Effective Team Learning in the Cloud

Learning in the cloud can be a lonely activity for self-directing and self-organizing learners. Lack of sustained learner motivation can lead to less effective, less bond-creating learning experiences. By providing collaborative project-based learning opportunities these shortcomings can be overcome. A service design is introduced for the onset of collaborative project-based learning and team formation in the cloud, based on learning materials in the cloud, project definitions and characteristics, and learner ‘knowledge’, ‘personality’ and ‘preferences’. The article specifies how the data required by the design can be gathered. Team formations rules are deduced from existing team formation research. They steer the team formation process towards facilitating learning, creative problem solving or increased productivity outcomes. The rules are implemented in three team formation equations. Deployment of the equations on a set of test data demonstrates the effectiveness of the team formation service.