Abstract Introduction Background Purpose of the Study Research Question Methodology and Rationale Steps of the Methodology Research Set-up and The Use of the Methodology

Table of Contents

Data Aquisition Data Analysys Description of the Conclusion

Implications of the Study Limitations of the Study References

Organizational Learning In A University Based Collaborative Virtual Laboratory Network in Mexico

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by Gregorio Rivera Medellin and Pablo Ramirez

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Abstract

Limited university lab resources and collaboration in a private nationally dispersed 26-campus university system in Mexico necessitates the design of a virtual lab network to share human and systems resources. Co-researchers in a Cooperative Inquiry methodology initiate the design of a collaborative virtual laboratory network. Researchers, Professors, Directors of Informatics, Directors of Academics, and several Campus Presidents are invited to participate from Latin America's prominent technological university known as ITESM. Combined interest and collaboration in curricullum development, basic and advanced research are initiated by co-researchers in the process of designing a network of virtual boratories. This organizational learning process, cognizant of the university´s mission of internationalization, generated research interest and proposed a move towards applied research in business. Findings present diverse ways of working, learning together and sustaining our effort. In conclusion, n integrated and networked application focuses on a group supported, sustainable and commercial development of networked collaborative virtual labs. A corporate-university partnership is now seen with Latin American universities and transnational corporations in regionally designed basic, advanced and applied research.

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Introduction

As co-researchers we are seizing the moment by investigating the meaning and value of organizing our learning. Observing and explaining our learning in the creation of ITESM's Collaborative Virtual Laboratory Network (CoLabs) is the basis of this study. As researchers, professors, and administrators we now share meaning and value as an organizational learning community in this new context. We systematically observe our socialization and inquiry around new media tools. This allows us to focus on the human necessity of its utilization. The CoLabs co-researchers initiatives in basic, advanced and applied research foster university activity, potential corporate sponsorship and foundation interest. Education, research and development and a variety of applications to service community, organizations and corporate needs are the core of the CoLabs activities. These autonomous and networked virtual labs live in co-researchers´ severs throughout the multi-campus system. The virtual labs encourage innovative work starting with its core simulation software (Senes8´s World Up and World Tool Kit). Co-researchers with diverse aspirations and committed vision continue to formulate and integrate timely projects through network coordination. This research informs our organizational learning and autonomous researcher roles in the development of the ITESM's CoLabs. Each participant's intent is to create and share group knowledge. Our self-organizing is the basis to advance our collaborate learning. This collaboration focuses on each participant and group´s evolving interest and disciplines. (see Figure 1) The diversity of interests and ways of problem-solving and problem-seeking open a generative and inspirational way of getting to design and implementation options. Social systems is the theoretical framework for this study.

I initiate this Cooperative Inquiry as professor and Coordinator of the Advanced Lab for Learning at ITESM in Monterrey, Mexico. This lab is hosted by the Centro de Sistemas de Conocimiento/Center for Knowledge Systems. The context of the research is within a quickly evolving communications technology infrastructure of a 26-campus technological university system in Mexico. This study is conducted in a series of face-to-face and on-line conversations with key ITESM colleagues throughout Mexico using John Heron's "circuit of fourfold knowing." These four cognitive modes and its reflective and action cycles are used to design possibilities for the ITESM's Collaborative Virtual Labs and its network. The first steps of this study determine the formulation of a corporate-university partnership and relationships to other Latin American and global universities and transnational corporations.

Figure 1.
Molecular (yeast) simulation from the Biotechnology Virtual CoLab - Dr. Manuel Villa

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Background

I am an alumnus of Antioch University and MIT´s Media Lab in Cambridge. Consecutively I focused my studies in organizational development and new media. I worked in virtual environments R&D for 11 years while working for LEEP Systems in Boston. At LEEP Systems we worked on several major SBRI (Small Business Research Initiative) contracts from NASA's Langely Research Center and Ames Research Center. After my 1991virtual environments conference presentation at ITESM in Monterrey, Mexico I decided to support its university research development. With an enthusiastic response to my work in virtual environments, I directed a request for a professorship appointment to Dr. Rafael Rangel, ITESM's University President. My request was forwarded to Dr. Jamies, Director of the Division for Computing, Communications and Communications and in turn forwarded it to Dr. Javier Carrillo, Director of the Center for Knowledge Systems who responded with an interview offer in December 1994. I was invited to participate in the Center's development of a "new media lab for learning" focused on virtual environments and its Internet applications. I became the Coordinator of the newly formed Advanced Lab for Learning in April 1995 after the preparation of my work permit.

Pablo Ramirez and Antero Cepeda, both engineers, and I design, as part of the Lab´s work, systems configurations and installations, basic, advanced research and applications with clients in virtual learning environments. Major contracts include the coordination and installation of a commissioned work for Spain's Ministry of Development presented in Madrid (1996) and Latin America's first major virtual reality exhibit for the Museo de Monterrey in Mexico (1997).

In a 1996 report to the Club of Budapest I outlined the need for an Internet global dialogue of its Honorary, Creative and Cultural Members throughout the 16 globally represented Regional Centers for Planetary Consciousness Network (RCPC). In the Advanced Lab for Learning we initiated the Club of Budapest Web Site, which we maintained for a two-year period (1997-1998). The initial idea to create a collaborative virtual lab network came from writing a second report requested by the Club of Budapest to propose activities of the global RCPCs. The collaborative virtual lab network titled the Biosphere CoLab Network Project was an alliance with the proposed Graduate Institute of Planetary Consciousness Studies in Guanajuato in Mexico in its initial stages of concept design by California Institute of Integral Studies faculty Dr. Alexander Laszlo and Dr. Dean Elias. The activities as reported were presented in part in Dr. Ervin Laszlo´s The Third Millenium in 1997. The report submitted summarized the Biosphere CoLab Network Project as follows:

The Monterrey Institute of Technology and the Center for Knowledge Systems´ Advanced Lab for Learning in Monterrey, Mexico in collaboration with the Graduate Institute of Planetary Consciousness Studies in Guanajuato, Mexico facilitating the creation of distributed virtual laboratories on the World Wide Web to assist in the balance of the biosphere through a social creative global team effort. The Advanced Lab for Learning, under the auspices of its host, explores the potential of digital media technologies for individual and organizational learning. We seek to customize off-the-shelf electronic technologies and explore the human team response. More specifically, we focus on the media technologies whose potential for learning we believe to be significant. The Biosphere CoLab Network Project will develop large scale multi-sensory, imagery and databases in navigational and interactive environments for work/learning processes and objectives including worldbuilding environments for training, knowledge visualization, and learning networks.

