Continuous Improvement in e-Teams for Collaborative Marketing Planning

Academics are charged with continuous and evidence-based curriculum improvement in a move toward more learner-centred teaching and assessment, whereby information and communication technologies increasingly facilitate this call. This chapter looks at technology enhanced teaching and learning in a university curriculum innovation. A major collaborative marketing plan assessment was designed to be undertaken in virtual or eteams in a compulsory first-year Marketing unit within a Bachelor of Business course. Using the Plan-Do-Study-Act improvement cycle, the efficacy of teamwork is evaluated for two successive delivery periods in 2011. Improvements to the eteam design are identified and implemented. It is found that external students can successfully conceptualise new products and develop marketing plans in a fully online learning environment. Further, with the improved eteam design, initial results suggest that teamwork is shifting from simply cooperative to genuinely collaborative.