Conquering new worlds: application and evaluation of collaborative virtual environments in design education

Two Architecture Schools that are geographically separated provided students with a learning experience in Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs). Reported in this paper is the experience of the students as well as a commentary on the quality of the outcomes they achieved whilst confronting this new learning experience. A comprehensive questionnaire was developed and used in the end of the collaboration for students to reflect and evaluate their design and collaborative experiences. Based on the questionnaire results, this paper documents the issues that the students experienced in CVEs from the communication aspect, the design support aspect, and the collaboration and teamwork aspect. The paper concludes with insights on how this initiative can inform the way that we can better support design education in CVEs.