During this time I was in communication with MIT professor and Mexican citizen Dr. Mario Molina. He is the 1993 Chemistry Nobel Laurent, having discovered the tear in the earth's ozone layer. In conversation, Dr. Molina agreed to assist the development of the collaborative virtual lab network on an international level. As a member of several international science committees he was willing to help. The idea of a collaborative virtual lab network caught his imagination. In a visit to ITESM he came by my lab to further explore the idea of the collaborative labs on-line. This was impossible to do in the limited time of his visit but we only made commitment to the idea and agreed to work together. He told me to continue developing the idea and to stay in touch. This research is the follow-through to that agreement. His surprise visit made administrators pay attention to my developing idea. As a result of my new found status, University President Dr. Rafael Rangel came by to explore our ideas and development. The next day Campus President Dr. Ramon de la Peña met with Center for Knowledge Systems Director Dr. Javier Carrillo and myself offering $25,000. USD as a contribution to our lab´s initiative. In response to an Advanced Lab for Learning proposal submitted to IBM, its Shared University Resources Program (SUR) contributed $150,000 USD worth of equipment complementing the Campus Monterrey's supercomputer system. As a lab we shared this award with Dr. Carlos Islas who specializes on large databases and electronic streams. Our proposal conceptualized sensorial surround, navigational, interactive, immersive virtual environment for networked labs. In addition, there was favorable response by Department of Communications SIETE Director Cristina Cervantes and her Campus Monterrey funding committee for new media technology projects. She offered her support through a request for proposal for our research and formulation of the Latin American Open University. This pilot study's Internet course was funded with a two-year contract (1996-1997) to work with 175 Spanish-speaking (Denmark, Japan, Brazil, U.S.Mexico, Spain, Bolivia, Colombia, etc.) participants in a "open learning environment." The Universidad Virtual and its distant education satellite broadcast courses were at that time only using the Internet to follow through with questions from ITESM 26 campus university system. We were pushing the boundaries of Internet utilization with our on-line course experiment. ITESM President Dr. Rangel had appreciated our initiative into Internet education and his initial moral support and introductions were important to get the momentum going.

With opportunities presented with new media there has been increased interest and activity from professors and researchers to justify the need to formally organize the design and implementation of a collaborative virtual lab network within ITESM. Professor Pablo Ramirez and I prepared the groundwork in acquiring the University Site License from Sense8 and its acclaimed software in virtual environments worldbuilding and networking. We made a commitment, found the support, and generated interest in the CoLab concept. We worked in serious commitment of the Advanced Learning Lab resources to acquire the Sense8´s University Site License. This put us on the path of software acquisition first with a software/hardware grant in 1997 from CONACyT (Mexico's National Science Foundation). In this way we acquired our first license. The next sets of five licenses were in the form of a Lab Site License offered to the Advanced Lab for Learning for $10,000.USD. Our need to acquire additional licenses was necessary due to a multi-platform project with a major contract for virtual world creation and installation design in the Museo de Monterrey's 20th anniversary celebration. This exhibit was the first of its kind in Latin America. Pablo Ramirez and I as principal consultants and project coordinators represented ITESM's contribution of the RetroMesa (an interactive stereovision theater installation of the museum´s 20 year portfolio of exhibits) and the MediaTeca (a public access Internet facility produced by the SIETE). The attendance to the museum´s exhibit reached a record breaking 60,000 people in its four-month duration (Oct. 1997-Jan. 1998). Nationally our work was noticed by SGI Mexico Director Emilio Zepada and opened the doors in Mexico City and Monterrey to use their equipment for demonstration purposes whenever we chose. The exhibit gained a wide awareness of our work in Latin America and with colleagues in the virtual environments industry worldwide.

The Sense8 Corporation informed us that it would provide an educational discount from the University Site License's retail cost of $35,000.USD. Next we sought the help of the ITESM Office of Internalization and Technology Support to help us acquire the license on this university level. Pablo and I introduced Eduardo Salcedo and Claudio Ramirez from this office to our needs. Eduardo Salcedo, Claudio Ramirez, Pablo Ramirez and I developed a strategy to share the cost of the University Site License among the different regional "Zonas" or regional zones throughout the ITESM community. The offer was announced in a late summer 1997 meeting where all 26 Directors of Informatics were present. Pablo, Claudio and I took a busload of attendants from this meeting to see our work installed in the Museo de Monterrey. A vote later that same afternoon by the Directors of Informatics agreed to share the cost of the University Site License to proceed with the CoLabs project. Campus Monterrey´s Division of Computing, Informatics, and Communications Director Dr. Fernando Jamies supported the CoLabs initial effort with a $1000.USD contribution to reserve the license in December 1997. The following "Zonas" followed up with transferring funds to our Advanced Lab for Learning account to have access to the University Site License: Zona Campus Monterrey, Zona Centro, Zona Sur, and Zona Norte. (Zona Pacífico is in process of acquisition. Universidad Virtual is in process of a second acquisition of licenses from our Lab). With this momentum ITESM publicist Susan Fortenbaugh asked Pablo and I to write an article for Transferencia, ITESM´s news magazine of new projects.

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Purpose of the Study

The successful future of Mexico's primary technological university educational system depends on new communications technologies to initiate and maintain an exchange of ideas and R&D efforts. Also the limited resources of talent and equipment used in educational and reseach must move throughout this university system as a self-organizing tool. This is not possible without a series of networked virtual labs. Also without the active participation by administrators, researchers, professors and students on a national level throughout the university campus system it cannot expect to provide a higher potential for learning through timely ideas, collaborative goals with access, training, production, and exploration of technological processes and production. To prepare participants in the convergence of virtual environments for learning and the Internet as a collaborative tool, this Coordinator of the Advanced Lab for Learning in Monterrey is offering its knowledge in facilitating technologies, production and organizing project talent, and research discipline resources. In the area of knowledge management the experience of the Center for Knowledge Systems and its areas of research in intellectual capital, organizational learning, innovation, and added value will inform this study. In addition, the lab will offer numerous incentives and opportunities in leading edge R&D with national and international projects. The CoLab Network and its participants dialogue to define educational vision and industry trends. This open dialogue is a transformative and dynamic definition of organizational development. It is a synthesis of industry and the university. This synthesis seeks the value of this study and provides a basis for its evolution in a broader and more global context. The systemic scope of this study is to initiate the organizational learning process in a local solution while thinking about its global implications.

As Latin America's major technological university we are striving to be first in collaborative learning on-line in appropriate and new media technologies applied to global organizations and transnational corporations. These ideas are best defined in a university's advanced research setting with real world problems seeking a learning experience within the collaborative virtual lab network. The trade of ideas excels in a multi-disciplinary, interdepartmental, and multi-platform setting. The power of social interaction, from idea, to reflection, action, proposition, and presentation is catalysis for learning in processes and production. The challenge is to seek, do and creatively fuse personal and organizational visions. The point of the study is the self-organizing around new media promoting its validation of individual, group, culture, and organizational necessities of its utilization.

