The work-reflection-learning cycle - Department of Computer and ...

6 Contributions and implications
This chapter summarizes the research contributions and their implications. The chapter
is structured in accordance with the four main research topics shown in the diagram in
Figure 3.
6.1 Project work as cross-community collaboration
Contribution 1 of the thesis is an increased understanding of cross-community
collaboration in SE student teams, conceptualized in terms of communities of practice
and related to the use of collaboration tools. The contribution is an extension of state-ofthe-art
research on how stakeholder communication and collaboration, as a crucial part
of SE practice, is currently approached in SE education, and how it can be more
carefully attended to in capstone projects.
In order for student teams to conduct their cross-community collaboration in a reflective
and successful way they need to relate and align to the stakeholders‟ practices and the
associated objectives for involvement with the student project. As students‟
understanding of these objectives may be limited (P1), project courses should be
designed to increase students‟ consciousness about this issue and encourage openness
among project stakeholders about their objectives in the collaboration processes. Also,
team members are likely to have different simultaneous goals for their project
participation, linked to their multiple memberships in different communities. Making
these objectives explicit within the relevant collaboration settings basically corresponds
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