Darina M. Slattery

Leadership Roles, Socioemotional Communication Strategies, and Technology Use of Irish and US Students in Virtual Teams

Global virtual teams provide numerous benefits for corporations employing virtual organizational forms and for individual teams and team members. However, virtual collaboration also presents some well-recognized challenges. A growing body of research has examined the process of virtual teaming and the challenges inherent in that process. This study seeks to address some of the gaps in the existing literature. Specifically, it examines leadership roles, socioemotional communication strategies, and the use of technology to establish relational links among team members. The study focuses on virtual-team collaboration among technical communication students at the University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland, and at the University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida.

Cross-language french-english question answering using the DLT system at CLEF 2005

This paper describes the main components of the system built by the DLT Group at Limerick for participation in the QA Task at CLEF. The document indexing we used was again sentence-by-sentence but this year the Lucene Engine was adopted. We also experimented with retrieval query expansion using Local Context Analysis. Results were broadly similar to last year.

Global virtual teams create and translate technical documentation: Communication strategies, challenges and recommendations

Since 2013, students from the University of Limerick (UL), the University of Central Florida (UCF), and Université Paris Diderot (UPD) have collaborated on a documentation and translation assignment in virtual teams. The UL and UCF students, who study technical communication, collaborate to write procedural documents. The UPD students translate the documents into French. A key feature of the project design is the need for collaboration among the document writers and translators throughout the process. This paper provides a theoretical background to the project and describes the assignment that student teams collaborate on. It then offers guidelines for faculty wishing to organize similar projects.

Developing Strategies for Success in a Cross-Disciplinary Global Virtual Team Project: Collaboration Among Student Writers and Translators:

This article reports on a qualitative study of strategies and competencies used by technical communication and translation students to address challenges inherent in global virtual team collaboration. The study involved students from three universities collaborating in virtual teams to write and translate instructional documents. Qualitative content analysis of students’ reflective blogs and team transcripts was used to examine their experiences while collaborating. Students faced challenges related to communication, leadership, and technology, and developed various strategies to address those challenges. Although the students did not face cultural challenges, they reported increased awareness of cultural issues. Students also reported that the project helped them better understand the workplace and define career goals.

Use of collaboration assignments to support online learning communities

During the past few decades, increased use of information and communication technologies has led to educational innovations such as synchronous and asynchronous online collaboration tools and learning management systems. The range of information and communication technologies that are now available can support many types of collaboration that would have been previously impossible. Instructors can use information and communication technologies to facilitate collaboration that might not otherwise take place between on-campus and online learners, and between learners in different countries and universities. In collaborative learning environments, a community of inquiry supports student learning. Successful learning communities can increase learner motivation, facilitate deep learning, and reduce the potential isolation that online learners often experience. This paper provides an overview of relevant literature. The paper then outlines collaboration assignments that postgraduate students undertake in technical communication and instructional design courses. Many instructors are interested in developing their awareness of, and expertise in, innovative online teaching practices; to that end, this paper presents a number of teaching cases.

The Language of Financial Reports and News

Nowadays there is a huge volume of financial information available on the web. There is also considerable debate about the impact, if any, that this information has on share prices and overall market sentiment. Fundamental and technical analysts believe that there is some value in financial information and that it can be exploited for predictive purposes. This article provides a commentary on various studies that involved the analysis of financial content for various goals using various methods. This article includes a discussion of their main findings and recurrent themes and concludes with some possible future directions for research.

Preparing technical communication students for their role in the information economy: Client-based virtual team collaboration between Irish and US students

Effective leadership is crucial to the success of global virtual teams. Team leaders have many responsibilities and face many challenges. Leaders must provide structure for team members and find ways to personalize virtual work relationships. Often, leaders of virtual teams are also charged with the responsibility of media selection and of helping team members adapt to the technologies being used for virtual collaboration. Studies of leadership can be roughly divided into two categories: 1) studies that examine the behaviors of practitioners charged with leading virtual teams in the workplace; and 2) research conducted with students participating in virtual team projects. This study examines a client-based virtual team collaboration between students at the University of Limerick (UL) in Limerick, Ireland and students at the University of Central Florida (UCF) in Orlando, Florida, USA. This paper focuses on our analysis of designated and emergent leaders during the project.