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Research Question

What meaning and value emerges from the processes involved in a cooperative community that is designing and building a learning lab network? The need to learn together can be traced back through several millenniums in tantric ritual life. Tantric ascetics perform group-rituals known as Circle-worship. The most important ritual known as the Bhairavi-chakra the female guru is worshiped. "Only the most advanced initiates are admitted to the inner-circle to share a psychic blueprint" (Mookerjee, Khanna, 1977 p. 29) Their description in The Tanric Way (p.30) continues, "These group rituals are an attempt to tie together experimental and cognitive awareness through in-group practices which have not only spiritual but therapeutic value for the adepts. Sharing is essential to understanding one's self deeply." These rituals are a "microlab", where one can participate in wide-ranging experiences which develop one's own potential in a group setting and make the aspirant aware of integrated wholeness through interpersonal contact. (Mookerjee, Khanna, 1977 p. 29) Individual and groups meanings and values can be an outcome of a shared communication and communal learning focused on the context of the tasks at hand. Although meanings and values may be individually motivated, their congruence and convergence is a shared emphasis on outcomes in group reflection. As co-researchers our co-evolutionary learning fits well in a Cooperative Inquiry methodology. In the first instance our imagination of what a collaborative virtual lab network can be has given us a common goal. The meaning and value of "imaginal openness", states (Heron, 1996 ) first how the group "...relates to radical perception in informative inquires where the purpose is to be descriptive and exploratory of the inquiry domain."

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Methodology and Rationale

I now focus on the rationale in selecting John Heron's Cooperative Inquiry methodology. The present research study report is a four-month (Feb.-May, 1999) view of an on-going process of organizing ITESM's Virtual Lab Network over a two-year period. This effort was conceptualized in the fall of 1997 and will continue after this study. From the start (Sept. 1997) this initiative to create CoLabs has been focused to work directly with researchers, professors, and administrators. I proposed a "grassroots" or community organizing approach from the beginning. I was confident from the beginning that I could get whatever backing I needed from the upper echelon administrators to accomplish my goal of establishing the CoLab Network. My MIT, Harvard and NASA experience was an open door to share and implement in Mexico ideas in new media and communications technologies. My direct correspondence with University President Rafael Rangel Sostman to acquire my professorship, my appointment to the Center for Knowledge Systems (an acknowledged center for knowledge management R&D), and MIT´s Media Lab Director Nicholas Negroponte´s offer for assistance from his brother, former Ambassador Negroponte to Mexico, all pointed to working on an elite level. I chose not to work within that hierarchy. I chose to work not from a pre-funded and established plan to implement the CoLab Network. A top-down plan would have coerced participation. Although funding would have attracted a good mass of participates most would be gone after the funding was exhausted I felt. I chose to organize on a people level instead. My childhood, youth training and professional experience was in community organizing and "grassroots" efforts. The Boston Computer Society collaboration among 20 members designed, implemented and installed a pioneering virtual reality exhibit at SIGGRAPH´93 demonstrated this approach. Also the presentation in 1994 requested by the United States Congressional Committee on Virtual Reality was a cooperative effort. I was the principal organizer and presenter in both efforts.

For the CoLabs I needed a methodology to enhance participants roles at the heart of the strategy. Important in the methodological choice is the work with participants in a mutual exchanges of ideas and action, freedom from restrictive social customs, the actual and potential of self-determination, thinking and decision making contributing to generating ideas, designing and managing the project, drawing conclusions from the experience, awareness of influences and roles in the group, and at the minimum an initiation into the inquiry process with informed consent of all decisions about process and outcome. (Denzin &Lincoln, p. 326, 1994) Also I appreciated the "four ways of knowing" proposed by Heron: presentational, experiential, propositional, and practical.

I had successfully used these "four ways of knowing" in a 1998 proposal for IBM in Mexico. I was impressed with the clarity and congruence to my needs and outlined the proposal with this epistemology.

As Peter Reason (Denzin &Lincoln, 1994) defines participative inquiry as "an emerging worldview, more holistic, pluralistic, and egalitarian..." he quotes John Heron who states, "This worldview sees humans as coercing their reality through participation; through their own experience, their imagination and there intuition, their thinking and their action." (p. 324) There is validity in participants recognizing their own experience as Reason presents in his chapter on Participative Inquiry in The Handbook of Qualitative Research. "This is the touchstone of the approach in that any practical skills or theoretical propositions that arise from and congruent with this experience." And continues Reason as he quotes his 1981 work with Rowan, "The validity of this encounter with experience in turn rests on the high-quality, critical, self-aware, discriminating, and informed judgments of the co-researchers, which may be called [critical subjectivity]." (Denzin &Lincoln, 1994) Below is a description of our inquiry method used in this study. As (Heron 1996, p. 104) points out these kinds of knowledge can have four interrelated outcomes as follows:

• Experiential - Transformation of personal being through engagement with the focus and process of the inquiry.

• Presentation of insight about the focus of the inquiry through dance, drawing, drama, and another expressive modes: theses provide imaginal symbols of the significant patterns in our realities.

• Propositional reports which (1) are informative about the inquiry domain, that is, they describe and explain what has been explored, (2) provide commentary on the other kinds of outcomes, and (3) describe the inquiry method.

• Practical skills which are (1) skills to do with transformative action within the inquiry domain, and (2) skills to do with various kinds of participative knowing and collaboration used in the inquiry process.

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Steps Of the Methodology

Heron describes in outline the inquiry stages in Chapter 3 of his book Cooperative Inquiry: Research into the Human Condition. In Chapter 4, initiating an Inquiry Group, he gives a detailed account of the steps outlined below:

The inquiry starts by moving through four stages making a complete cycle going from reflection to action to back to reflection and so on. Choices are to be made within each cycle. Heron states that in an Apollonian (logical) inquiry what goes on in these stages is more explicit and more tacit in a Dionysain (intuitive) inquiry. The section below is from Heron's Cooperative Inquiry.

Stage 1 The first reflection phase for the inquirers to choose

• The focus or topic of the inquiry and the type of inquiry.

• A launching statement of the inquiry topic.

• A plan of action for the first action phase to explore some aspect of the inquiry topic.

• A method of recording experiences during the first action phase.

Stage 2 The first action phase when the inquirers are

• Exploring in experience and action some aspect of the inquiry topic.

• Applying an integrated range of inquiry skills.

• Keeping record of the experiential data generated.

Stage 3 Full immersion in stage 2 with great openness to experience; the inquirers may

• Break through into new awareness.

• Lose their way.

• Transcend the inquiry format.

Stage 4 The second reflection phase; the inquirers share data from the action phase and

• Review and modify the inquiry topic in the light of making sense of the data about the explored aspects of it.

• Choose a plan for the second action phase to explore the same or a different aspect of the inquiry topic.

• Review the method of recording data used in the firs action phase and amend it for use in the second.

These four cycles complete the first full cycle from reflection to action to reflection.

Subsequent stages will,

• Continue the inquiry, in cyclic fashion, with the second action phase, full immersion in it, the third reflection phase, the third action phase, full immersion in it, and so on

• Involve from five to eight full cycles of reflection-action-reflection (including the first) with varying patterns of divergence and convergence, in the action phases, over several aspects of the inquiry topic.

• Include a variety of intentional procedures, in the reflection phases, and of special skills in the action phases, for enhancing the validity of the process.

• End with a major reflection phase for pulling the threads together, clarifying outcomes, and deciding whether to write a co-operative report.

• Be followed by a post-group collaboration on writing up any agreed form of report.

Four cognitive models and stages of the inquiry cycle:

Stage 1, the first refection and planning stage, involves mainly propositions. It can also contain important kinds of presentation as group members use their imagination in one or more art-forms, in story and fantasy, to articulate their interests, choose an inquiry focus and plan the first action phase to explore it. This stage, then, includes both propositional belief and presentational belief regarding what it may be fruitful to inquire into and how to start to do so.

