Working group: Cross-cultural communications course module

Facilitator: Andrzej Proskurowski, University of Oregon

Goal: Develop a course module that will provide computer science students with soft skills helping them to be productive members of professional information technology teams that include representatives of different cultures.

It is well known that human communication matters also in performing dry, technological tasks. The challenge becomes even more important in a global environment. At the last May workshop, we started discussing how to help students acquire skills in cross-cultural communication. One of the problems is how to incorporate such instruction into computer science curriculum.

Pre-Beijing workshop assignment:

• Read and summarize the following two papers:
  
  • "Designing a Cross-Cultural Course", a 1999 US State Department document describing components of such a course.
  • "Culture Surprises in Remote Software Development Teams", a 2003 ACM article on cultural dimensions of cross-cultural team-work.
• Prepare a draft syllabus for 10-20-30 hour course (your choice; for comparison, a typical course over academic quarter in Oregon has 30 hours of lectures.)
• Collect (links to) possible resources, namely, readings, course descriptions, etc.
• Jot down ideas for activities/questions

At the Beijing workshop:

• a syllabus (topics and schedule) for a learning module of optimal length.
• a set of supporting resources/references
• a set of questions/exercises

Deliverables before Spring 09:

A conference paper defining a computer science cross-cultural communication course and contrasting such a course with a generic such a course (taught outside computer science.) Such an article may be a part of a transitional CPATH grant proposal.

May 2008 record:

Participants: Takeshi Tokuyama, Ted Kirkpatrick, Tim Budd, Steve Tanimoto, Bin Xu, Andrzej Proskurowski (facilitator)

Facilitator: Ted Kirkpatrick

Goal of the working group: Produce a paper surveying approaches to teaching this subject and sample resources available at our universities and others.

Resolved: By June 1st. send Ted (or post on drupal) information about your institution's resources (programs, courses, seminars, publications, counseling) on the subject.

Issues:

• Can we separate cross-cultural issues from communication issues? In some ways they are intertwined (communication always appeals to cultural values), but for some purposes perhaps they can be taught separately.
• Japanese universities already require that foreign students study Japanese culture and history.
• Making cross-cultural communication an ABET requirement would encourage introducing this topic to universities.
• Such a course does not belong directly in a computer science department, as there are expert concentrations and faculty in other departments.
• Beside exploring our own institutions, we should survey other i18n partners.<
• Cross-cultural psychology is an established field in psychology. The field studies general cross-cultural issues, rather than specific cultural exchanges (such as Japanese-American or Korean-Philipine). Can be taught either as content (principles) or as skills (how to manage cross-cultural communication).
• The kinds of cross-cultural communication our students are likely to experience in their work environment may be different from traditional notions of cross-cultural experience. Traditional approaches consider the case of an individual from one culture managing their immersion in another. However, our students will often be in a different situation: Working on projects with teams located in many different cultures. Each team will reside in their own culture, but use forms of electronic communication to coordinate with the others. It's more a matter of interfacing to multiple other cultures at once, while living in your own, than about living in another culture.
• A course module on technologically-mediated cross-cultural communication may be more in the CS domain than courses in cross-cultural communication itself.
• Key questions developed in this meeting:
  • To what extent should we use culturally-specific approaches (such as helping Americans learn Chinese language and culture) versus more general approaches to working cross-culturally?
  • Which department(s) should teach this topic? Non-CS departments have expertise in cross-cultural skills, but CS departments have expertise in work practices and tools of our discipline. Co-teaching?
  • Taught as a process or as declarative knowledge?
  • Focus on telecommunications or living within another culture?
  • Are there specific skills for coordinating multi-cultural teams?
  • What departments already exist in each institution for teaching such skills? How are the skills conceptualized?
  • Are there cross-cultural skills unique to technical work? Can we make it easier by building on a shared technical background, and a shared engineering culture?