A Two Year Case Study: Technology Assisted Project Supervision (TAPaS)

During their final year undergraduate project a student may feel under-supported, stressed or isolated. In an internally funded project we set out to investigate the benefits of using a diverse blend of collaboration and communication tools alongside traditional methods of final year project supervision. We established separate formal and informal communication channels between the supervisor and their project students and a community of practice of students and supervisors was set up using twitter or a web forum. Using a wiki as a collaborative workspace and repository, student project pages were created and virtual supervision was blended with face-to-face supervision using electronic logs. At first some students were dubious about our approach and disapproved of at least one of the tools used. The supervisors were also initially sceptical of an increase in workload due to the multiplicity of tools used. In this paper we present how the staff and students benefited precisely because of the diverse range of tools used. The methods used resulted in transparency of students’ and supervisors’ actions, however, lessons were learnt about how to address student concerns about plagiarism in such an open environment.