Stage 2, the first action phase, involves range special inquiry skills. In informative inquires, these skills include being fully present with imaginal openness; bracketing off different kinds of imported conceptual frameworks; and generating and holding in mind alternative frameworks. In transformative inquires, to do with practice, the skills include dynamic congruence among all the components of the practice; spotting and interrupting compulsive or conventional behaviors; being non-attached to the form of ones action; and open to using alternative action frameworks.

And continuing Stage 2 then involves practical belief: the researchers may not yet know how to do all these things; they are learning how to do them. Their competence is not yet well founded and well formed, but rudimentary and provisional. Practical belief is belief in my growing ability to exercise a skill. It is necessary precursor to practical knowledge, which is a well-rehearsed and competent skill.

Stage 3, as I said earlier, is the state of deep immersion in the action phase, a full engagement with the relevant experience or practice, a great openness of encounter with the chosen domain. This stage is the bedrock, the touchstone of the inquiry process, and mainly involves, in the first action phase, experiential belief, as the precursor to experiential knowledge in later phases.

Experiential knowing is a participative knowing through empathy, resonance, attunement with what is present, in and with the process of radically imaging it, perceptually and in other ways. I know what is present when it declares itself to me through my participative co-presence with it. By analogy, experiential belief is tentative, provisional participation, the first inchoate declarations of attunement and resonance, and of deeper imaginal enactment.

In informative inquires, experiential belief relates to the domain about which knowledge is sought, in transformative inquires it relates to transformations of a domain brought about by one's practice within it. It can be symbolized in creative presentational form through graphics, colour, sound, movement, drama, story, poetry - which disclose the significant imaginal patterns that manifest the presence with which it tentatively connects.

Stage 4 is the second reflection phase, which makes sense of data generated in the first action phase. There is interplay between presentational and propositional processes, now having reference to and grounded in prior experience and practice. This leads over into preparing to extend and deepen experience and practice in the next action phase. This interaction between the four cognitive modes launches the shift from opening belief to concluding knowledge, or at least to belief that has better warrants than its opening form.

Through variations of content and method, as the research cycle is repeated several times, the four forms of belief metamorphose through mutual impact into four forms of knowledge, each interdependent with the other. It is the grounding of practical, propositional, presentational and experiential knowledge on each other, as they are brought repeatedly to bear upon each other in a variety of forms over a series of cycles, that makes the research outcomes well-founded, with a well-formed warrant to lay claim to knowledge.

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Research Set-up and The Use of the Methodology

Since September 1997 a growing group of researchers, professors, and administrators have shown interest in supporting and developing the CoLab Network. Our focus on the topic was clear: to start the process of a design and implement a networked series of virtual labs to live in each co-researcher's campus server. Most of the invited co-researchers had been familiar with the general idea for one and a half years prior. To support this concept Professor Pablo Ramirez and I had already published articles, maintained a news list of e-mail, and had acquired funding and coordinated distribution of the Sense8 University Site License. Some co-researchers had attended our national workshops and/or conferences where we had presented the concept. The on-line announcement both in the HyperNews Conference (a web site which allows maintenance of postings and responses) and news list (e-mail formatted posting and replies to subscribers) to initiate the inquiry group of 175 researchers, professors and administrators covered Heron's three interdependent and fundamental issues to consider as follows:

• The initiation of group members into the methodology of the inquiry so that they can make it their own.

• The emergence of participative decision-making and authentic collaboration so that the inquiry becomes truly co-operative.

• The creation of a climate in which emotional states can be identified, so that distress and tension aroused by the inquiry can be openly accepted and processed, and joy and delight in it with each other can be freely expressed.

Additional messages included a continuing clarification of the methodology to be used, reference to a published article readily available and delivered to their desk, instructions for installing the license, and updates on the status of the license distribution among the whole group.

Through the HyperNews Conference, private emails, the news list and face-to-face meetings I felt the broad concept of CoLabs was gaining momentum. This cooperative inquiry came at the right time. The general call was sent out in the following ways initiating the research to communicate to all prospective co-researchers:

• Hyper-News Conference

• CoLabs news list

• Emails

• Telephone calls

• Face-to-face meetings

I presented an Apollonian or very structured approach on the CoLabs topic and its presentation in the initiator´s call. This is outlined above in the Methodology section. I felt comfortable that most of the prospective researchers had browsed through the web site because the counter on the site within two weeks went to 184. Also questions in response to the general postings were well informed. At this initial stage (Feb. 1999) something strange happen. Although clear instructions were provide on how to register at the HyperNews web site in order to post, only a handful of people registered. Among the ten registered, not one posted on the site. During this time the activity on the news list and private emails messages to me increased in response to the "initiators call." Also informal face-to-face meetings with prospective participants on the Monterrey Campus and appointments with prospective participants from other campuses were made to plan travel. In talking to Pablo Ramirez, we felt that maybe the larger group didn't understand the broad concept of CoLabs clearly, or they didn't know how to use HyperNews, or they were just too busy to register, post and respond to the web site. We decided to not survey the group to find out why this was happening. We decided this would waste time and that we should move ahead to get things moving in the necessary cycles and phases of the inquiry. The focus on the larger (175 member news list) group was not necessary and we decided to focus on those who were responding privately through e-mail, telephone calls and informal face-to-face meetings to the initiative and call to participation. From the beginning we were an internally initiated group. As a professor at ITESM I am internal to the inquiry process of the group. In this sense I am a "full co-subject" (Heron, 1996) in the culture which the research is about.

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Data Acquisition

Although most of the time during this study has not been "coordinated" as a whole, my facilitation fits well in a cooperative inquiry methodology. In the first instance our imagination of what a collaborative virtual lab network can be, has given us a common goal. " The meaning and value of imaginal openness relates to radical perception in informative inquires where the purpose is to be descriptive and exploratory of the inquiry domain." (Heron, 1996) The outcomes of cooperative inquiry are validated if they are well grounded in the forms of knowing which support them. Forms of knowing are distortion free because of the procedures adopted and the special skills in the knowing process. Internal standards add soundness as autonomous criteria at its own levels. (Heron, 1996) One of the ways related to this research in the firstexperiential phase is Eloise Boulding´s (1988) idea of "social imagination." She points out that one way to think of it is as a problem-solving faculty. "It continually reworks human experience by means of image formation. The more problematic the experience, the more critical the reworking process." (Boulding, 1988) And this was my intent in data acquisition to stir the imagination in a social context and invite the complexity of relationships of co-researchers experiences and response to the concept of CoLabs. My role varied depending on the needs of each individual and team of co-researchers. In all instances, Pablo and I were the initiators, and in most cases we were facilitators in the process of guiding the reflection and actions as well as the technological needs of all. The most matured role we played with the teams was as catalysis in response to the sophisticated levels in which they captured the essence of CoLabs and made it their own. It was our idea to rework the process of defining our experiences, associating visualization and simulation solutions to each co-researchers disipline. We didn't want to do this in a strict problem-solving process but rather in open reflection and action following Heron's model. This would allow other problems to appear or rather completely realize new opportunities to come forth.

