Recommendations[END_REF]. They explain in detail the setup, structure, and experiences of a course in business process modeling at the Queensland University of Technology in Australia. However the topic is on business process modeling and does not include management: the paper merely provides insights in how to develop a process oriented curriculum and which teaching techniques can be used.

Because the amount of literature on education in BPM is sparse we decided to include literature on Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) course design. Systems for ERP as well as systems for BPM are both enterprise information systems dealing with cross-functional processes. ERP systems generally contain several sorts of workflow processes, which are made explicit in BPM systems. We found that most of the ERP education development is based on one of the following four categories of approaches [START_REF] Hawking | Integrating ERP's Second Wave into Higher Education Curriculum[END_REF][START_REF] Jensen | Issues in ERP Education Development -Evaluation of the Options Using Three Different Models[END_REF] The first approach is basically instruction or training in a specific ERP system. This is very similar to the training courses that the ERP and also BPM-systems developers and suppliers provide to their customers and could be done by reusing commercial training material. The second approach focuses on business processes and related concepts (e.g. financial administration or production scheduling and planning) and uses ERP to assist in the presentation and clarification of these methods and concepts. For this approach, commercial training material is not sufficient; and new material will have to be developed. The third approach uses ERP to illustrate information systems concepts. It is very similar to the second approach; only the target group or goal differs. Instead of teaching business students and business concepts, the target group will most likely be computer science / information systems students and the concepts that are taught are different. The last approach is to teach about ERP related skills, such as selection and implementation of ERP software. It is not really necessary to use a real live ERP system for this although it could give a clearer picture of the complexity of such systems. Of course, it is also possible to combine aspects of all approaches to create a more hybrid approach.

Typically in the course we aimed to develop we wanted to use a BPM-system in support and clarification to the theory. Furthermore in teaching BPM it is important to realize that not only process related knowledge and skills are essential, we also want students to have a high degree of self-awareness, be able to think critical and keep on learning continuously. In the field of BPM, particularly, it is becoming increasingly important to also understand aspects of the development, implementation and maintenance of e-business solutions due to the continuing evolution of BPM [START_REF] Mcgaughey | Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP): Past, Present and Future[END_REF]. Therefore any course on BPM should in our opinion consist of three parts 1) theory and methods from a business perspective 2) theory and methods from a technical perspective and 3) a practical part that integrates the former two via lifelike exercises and confronts the student with state-of-the-art software.

Course Design

To teach students all three aspects of BPM as defined in section 2, five years ago the HU University of Applied Sciences together with the Utrecht University developed a course that can be followed by both Master and Bachelor students simultaneously. The course was designed with two tracks that complement each other. The first track consists of theory on BPM from both the business and technical perspectives. Each week during a three hour period we first discuss scientific theory, methods and techniques, that is then followed by a guest lecture in which practical examples are discussed in relation to the theory of the first half of the period. The second track is entirely based on a case study that we developed in which the students have to analyze, improve, implement and execute the processes in a supply chain. For this again a three hour time period is reserved. The entire course now runs for 9 weeks and is followed by presentations in week 10. Students that follow and finish the course are awarded 7.5 ECTS (European Credits) which means that the total time spent on this course should amount to 210 hours. So besides the 54 hours of classes (both theory and practical) students should spend a total of 156 hours on self study. This time should be spent for about 50% on theoretical assignments and 50% on the practical assignment. Grading of the course consists of a 50% judgment of the digestion of the theoretical part, and a 50% judgment of the practical work.

