3.2. Defining the subject of the project
As we have already said, it falls to the project leader to choose a subject for the project. The subject should give occasion for the learners to share the tasks between themselves. Indeed, in a distance learning situation it is impossible to make the learners collaborate all the time, that is to say carry out all the tasks together. The subject of the project, rather like a list of specifications, is therefore chosen so that it can be subdivided into separate parts which should, of course, not be independent from each other but, on the contrary, closely related. The subject needs to be both captivating and rewarding in order for the students to feel fully committed to the project.
3.3. Structuring the project
Every project requires a certain scheduling, as was said in section 2.1, and we feel this is all the more true in the case of distance learning. Indeed, in this context, the various participants do not necessarily share common time references (time difference, variable work pace), so they need to be provided with a means of synchronization. Structuring the project in stages makes synchronization possible, as each stage corresponds to one or several tasks being carried out by the team. In order to take into account the synchronous and asynchronous aspects of any distance work, each stage was broken up into an asynchronous work phase followed by a synchronous phase. During the asynchronous phase, each group of learners has a specific task to carry out. During the synchronous phase, the task to be carried out is a team task which must be performed in collaboration and at the same time. This synchronous phase is called distance meeting. We do, of course, hope that learners will communicate outside this synchronous phase, but it is necessary in order to make sure that there will be a minimum of communication within the team.
Again in the aim of structuring collective work and ensuring minimum communication in the team, the writing up of work documents was associated with the synchronous and asynchronous phases. There are two types of document: group documents, and team documents. Group documents are written during the asynchronous work phases (group writing), whereas team documents are written during the synchronous meeting phases (collective team writing). The documents are formatted beforehand to make them easier to write and read. They are also of significance for other reasons. The group documents allow the project leader to see how each group is progressing with the task in hand and they also allow the groups a means of reporting on their progress to the other members of the team. The team document synthesizes the work carried out by the various groups. It is jointly written by all of them, they must therefore agree on its contents. As a result, it constitutes a reference the team can use to carry out tasks in the following stages.
An example of such project organization is given in Figure 3, that is to say the first stage of the project which consists in analyzing the specifications to subdivide them into sub-projects (analysis stage of the project). The team working on this project comprises three groups of learners. The first phase of this stage is asynchronous, and consists for each group of learners in carrying out a task of analysis based on the specifications and then writing a document of analysis. Thus each group of learners does its own analysis and writes its own document. The second phase of this stage is the synchronous meeting between members of the team. The collective task is then to do a common analysis based on that of each individual group. This should lead learners to reach a consensus after discussion, and collaborate in writing a team document to define the sub-projects they have agreed upon.