Following is the documented data at various reflection and action phases from the experiential, presentational, propositional and practice forms of knowing by various individuals and teams of co-researchers:

• Campus Monterrey - Professors Pablo Ramirez and Gregorio Rivera are the principal initiators of ITESM's Collaborative Virtual Lab Network. Professor Gregorio Rivera maintains a role as facilitator to the cooperative inquiry process and Professor Ramirez´s role is th etechnological backup. Our reflection and action cycles are concerned with the overall systems design throughout ITESM to make this a feasible on-going program. Now besides our roles in technology guidance we are becoming catalysis in this on-going process in organizing CoLabs.

• Campus Monterrey - Department of Medicine's Basic Sciences. This department's interest is in developing guidelines for the use of a virtual tool (Sense8´s World Up) to allow their students to build molecular models. A graduate student has been hired part-time to demonstrate techniques in model building of World Up to the others. Professor Ana Catalina Trevino from the Center for Knowledge Systems was responsible for guiding the Department's initiative into this area. Her expanded proposition is to create a virtual physics lab on-line. She participated in the December 1998 virtual environments course at Campus Monterrey.

• Campus Hidalgo - Physics Professor Orlando González Pérez has demonstrated key physics concepts in multimedia. His idea after our conversation is to create virtual environments, which demonstrates laws inside and outside of physics. He has been invited to Campus Queretaro to pursue this work. Academic Director Humberto Ablanedo Rosas initiated this meeting.

• Campus Hidalgo -Academic Director Humberto Ablanedo Rosas has formed a group of students exploring the engineering and scientific research and applications of Sense8´s World Up on their campus.

• Campus Queretaro - Doctorate student Hector Morales has recently defended his dissertation proposal at the University of Central Florida's Institute of Simulation and Training. He has returned to his originating campus to design a virtual environments course with Sense8´s World Up and World Tool Kit.

• Campus Monterrey - From January to May (Spring 1999) Professors Pablo Ramirez and Gregorio Rivera gave a course on Virtual Reality by invitation of the Department of Basic Computing. A lab to accommodate 17 was provided during this time. The academic director for undergraduate studies in the Department of Basic Computing requested an additional advanced course for the Fall 1999. A virtual environments course is presently underway taught by Professors Ramirez and Rivera.

• Campus Monterrey - Summer 99 Virtual Reality course presented and supported by the PCP (training courses for professors). Professors Pablo Ramirez and Gregorio Rivera presented the course. Many of the co-researchers in this list attended these three workshops. The format of the workshops allowed the presentation and conversation for the CoLabs initiative.

• Campus Estado de Mexico - Summer 99 Virtual Reality course presented and supported by the PCP (professor training courses for the summer). Pablo Ramirez and Gregorio Rivera were presenting professors.

• Campus Monterrey - Academic Director for the Department of Administration and Social Science, Dr. David Angel Alanis Davila requested his students participation in the academic Virtual Reality course being offered by Professors Gregorio Rivera and Pablo Ramirez for the Fall 1999.

• Campus Universad Virtual - Department of Extension's Director Gabriel Madrid is utilizing Sense8´s World Up in the development of on-line courses to visually support complex and abstract concepts. He is presently under contract with the International Telecommunications Union for an on-line distance education course which Professor Pablo Ramirez is designing. As an aside, Professor Madrid is experimenting with solar and wind power to develop a rural access computer system.

• Campus Estado de Mexico - Professor Isaac Rudimon Goldberg is developing a virtual environments course using Sense8´s World Up and World Tool Kit for advanced graduate students. He is at the forefront at ITESM in organizing a series of virtual enviroments conferences coordinated with other Mexican universities and commerical entities. He is heading up a technology and art committee to celebrate Mexico´s Millennium celebration.

• Campus Estado de Mexico - The Department of Architecture's Director Alfonzo Rivas along with his team is pursuing the development of an on-line catalogue of products and services available to architects. Students in their training and courses would use this database.

• Campus Estado de Mexico -With The Department of Architecture's Director Alfonzo Rivas guidance, graduate student Carlos A. Aguirre has developed an on-line virtual environments course using Sense8´s World Up.

• Campus Estado de Mexico- The Department of Chemistry's Director Antonio Guerra´s team has designed a multimedia and QuickTime movies series of modules in CD to assist students understand basic concepts and procedures in chemistry. Their proposal is to use World Up and World Tool Kit to make the CD presentations in 3D, real time, and interactive.

• Campus Monterrey - Dr. David Garza supporting technologist to the Department of Supercomputing initiated a contact with Dr. Tom de Fanti of the GII Testbed in the United States. The U.S. initiative demonstrates networking of supercomputers for scientific visualization. Professor Gregorio Rivera provided the introduction to Dr. David Garza.

• Campus Monterrey - Department of Biotechnology's former Director Dr. Manuel Villa initiated an idea for the development of an on-line testing of competency in a chemistry procedure. He is on sabbatical from ITESM and doing research at Carnegie Mellon University. This is the base of the idea for other use of the virtual environments software.

• Campus Monterrey - Department of Manufacturing - Professors Noel Leon and Pedro Ochoa have moved forward on their concept to allow undergraduate and graduated students access to Sense8´s World Up and World Tool Kit on a dozen SGI Octanes and SGI 02 CPUs in their new manufacturing visualization lab. They propose to create a driving simulation lab and a virtual testing lab for manufacturing applications.

• Campus Monterrey - Department of Architecture - Professor Ana Maria de la Cruz and fellow professors are designing the use of World Up into their 3D course offerings. After an evaluation to the response to World Up it will be decided if a virtual architecture course will be offered. A virtual environments lab for students is being proposed.

• Campus Monterrey - Engineering - technologist Claudio Ramirez has completed the design of a course entitled "Engineering Innovation" which presents a systematic way of researching global patent databases and generative ways to discover innovative niches the manufacturing industry. Built into his course is the design and testing of prototypes utilizing the virtual environments software.

• Campus Monterrey - Professors Pablo Ramirez, Raul Ramirez, Morima Campbell, and Gregorio Rivera have discussed the possibility of forming a new media "diplomato" or academically certified course for professionals. The "diplomato" would focus on our expertise in system design and networking, animation, multimedia, and virtual environments respectively.

• Campus Monterrey - EGADE - MBA Program's technology specialist Maria de la Carmen is working to organize the use of virtual environments software to design supplementary visual material to support abstract concepts in business courses.

• Campus Universidad Virtual - virtual set design initiated by Operations Manager Arturo Corona and his production team. Six members of the production team participated in the Dec. ´99 Virtual Reality course offered by Professors Gregorio Rivera and Pablo Ramirez. The team is experimenting with designs to accommodate satellite broadcast courses by ITESM professors in several disciplines. Professor Gregorio Rivera was Arturo Corona´s thesis advisor focused on virtual set design.