An innovative feature of the course is that we purposely combine students from bachelor level (who follow a computer science course at the HU University of Applied Sciences) with students from a masters level (from the master business informatics of the Utrecht University). This combination means that students who follow practical orientated education and tend to be very pragmatic have to work together with students that do a scientific education and have a more analytical and critical perspective. Yet, while the students have different levels of education (which in practice will be very normal during a BPM project), it does not mean that one group is better than the other. Typically the master students will take the lead in the theoretical scientific track while the bachelor students are better equipped to manage the practical track. Because we purposely combine the students into groups for their assignments they must work together. This also helps us partly to simulate the business (master business informatics) versus IT (bachelor computer science) divide which students will encounter in practice. Furthermore we let the students experience one of the most important aspects of BPM, the fact that they will need to be able to work with persons from different disciplines and with different perspectives.

An overview of the course is given in figure 1 and in the following two subsections both the theoretical and the practical track will be explained in more detail.

Fig. 1. Course overview

Theoretical track

During the theoretical track students are presented with a wide range of topics related to BPM from both a business and IT perspective. Furthermore students (in teams of two) have to perform research and write a paper, for which the literature and state-ofthe-art of BPM research and practice as presented in the lectures of the theoretical track can be used. Each year we present students with one or more topics from which they can choose to write their paper; some of the topics in the past were: BPMsystems implementation, human interaction management, BPM-mashups, ERP and BPM, and business rules management in relation to BPM. In the lectures, more or less the following topics are covered:

• BPM basics from a business perspective; business process management can provide organizations with the ability to save money and time. The role processes play within an enterprise, to stay competitive and remain agile in the changing global market place is highlighted. • BPM-systems implementation; the aim of this unit is to introduce the student to the general concepts of business process management systems (BPMS). In short we cover the history of BPM-systems, its characteristics and architecture, give an overview of the providers of BPMSs etc. • BPM(S) Implementation. Here we take the students from process design through implementation to the management of processes and their supporting information systems. Students learn the distinction between business processes and business rules and how they can be implemented in information systems. • Human Interaction Management / Dynamic BPM. While most current BPM efforts are focused on well structured processes there are also many ad-hoc activities and non-structured processes that need managing and control. The consequences of the fast increasing amount of knowledge workers and a changing way of working (place and time independent) are discussed together with the methods and tools to support these types of activities and processes. • BPM and performance measurement. Here we cover the essentials of Business Intelligence (origins and drivers, major characteristics, implementation aspects, lifecycle etc.). Other important aspects that are covered are: BI strategy, business process monitoring and control, business and technical requirements for a BI architecture and the difference between BI and business activity monitoring (BAM).

Besides covering each of these topics in theoretical lectures we also invite companies to come and present their perspective and experiences. Invitations are sent to three different categories of companies a) consultancy organizations b) software developers (BPM system vendors) and c) end user organizations. In this way students obtain an overview of the different perspectives on BPM related issues. Organizations that have participated in the course are amongst others: BEA/Oracle (software developer), ASR/Fortis (end user in the financial sector), Capgemini (consultancy), Cordys (software developer), O&I (management consultancy), SNS/Reaal (end user in the financial sector), and PriceWaterhouseCoopers (consultancy). Furthermore during the last three years the chairman of the Dutch BPM-Forum (Frits Bussemaker) gave a guest lecture at the start of the course.

The grading of the theoretical part is solely based on the quality of the research paper that students need to write in teams of two. In the paper it should be easily verifiable to what degree the students were able to include and process the theory and practical lessons from the (guest) lectures.

Practical track

The practical part of the course is developed in such a way that students are able to attain knowledge and skills in three categories of competencies related to BPM, labeled: 'business administration', 'information architecture and technology' and 'influence and alignment'.

The first group of competencies states students should be able to recognize and understand the relations between the various functions and departments in an organization and between organizations. Furthermore they should be able to identify relevant market developments for the organization and to propose process improvements and/or implementation of ICT applications as a response to these developments. Finally they should be able to identify and to model company processes and interactions within and between organizations. The second group of competencies are more technical and students that master them are 1) able to design a system architecture for collaboration in extended enterprises in which new ICT capabilities are used 2) understand the basics of SOA and BPM-systems, and 3) are able to install and configure BPM-systems and use them to integrate different information systems within an organization and across its supply chain. The final group of competencies is very much aimed at communicative skills. Within BPM projects students should 1) be able to be conversant with both the domains of business and ICT within the organization 2) be able to communicate with all organizational layers on a clear and effective way about investments, business and ICT innovations in terms of business issues and benefits 3) be able to reflect on their own choices and activities and to indicate their own skills, and 4) be able to apply the set of conversational techniques and competences in order to achieve effective communication in interviews and presentations.

