Copyright 1999. Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). Distributed via the Web by permission of AACE.

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Dr. Erik Wallin
Lund University, Dept of Informatics/Office for Distance Education
Ole Römers Väg 6, SE-223 63 Lund, Sweden
Tel: +46-46-222 8027, Fax: +46-46-222 4528, E-mail: erik.wallin@ics.lu.se

$EVWUDFW This paper describes work in progress to establish a collaborative learning

environment in the field of H%XVLQHVV, i.e. Electronic Commerce and some other fields of
modern business informatics. The vision is for a virtual city with a community of citizens that
inspires and mediates continuous learning and exchange of experience through hands-on
training and field experiments in eBusiness. In this paper we will discuss some facilities and
sets of rules for collaboration in this learning environment, which is called %XV\&LW\.

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Collaboration in YLUWXDO space necessitates an artificial, time- geographical  FRQWH[W such as a virtual
classroom with meeting hours, to simulate a more conventional environment for working together. It LV rather
difficult to collaborate if you don't know ZLWKZKRPZKHUHZKHQKRZorZK\ the collaboration should take
place especially if you don't even have D VHQVH RI SODFH, or a mental map of your environment This paper
describes work in progress to construct different facilities and sets of rules for collaborative learning in the field
of eBusiness based on 7KH&LW\ as a metaphor for the context in which collaboration takes place.

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%XV\&LW\ is a virtual city in formation, located nowhere and everywhere as a web-site under construction.
It will be opened for "immigration" in January 2000 as an integrated learning environment for a set of courses
currently running as separate distance courses at Lund University, e.g. General Business Informatics, Electronic
Commerce and Business GIS. Busy City is based on a specific concept for distance learning developed by the
author: the &RQYHUVLW\ concept, which is trademarked. It calls for an advanced learning environment on the
Web with 7KH&LW\ as a basic metaphor and guiding design principle [Wallin 1998]. The installation of Busy City
as a Conversity in the field of eBusiness paves the road for a four-tier implementation, including the following
facilities and support for collaboration [see Fig. 1]:
• &DPSXV collaboration in D FODVV with virtual classroom facilities such as tools for online class
meetings, threaded discussions, online lectures, bulletin boards etc
• %XVLQHVV5HVHDUFK3DUN: collaboration in DSURMHFW with a project workplace for each team including
tools for project administration, task assignments, project timetables, sharing of documents etc
• 0DUNHW collaboration in DYLUWXDOFRPSDQ\ with support for realistic eBusiness transactions including
tools for web-site design, customer registration, payment services, delivery services etc.
• &LW\+DOO: collaboration in DYLUWXDOFRPPXQLW\ with support for large meetings in a virtual conference
room and with tools for member administration, voting, zoning and setting of access rights to different
facilities and resources in the city, e.g. intellectual property rights etc.
The learning process in Busy City is designed to support and enhance actively a complete OHDUQLQJF\FOH
in eBusiness [see Fig. 1], from the novice student to the president of a virtual company who uses eCommerce in
his daily transactions with his customers. The student may enrol at the Campus (1) and take a course in
eBusiness that has a number of group work assignments. One of these might need the laboratory facilities of a
technology provider established at the Business Research Park (2). Here the student may engage in a project to
set up a pilot application of a new business idea or a new technology, e.g. an Internet-Shop for virtual travels.
The team has the option to transform itself into a management staff of a virtual company that is engaged in real
eCommerce business on the virtual Market (3). The running of this virtual company may provide experiences
that both the customers and the staff deem are relevant enough to feed back into Busy City as a new
establishment, open also for external customers (non-residents). The Community of Busy Citizens at the City
Hall (4) must take such a decision as it might influence neighbours etc. The experience gained, the lessons learnt
and the future potential of the virtual company, will be taken into consideration in the design of a new course at
the Campus (1). In this way, we have a learning cycle that accumulates both theoretical knowledge and practical
know-how into a common asset of immaterial, intellectual capital that can be used in new learning processes.
During the cycle, Busy City evolves to better serve its purposes as a home for life-long learning in eBusiness.
A dedicated JUDGXDWLRQ V\VWHP has been developed to integrate this learning process into the primary
business process of  Busy City to allow more formal careers within Busy City, e.g. a temporary visitor that
transforms into a resident Busy Citizen [Wallin 1999]. From a business point of view, Busy City acts as D
IDFWRU\RIQHZYLUWXDOFRPSDQLHV with the Community of Busy Citizens as the first pilot market.

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Collaboration by working as a member Collaboration by making deals and

of a team in a project with a commercial signing contracts as a business
potential partner

Team and Project Staff and Company

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Collaboration by participating in a Collaboration by creating, sharing

course and belonging to a class and managing community assets

Class and Course Citizen and Community

)LJXUH: The learning process and the four areas of collaboration in Busy City.

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7ROHDUQ eBusiness in Busy City is WRFUHDWH and run eBusiness processes - but first experimentally! What
makes Busy City unique from other virtual business schools and learning environments is that it goes beyond the
traditional "academic" campus concept. It supports and integrates the student’s development from being a novice
eBusiness student to the launch of a full-scale eCommerce site for a new virtual company. There is no need to
leave Busy City to be able to fulfil this development - on the contrary. In a similar situation, a traditional school
will have a big loss in time, knowledge and human resources due to the fact that the students have to leave the
school to be able to try out their commercial projects somewhere else. Due to the logic of the learning process in
Busy City, there is a good chance that both the student and the new virtual company will be fully prepared for
successful business operations in the next Millennium.

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[Wallin 1998] Wallin, E. (1998). %XV\&LW\DQRYHUYLHZ. CITY Conversity AB, Lund.
Available as a PowerPoint presentation at http://busycity.ics.lu.se

[Wallin 1999] Wallin, E. (1999). "A business model for an online learning community - the case of Busy Cit \
WK2QOLQH/HDUQLQJ&RQIHUHQFHHXUR, Gloucestershire Business School, Cheltenham, UK.