• Campus Guaymas - Computer Visualization of the Marine and Wetlands Environment - ITESM Proposal. This group of co-researchers focused on the use of Geographic Information Systems combined with virtual environments software to design interactive ecology marine and wetlands. This proposed work is part of a larger proposal to build a visualization research center at Campus Guaymas. Key co-researchers are Professors Carlos Valdes, Jorge Brenner Guillermo, and William Graham. Jorge Brenner has initiated contact with corporate sponsors.

• Campus Monterrey - Center for Knowledge Systems Director Dr. Javier Carrillo and Professors Raul Ramirez, Dr. Ricardo Flores, Ana Catalina Trevino and America Martinez have been important co-researches in developing a variety of proposals on the organization of knowledge management including the use of virtual environments.

• Campus Monterrey -Virtual environmentcourse students this semester with Professors Pablo Ramirez and Gregorio Rivera are creating a "Virtual Antro" including personal virtual avatars, a variety of music spaces, fractual worlds, etc. They are proposing this world for the Centro Cultural ALFA in Monterrey. The student group includes: Jose Luis Arriaga, Rossana Escobedo, Enrique Yeseas, Virginia Cavazos, Mario Beltran, Francisco Gonzales, Miguel Angel Servin, and Hector Ariel. In addition in this class students Enrique Yeseas and Rossana Escobedo created the virtual Campus Monterrey walk-through.

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Data Analysis

In relationship to Heron's (1996) description of types of inquiry I present the following to put a framework to this analysis. This "internally initiated inquiry" in view of ITESM's culture needed to develop a high level of interaction among key players to be generative in imaginal, propositional modes, backed by experience and grounded in practice. This we did as co-researchers some in "full form" and others in "partial form." Heron states, "A full form inquiry may be internally initiated, or it may be self-generated and self-directed by the group bootstrap approach." As co-researchers we were a "mix role inquiry" because we are "different kinds of practitioners." We were also an "outside inquiry" because we were working on special projects outside the group meetings. "So the group comes together for the reflection phases to share data, make sense of it, revise their thinking, and in the light of all this plan the next action phase." (p.40) Heron mentions that afterwards group members disperse and work individually. In our case, members of co-researcher teams continued working together on the action outside the group. In this sense our cooperative inquiry had an "open boundary" because we received data and feedback from people (and policies) with whom the inquiries interact in the action phases, but who were not themselves part of the inquiry. Heron's suggestion that a norm of cooperative inquiry is infringed because if data is generated in the open boundary "the people by whom it is generated remain outside the inquiry and have nothing to say in how it is explained and used." Both Apollonian and Dionysian approaches to the inquiry were used in the groups.

Again in the following I use Heron's outline of the inquiry stages to analyze this study's data:

Stage 1

The first reflection phase for the inquirers to choose…

CoLabs has been a provocative and "internally initiated focus of inquiry " to set learning, imagination, presentation, proposition and practice in motion. Individual and groups meanings and values has been an outcome of a shared communication and communal learning focused on the context of the tasks at hand: the organizational learning around "the launching statement" of the CoLabs concept. As "a plan of action in the first action phase" it was suggested that all the prospective and confirmed co-researchers download the virtual environments software available for the creation of the virtual laboratories. "The method of recording experiences during the first action phase" was shared back to the group always through me with the private emails, telephone conversations, informal meetings, HyperNews Conference, and news list.

Stage 2

The first action phase when the inquirers are…

The co-researchers starting point for "exploring in experience and action", comes from their practice and skill in their own areas of discipline. "Applying an integrated range of inquiry skills" this core group of co-researchers as educators as a whole are motivated by the love of teaching, researching, experimentation and motivation of students´ needs in critical thinking, creative problem solving, and knowledge development. "Keeping records of the experiential data generated" became key in their continued planning and action.

Stage 3

Full immersion in stage 2 with great openness to experience; the inquirers may…

Although meanings and values were individually motivated in the CoLab convergence with its shared emphasis on outcome individuals and teams of co-researchers "break through into new awareness." Here was a turning point where individual s and teams broke through to their own conceptualization and action as to what a CoLab and its network would be for them. Some "lost their way" through the fantasy, forced-fit to accommodate traditional teaching, novelty, start-up cost or technical requirements of CoLabs. Others "transcend the inquiry format" leaping to revising proposals, assigning staff duties, adapting and developing new curriculum, writing new proposals, contacting prospective funders and clients.

Stage 4

The second reflection phase; the inquirers share data from the action phase and…

Although chaotic most of the time "in light of making sense of the data" I knew I was giving feedback to who needed to hear and read it at that moment. I would "review and modify"actions with co-researcher or they would do this on their own and report in. After the first action - to download and become acquainted with the virtual environments software; and after the second full immersion of action, I would work closely with the individual or team to "choose a plan for the second action phase to explore the same or a different aspect" of CoLabs. My role was to cross-pollinate the individuals and teams throughout ITESM. Automatically each individual and team found the "method of recording data used in the first action phase" and amended it for optimum needs whether to communicate among themselves, to me, or to the whole ITESM community.

It's not very clear to me how many cycles of reflection-action-reflection each individual or team achieved. I was not privy to their full documentation nor did I feel I needed to be. Evident in the propositional and practical phases and the data presented is the level of final product, which was accomplished in action. I have ended "with a major reflection phase for pulling the treads together and clarifying outcomes." This is the present report. This research is continuing beyond this present cooperative inquiry.

My role was to keep the co-researchers interested in what they were discovering in the process. Sometimes I had no sense of where an individual or team of co-researchers were in their reflection and action cycles or the phases of ways of knowing. Cooperative Inquiry methodology allows for this, "Tidying them up prematurely out of anxiety leads to pseudo-knowledge." (Heron,1996, p .60) In the final phase most came through with formalized propositions and advances in their practice. The list of activity presented above, as Data Acquisition is evidence of this.

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Description of the Conclusion

This research was concerned overall with our gaining knowledge about organizational learning, cooperative inquiry, and how principles of social systems fit into this mix. I, along with my colleagues, explored the broad area of organizational development, organizational learning with a group of co-researchers, and the design of individual labs within a university based collaborative virtual lab network in Mexico.

Through the process of this study we:

• organized a major university-wide software purchase, and its continuing distribution nationally

• organized ITESM community in collaborative inquiry with John Heron's "circuits of knowing"

• created a catalysis for university research and corporate partnership

• provided hands-on training for co-researchers

• presented several professional, faculty and academic courses

• assisted with on-site lab and virtual lab design and installation

I will briefly state the main findings in this research study, but first again the question, which initiated the study:

What meaning and value emerges from the processes involved in a cooperative community that is designing and building a learning lab network?

Findings:

1. Over time communicative--trusting, supportive, meaningful and valuable working relationships are established.
2. Key, influential and contributing co-researchers are important to put into momentum a general initiative with our guidance among other co-researchers.
3. Information, knowledge sharing and creation must be kept open ended in the initial stage as a learning process to set the tone for the duration of the study.
4. A cooperative learning community requires an initial set of possibilities and scenarios as an inspiration to put into momentum our own ideas into coordinated and diverse action.
5. The accomplishment of building a learning lab network requires explicit teaching in technical skills and hands-on experience to reach competency in practice.