To let students acquire the complete set of competencies a case study is developed in which students are challenged to improve processes across a supply chain. This chain consists of three organizations that collaborate with each other: a Retailer, a Wholesaler and a Manufacturer (see figure 2). Students are divided into teams of two and then assigned to one organization in the supply chain. Each supply chain therefore consists of at least six students. Depending on the number of students in the course more instances of supply chains are formed.

Fig. 2. An overview of the supply chain processes in the case study

The supply chain case consists of a wholesaler offering bicycles to retailers. If the retailer wants to buy from this specific wholesaler, he currently has to make a phone call or sent an email. However the students should develop a purchase application that the retailer can use to connect to the wholesalers system. This application should make use of the existing information systems and needs to be completely based on web services. To fulfill the orders of the retailer, the wholesaler has to manage stock levels in his warehouse system. When an item in stock falls below a certain threshold, the wholesaler must restock the item by ordering this at the manufacturer. In order to comply with the wholesaler's request, the manufacturer may have to execute a production run to build the finished goods. Again these processes are only automated within the boundaries of the respective organizations. It is the task of the students to analyze and improve these processes and then implement and execute them by using a particular BPM-system (in our course we use Cordys BOP 4 [14]).

During this case study students will have to go through several phases (similar to those of a real life BPM-systems implementation project) to be able to develop a good supply chain solution. During the first phase students need to create a clear picture of both the processes within the organization that they are assigned and of the interaction between the business partners in the supply chain and their own internal processes. Thereby they learn the difference between processes which will be kept internal or private to the organization and those that will be shared with partners in the supply chain, also called public processes. Together the organizations within a supply chain must agree on a process architecture for the whole supply-chain. Furthermore a set of appropriate key performance indicators for monitoring the supply chain should be determined. Performance indicators can be formulated on the activity-, business-or supply chain levels. During this phase the models are descriptive only but they should be modeled using the features available through the Cordys system. At the end of this phase (typically two to three weeks) a functional design should be handed over to the lecturer for control purposes.

In the second phase students have to identify, per organization in the supply chain, which information will be required from the other business partners and accordingly which web services have to be developed. The information that is delivered and used by the web services is deducted from the process analysis done in the first phase of the project. Next to this the students should also take into account the existing information systems (for the course we only use 3 different SQL databases). Furthermore during this phase an information architecture should be developed and integration to the systems which are going to be reused needs to be accomplished. In the case both straight through processing and human interaction activities are used to integrate the order and delivery processes, students should be aware of this.

The students are expected to at least look at the various tables in each of the partner databases (such as product-, sales-, purchase-and production-tables and various other linked tables), and develop web services or applications that are able to:

• browse through the products (productid, name, price) of the retailer, wholesaler and manufacturer • browse through the sales and purchase orders of the wholesaler (including order details)

• browse through the sales orders of the manufacturer (including order details)

• browse through the production orders of the manufacturer • browse through the product stock levels (aggregated)

• provide information on ordered goods • exchange information (such as order confirmations, delivery dates, updated stock levels) • update customer information • update order information • update product information (such as price, quantities)

In the final phase the proposed solution must be developed and implemented. The modeled processes should be executed by using the developed web services and applications. End-users should be able to start applications within their Internet browser and use them to start process activities. Also the identified key performance indicators should be implemented in order to monitor the operations in the supply chain. For this the students need to develop dashboards from which the performance indicators can easily be accessed by graphs, reports or performance meters.

