9 p.m. Darkness envelops the buildings and walkways along Frew Street. Most of the campus faculty and staff are settled at home, yet there are lights ablaze in the basement of Baker Hall. Five students sit expectantly around one side of a conference table, in clear view of a camera pointed at them from its perch on the ceiling. They are waiting to meet their new team members. The teleconference screen brightens to a tropical locale where it's 9 a.m. tomorrow, a 12-hour time warp. Four students from halfway around the world greet their new partners.
And so begins a pioneering adventure spearheaded by Randy Weinberg, director of Carnegie Mellon's undergraduate information systems (IS) program. All IS seniors must complete a semester project in which teams of students provide information systems help to nonprofit clients. This term, two of Weinberg's groups will learn even more about teamwork. They will learn firsthand the realities of the "global workplace." Both Carnegie Mellon teams will include students from Singapore Management University.
Karin Burns, a member of one of the Pittsburgh-based teams, waits apprehensively as the first "face-to-face" meeting with her Singapore teammates begins. Her international group's mission is to provide Suguru Ishizaki, Carnegie Mellon associate professor of rhetoric and communication design, with a tool that will allow him to create online tutorials for students who need help with presentation software, such as PowerPoint.
As the transglobal meeting gets under way and the students become better acquainted, Burns' apprehension disappears. After all, "they're college kids," she says. The hardest thing, she jokes, is remembering to "hit the little button to speak" so she can be heard in Singapore.
Burns' Carnegie Mellon team members have volunteered to work the late shift because the Singapore students have no campus housing and must commute to school, making evening meetings difficult for them. Teleconferencing isn't the only way for the group members to stay in touch. During the semester, Burns, who is from Greenwich, Conn., talks to her teammates primarily through email, instant messaging, and Internet phone.
By semester's end, a very pleased Ishizaki lets Burns know that he got "more than he wanted." Burns isn't surprised that the Singapore/Carnegie Mellon team worked well together. "We're getting to an age right now where it doesn't really matter if you can't see their faces."