The following is a more detailed account of the above findings:

1. Over time with communication--trusting, supportive, meaningful and valuable working relationships are established.
   Key as a finding and important in the co-researchers understanding of the cooperative inquiry process was establishing trusting relationships as an experiential knowing among us. "Perhaps most important of all is building trust as a basis for collaboration." (Heron, p. 155.) The direct conversation with co-researchers allowed all of us to feel our presence and get to know our various domains whether classroom, lab, office, or boardroom. The focal point for this work has being the establishment of trust between the co-researchers and continued outreach presenting the concept among us. In Mexico, an individual is considered a trusted partner in light of their integrity, background, experience, network, and family. Establishing a trusting and working relationship takes time in Mexico. Once the interrelational boundaries are set among individuals or a group, a mutual empowerment and sharing of resources and influential networks come to light. This is much more formalized in Mexico. Important in this formality, and through this study, has been a series of formal and (over time) informal face-to-face meetings and on-line correspondence to buttress the importance of the developing relationships. A substantial group of trusting relationships among individual and groups of co-researchers formed in the process of this research. I list these co-researchers in the fourth finding below.

   In light of the cultural formality in Mexico I describe the following support from key individuals but not necessarily co-researchers. Important in this introductory phase to administrators, professors and researchers through the wider university system distributed nationally was ITESM President Dr. Rafael Rangel interest and encouragement. Dr. Rangel in our CoLab list group gave some important introductions to key Campus Presidents. Center for Knowledge Systems´ Director Dr. Javier Carrillo´s unfaltering continued trust in this research since its beginning has been key in fostering conceptual and creative vigor in reflecting with us the knowledge management aspects of CoLabs. Dr. Fernando Jamies, Chair of the Division of Computing, Informatics and Communications initial financial contribution was of importance as catalysis to prompt the other regional support. These three educators demonstrated their supportive trust to the wider administrative, academic, and research community and set the momentum of opening doors throughout ITESM for CoLabs. Continued trust was reinforced with my colleague and engineer to CoLabs, Professor Pablo Ramirez. Without Pablo´s constant organizational, political and technological informed views and feedback in reflection and action this study would not have been completed. His work here is acknowledged as the core and foundation to this research. His 20-year experience within ITESM is invaluable to the continuing effort of CoLabs. This first finding correlates with John Heron's "circuits of knowing" in the presentational phase.

   Key, influential and contributing co-researchers are important to put into momentum a general initiative and task with their guidance among other co-researchers.

   After having established trust among ourselves it was strategically important to develop an understanding among co-researchers and others of the general directive of the concept of ITESM´s Virtual Collaborative Lab Network. Several key and diverse strategic areas of development came forth from individuals and groups of co-researchers. These key, influential and contributing co-researchers were important to put into momentum the presentation of their experience to the others. In these presentations it became clear to others the interdisciplinary nature of the simulation tool to form the core software for the virtual labs. There was a broad diversity of interests among the initial senior and influential group to who I presented the main idea and methodology. There was a difference in participation among key, influential and contributing co-researchers. Key people were the University President, Campus Presidents, and Directors of Informatics and Academic Directors. Influential participants were professors and researchers who are important contributors to industry, conferences and publications. Their supportive statements and reflections along with their names on the visible mail list were important to the momentum of the research. In the fourth finding below I give a detailed description of areas and disciplines evolved by contributing co-researchers. These contributing co-researchers are the cores of this work.

   With my initial list of 175 emails addresses of administrators, professors, and researchers, and to whom I was introduced in multiple ways only one asked to be taken off the discussion group list. The latest list shows 152 individuals still listed in the news group of this project throughout Mexico and within the ITESM community. I have removed 23 outdated addresses. The process of communication is important as a key strategic area of development because this is an information-knowledge based project creating and distributing and gaining feedback in these interactions. An important feature of this research were the personal e-mails and group on-line correspondences, the establishment of the CoLab HyperNews Conference, telephone conferences, and formal and informal face-to-face meetings. This second finding correlates with John Heron's "circuits of knowing" in the presentational phase.

   Information, knowledge sharing and creation must be kept open ended in the initial stage as a learning process to set the tone for the duration of the study.

   Strategically it was important to allow people to have direct experience with the virtual environments software, which was purchased as a University Site License and continues to be distributed through Directors of Informatics and key co-researchers within ITESM's Regional Zones throughout Mexico. The June and July 1999 Virtual Reality Workshops which Pablo and I gave on Campus Monterrey and Campus Estado de Mexico was strategically important to allow co-researchers and new members to gain hands-on experience with World Up and World Tool Kit software as distributed tools. The first academic course in Virtual Reality was offered at Campus Monterrey due to the momentum of interest created by this research study. Pablo and I offered this course within the Department of Basic Computing to undergraduate students. The Department of Administration and Social Science Chair Dr. Analis requested an addition and more advanced course for his students for Fall 1999. In the summer 1999 Virtual Reality Workshops participants and attending co-researchers were encourage to share possibilities and scenarios for the development of CoLabs. These workshops set the foundation for Heron's Propositional and Practical phase. This third finding correlates with John Heron's "circuits of knowing" in the experiential phase.

   A cooperative learning community requires an initial set of possibilities and scenarios as an inspiration to put into momentum our own ideas into action.

   In a series of reflection and action cycles the largest activity can be found in this area of Propositional knowing. Each co-researcher and group along with their organizational entity found a way to support the general concept of a collaborative virtual lab network. Here each proposition from contributing co-researchers is described. Some are already moving from a proposition to practical knowing. Discussion of initial set of possibilities and scenarios were facilitated by Professors Pablo Ramirez and Gregorio Rivera on-line, in formal and informal face-to-face meetings, and telephone conversations. Videotapes of the Advanced Lab for Learning projects and a variety of applications in virtual environments were also shared. This fourth finding correlates with John Heron's "circuits of knowing" in the propositional phase. In reflection and action cycles the following were discussed: key ideas, discoveries, new needs, experiential competencies realized, cohesiveness, lf-critique, initiated questions to be answered in practice, and new congruence by co-researchers. I have discussed proposals and plans of various co-researchers in the previous section on Data Acquisition.

   5. The accomplishment of initiating and building a learning lab network requires explicit teaching in technical skills and hands-on experience to reach the next level of the fourfold process.

   The co-researchers learned how to practice relevant skills transforming their domain of experience. Specifically we learned how to design 3D, immersive and interactive virtual worlds using Sense 8´s World Up software. This course development is strategically important among the co-researchers in proposing specific approaches and on-going development of the CoLab concept. Clearly defined among co-researchers was the need to integrate a variety of courses (animation, multimedia, virtual environments, 3D modeling, and an integrating project course) into a professional certified program offered by a yet to be chosen academic department to the larger corporate community in Monterrey. The Campus Estado de Mexico's Department of Architecture and co-researcher Alfonzo Rivas has developed with academic and production staff an Internet course using Sense8´s World Up, the virtual environments software we are using to develop the CoLabs. The Campus Estado de Mexico´s Department of Chemistry and Antonio Guerra´s academic and production staff is offering a series of distributed CDs utilizing Sense8´s virtual environments software for part of its development in production and presentation. Hector Morales, who has recently successfully defended his dissertation proposal will be returning from the University of Central Florida's Institute of Simulation and Training to ITESM's Campus Queretaro. His first action on returning to Mexico as a co-researcher is to learn to use Sense8´s virtual environments software and design and give a course utilizing Sense8 virtual software. This fifth finding correlates with John Heron's "circuits of knowing" in the practical phase.