At the end of the course each group of students that represents a supply chain are asked to present their solution. Processes are run by using the applications and several web services are checked (specifically does were the process does not seem to work correct or were students have made decisions regarding activities in a process that do not seem logical), finally the performance indicators are also checked. When the developed solution does not work properly it is often because one of the supply chain organizations has not delivered the correct web services or has an faulty integration to their backend systems. If this is the case the students that represent that specific organization are tested further on their level of knowledge and skills.

In the following section we discuss some of the outcomes and lessons learned during the five times that we have now run this course.

Outcomes and Lessons Learned

The course has run four complete cycles since 2006 (a fifth being taught as we write) and the amount of data for an evaluation is substantial. Over a 115 students have completed the course, of which around 34 were bachelor computer science students and 81 were graduate students business informatics. Yearly, the students evaluate the course through filling in a partly open and partly closed questionnaire. The overall conclusion is that the course is judged as being relevant (over the years scoring around 3.9 on a scale from 1 (lowest) -5 (highest)). Each year the theoretical topics and the corresponding guest lectures are highly approved of, except for the odd guest lecture which is deemed too commercial, as e.g. a student complaints: "[…] a guest lecture in which the vendor's competitor is defined as incompetent should not be provided, and lacks an academic level […]". Furthermore, there are some topics that students find less satisfying and that return more or less every year.

First and foremost the students find that cooperation between students of the two different universities, with the different types of education and levels, is difficult and time consuming. Within a short time of typically two months they are forced to learn to know each other and work together: "[…] it is so difficult to meet with my teammate: he has a different curriculum schedule. Moreover, the difference in level is also hard to cope with: I had to do a lot of work in writing the paper […]". However, we deliberately take students out of their comfort zone and that experience is according to the evaluations not appreciated: in 2007, the students valued their collaboration with students from 'the other' university as 2.1 on a scale of 1 (lowest) -5 (highest). As this is part of the course design and it simulates real life projects we have decided not to change this aspect, but instead to work on a better facilitation for cooperation: in 2008 we 'forced' students to create teams immediately after the kick-off (during a drink provided by the university) instead of giving them a week time. A second finding from the evaluation is that students find the BPM-system, with which they have to work in the practical track, complex and far from easy. Because most of the students haven't worked with a BPM-system before they have to get to know the user interface and functionality of the application and be able to use it to build a supply chain solution all within 9 weeks. Especially if during the theoretical track we had a guest lecture from another BPMS vendor, students often asked us to use that other system. We feel however that they do not fully realize that the effort to know and master any system is complex and any system would cause learning difficulties; moreover, demo's of vendors of systems always provide a colored reality, which is different from the real experience.

A final issue which we receive during every evaluation is the complexity that comes with collaborating between the partners within a supply chain during the practical track. Students find that they really have to communicate and come to an agreement with all organizations in the supply chain on how the processes are going to be analyzed, what methods for process improvement are used, which information needs to be exchanged, and how to develop and publish web services. This is in accordance with the final results that we observe. Each year the supply chain that provides the best solution is the one which had thought out and agreed upon a clear architecture on all levels from process to application. Furthermore such a team typically uses the architecture to communicate about the projects progress. Whereas does that do not succeed in realizing optimized and integrated supply chain processes usually paid to much attention on only optimizing and automating their own organization without communicating with the other supply chain partners (i.e. they realize stovepipe solutions).

In short we can state that the students who participate in this course value it highly even though especially in the practical track they encounter a lot of issues and problems that make it difficult to fully accomplish the assignment.

Although every year there are areas of improvement and we continue to work on those, we are confirmed in our general approach through the years as multiple published scientific papers resulted from the theoretical part, and also more and more students now perform their final thesis project on the topic of BPM, having become enthusiastic after following the course.

From a scientific viewpoint, notably, the theoretical part of the BPM-course in 2007 provided us with enough material to write an overall paper on success factors of BPMS implementations using the material in papers that students provided [START_REF] Ravesteyn | Success Factors of Business Process Management Systems Implementation[END_REF]. Based on the material from the 2008 course too an overall paper has been published, this time on method fragments in BPMS implementation, again using the input from student papers [START_REF] Ravesteyn | A Situational Implementation Method for Business Process Management Systems[END_REF]. In 2009, one of the papers from students was, with changes and additions by the teachers, submitted to the International Information Management Association (IIMA) conference, and elected as best paper [START_REF] Kristjansson | Applying Human Interaction Management Concepts to E-Mailing: A Visualized Conceptual Model[END_REF]. In 2010 we have told our current batch of students that we intend to submit the best student contributions to the IIMA 2010 Student Consortium.

Conclusions and Future Outlook

In conclusion, we state that the way in which the BPM course curriculum has been developed really enables students to not only acquire knowledge on BPM topics but to also attain skills that are highly valued by industry. By putting together students from different institutes and experience levels we simulate many of the 'soft' problems that people typically encounter in a real life BPM-systems implementation project.

Even though the BPM course can be considered a success there is a price we pay. Organizing the course is a major organizational effort for both universities involved. Each year, the timetables of both universities need to be synchronized for both students and lecturers, besides this arranging between 5 to 8 guest lectures takes a considerable amount of time. Also the effort needed to configure and maintain the BPM-system is substantial and finally students need a lot of energy for this course because they are taken out of their comfort zone and need to deal with a new and complex environment.

Based on the experiences of the last few years and the evaluations of the students we are continuously exploring possibilities to improve the course. One change is to make the group of students more equal. We will no longer combine groups of bachelor and master students of the two universities but we will offer this course to students who are following the bachelor business informatics. This means that there will be two different types of students in the course (more business oriented versus more technology oriented) but that they are on the same level of education. We expect that this will make the practical track of the course less complicated. Also this provides space at the master level of the business informatics education to provide a BPM advanced course that will focus completely on research in the BPM domain. Another change we are considering is the amount of involvement of business; currently this is limited to providing a number of guest lectures but we are thinking of having industry to submit small research projects that the students do as part of the course. This will further improve the practicality of the course. Finally we are continuously improving the amount of knowledge, support and information available on the BPM-system (Cordys) we use. Up till now we have used the Cordys C2 version of the application but with the currently running course we use Cordys BOP 4 and also the process factory which is a lighter version of the application that is offered as software as a service (SaaS). So while the domain of BPM is changing rapidly we aim to offer a course that is challenging and up-to-date and complies with the demands of our students, as well as science and industry.

  • BPM standards, methods and techniques are introduced. We focus on the role of standards (modeling, information, quality, and IT). Maturity models Business Process Modeling. An overview of different techniques to model, analyze and improve processes is given. Furthermore the Business Process Modeling Notation and its execution language (BPEL) are taught and practiced.• Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) in relation to BPM. The synergy and differences between BPM and SOA are presented. The SOA paradigm is explained together with the business drivers for SOA. Important SOA concepts like loose-coupling, service granularity, service contracts, integration and enterprise service bus, governance and security. Also SOA standards and strategies for deploying SOA are discussed.

	Weeks Weeks	Theory Theory and business and IT alignment are discussed. Also the importance of quality Case study Case study management methods and techniques are covered.
	1 1 •			Getting to Getting to
	2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9	Theory and guest lectures on various BPM topics from both a business and IT perspective Theory and guest lectures on various BPM topics from both a business and IT perspective	Research & paper assignment Research & paper assignment	know Cordys Start case: Phase 1; analyse processes Phase 2; technical analysis Phase 3; implementation know Cordys Start case: Phase 1; analyse processes Phase 2; technical analysis Phase 3; implementation
	10 10			Exam presentation Exam presentation