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Implications of the Study

The Internet is gaining momentum as a vehicle to organize CoLab co-researchers along with the development of 1.) trusting, supportive, meaningful and valuable working relationships 2.) influential and contributing co-researchers importance to put into momentum as a general initiative 3.) open-ended knowledge sharing and creation 4.) an initial set of possibilities and scenarios 5.) a network requirement of explicit teaching in technical skills and hands-on experience.

We have gathered a diversity of information and knowledge of experience in our domains at ITESM which we mutually feedback as value. The value of the experience is centered on the formation of CoLabs and now understood in contextualized necessity on different campuses as defined by individuals and teams of co-researchers. The meaning of our personal experience has transformed now to a group experience in light of our common goal to form CoLabs. The diversity of a growing group is encouraged. Up to this point no one at ITESM had attempted on a university system level to organize learning in context of virtual labs around real time, immersive, 3D virtual environments over the Internet. We can and should continue to move this shared intellectual capital through a telecommunications network focused on a specific generative and evolutionary learning and objectives in this virtual lab network.

This broad goal to create ITESM's Collaborative Virtual Laboratory Network is complex. "I think we have the opportunity to make businesses more complex, more knowledge-rich, knowledge-intensive, and to provide more creative products and services. Anything that produces complexity, that's a good thing." says David Smith, Head of Unilever´s Knowledge Management and Development. The IF/THEN Report on Design Implications of New Media (p. 60) states that "the higher the level of information, the more valuable it is likely to be." Knowledge is the capacity to turn data and information into value according to Smith. Eloise Boulding´s 1988 idea of "social imagination" and John Heron's "imaginal" or "experiential" phases support notions of social, imaginative, complexity, higher communicative and knowledge value. In the future work of this project and its supportive research studies I propose we articulate and give continued meaning and value to each co-researchers as an autonomous agent, as a team, as ITESM, and its relationship to the a global network and its collaborative potential.

The development of a cognitive map on the institutional level as well as the group and individual levels are important to survey the domain of "virtuality" as used by Center for Knowledge Systems´Director Dr. Javier Carrillo in describing "vitrual organizations" and its collaborative manifestations in which we are trekking. There are practical tools and ways of knowing for processing our organizational learning, implementing knowledge management and building our network from the perspective of our experiences. Local co-researchers are key to making conscious knowledge from as an individual, group and is easily reflected and re-enforced on the institution level for its quality. Each academic and research area becomes its own innovative context of developMent and utility in designing it virtual lab to share in the network. The CoLab concept and evolving model has the potential of aligning university research and academic curricullum in collaborative projects. Our university-wide alliance and adapted concept of CoLabs will increase chances of funding such an integrated program. We have demonstrated our new acquired skills and our capacity to share them. Our focus has developed and we are able to focus quickly in discipline specific proposals on the use of simulation in virtual environments. Our new congruence is a meeting ground of wide applications focused on sustainable funding criteria. ITESM´s continuing global reach becomes sustainable with this new gained confidence. Once joined our R&D, academic and corporate cognitive maps and their leveling global reach in their convergence may give insight to patterns, currents of ideas, actions and opportunities in the context of continuing education. In this way the ITESM Collaborative Virtual Lab Network will be adaptive and positive training feedback to its local co-researchers worlwide.

This study's findings present diverse ideas and action manifesting collaborative virtual labs implementation and its proposed sustainability. An integrated application focuses on commercial development of collaborative virtual labs seems feasible. Prospective support from infoDev Funds from the World Bank administered by the Canadian International Development Research Corporation (IDRC) has requested a proposal. IDRC´s focus of assistance is on sustainable Internet businesses in Latin America. This research is a first step in establishing a relationship in meeting IDRC´s criteria to assist Latin American university-based research in establishing sustainable Internet businesses.

In a future study and appropriate funding I want to examine university and corporate partnerships in Latin America. Corporate enterprises in Latin America have the potencial to synchronize an interdependent relationship with R&D units and laboratories in universities in context of newly created virtual labs. Exploring innovative new services, processes, and products in timely delivery could increase confidence in long range planning strategies. Interactive visualization systems utilizing in-house labs could be networked through a real-time interactive network on the Internet. This university based collaborative virtual laboratory network resource can be accessible to key-players and invited sponsoring corporations and organizations to work closely and in advanced and long range planning and learning processes on a daily basis. The design would be a collaborative venture. The facilitation of this new network and its timely need throughout Mexico and Latin America can bring forth mutually enterprising results and can be offered to an everwiding global market and community.

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Limitations of the Study

There is a great difference between on-line communication and face-to-face meeting while interacting in the presence of being in this research. It was my hope that the on-line forum for this inquiry would have been more active. As it turned out it was sufficient to get co-researchers to respond privately to me about the public postings. The public posting in the forum was mostly these private e-mails. The limitations of on-line were due to an incomplete understanding of the method and the content of the inquiry, the limited skill in use of HyperNews as a conferencing tool, and co-reseachers stated limitations of time to devote to the study. A formal survey as suggested by some co-researchers to try to understand these limitations was not pursued. The face-to-face meetings, news list, and private email correspondences were an enriching experience within the time limit of the study which carried this research study to its conclusion.

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References

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Boulding, E., (1988). Building a Global Civic Culture: Education for a Interdependent World. New York and London: Teachers College Press.

Brooks, A. & Watkins, K., (1994). The Emerging Power of Action Inquiry Technologies. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

Cresswell, J., (1994). Research Design; Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Denzin, N. & Lincoln, Y., (1994). Handbook of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Grigore Burdea & Philippe Coiffet, (1994). Virtual Reality Technology. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Hall, S., (1993). Mapping The Next Millennium. New York: Vintage Books.

Heron, J., (1996). Co-operative Inquiry: Research into the Human Condition. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Heron, J., (1992). Person and Feelinghood: Psychology in Another Key. London: Sage.

Kalawsky, R., (1993). The Science of Virtual Reality and Virtual Environments. New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co.

Kelly, S. & Allison, M. A., (1999). The Complexity Advantage: How the Science of Complexity Can Help Your Business Achieve Peak Performance. New York: Business Week Books, McGraw-Hill.

Locke, L., (1997). Proposals That Work: A Guide for Planning Dissertations and Grant Proposals. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Pimentel, K. & Teixeira, K., (1993). Virtual Reality: Through the New Looking Glass. New York: Windcrest, McGraw-Hill.

Rivera, G. & Ramirez, P., Transferencia (Vol.7, No. 3., 1998) Monterrey, Mexico: ITESM University Press.

Virtual Reality: Research Development and Applications. (Vol. 3, No.1., 1998) London: Springer-Vertag London Ltd.

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Table of Contents

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© Copyright 2001. Gregorio Rivera Medellin - All Rights Reserved.
grrivera@campus.mty.itesm.mx