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General report of analysis and evaluation of the use of e-mails as feature of communication in design to interdisciplinary projects

This report has for enviandos objective to enter and to categorize e-mails in the Design Pioneer - Mars Millennium - in the months of November, December and January, in the direction to observe and to evaluate:

- the practical utility and the importance of the email as media in designs in the Internet.

- the types of information changed during the implementation phase of the design Mars Millennium in the Bandeirantes College.

- the main difficulties and limitations in the use of this feature of communication in a group to interdisciplinary (Staff).

Since its beginning, in November of 1999, the challenge Mars Millenium, inside of the Pioneer Design, if it has developed with five professors (Staff) and pupils of the first one and according to college student of the Bandeirantes College.

The general objective of the design Mars Millennium is to elaborate a plan of settling of Mars, foreseen to be implemented in 2030, as orientation contained in the site of the Pioneer Design - http://www.projectpioneer.com/mars/index.html . In this planning, some areas of the knowledge will have that to be boarded, in a vision to interdisciplinary.

The Staff is a group to interdisciplinary composite for four professors in the areas of physics, engineering, biology and computation, and one graduating Biology, which specific functions of the design possess inside (coordination, implementation, evaluation, education of manipulation of softwares and to web-designer). Two of the five professors of the Staff are in New York, and excessively they are in Brazil.

The main form of communication used inside of the group of professors (Staff) and pupils is the email. Through this feature, stacks of quarrels for the Staff and the participants of the design had been created, with the initial objective to facilitate and to speed the communication between the participants.

For the elaboration of graph 1, they had been entered and classified all the messages changed between the participants of the Design Mars Millennium, professors and pupils, during the mêses of November, December and January.

	STAFF	STAFF/Alunos	PUPILS	TOTAL
Number of e-mails	283	274	376	933

Analyzing the content of the messages changed between the members of the Staff, one got the following results:

- the great majority of the 283 e-mails changed mentions general organization to it of the design, which included:

- Evaluation of the individual potential of the members of the Staff (summarized resumes).

- Definition of the functions of each member of the Staff, according to its personal abilities.

- Quarrel of bureaucratic aspects of the design (necessary forecast of budget, mounts of money for filming and purchase of softwares, payment of the integrant ones of the Staff).

- Organization of meetings with the selected pupils - objective and lines of direction.

- Quarrel of problems appeared in the Staff and between the selected pupils, during the period of implementation of the design in the Bandeirantes College.

- Quarrel of computer science features (softwares) to be used for the development of the design.

- Quarrel of forms of continuous evaluation of the design (headings and questionnaires).

- swap of ideas on necessary information for the implementation of colony of human beings in Mars (aspects technological, energy, ambient, biological, psychological, religious politician, beliefs). This part entered more of the half of the total of e-mails changed.

- general Organization of the first presentation of research carried through in each work group.

The 274 e-mails sent by the professors to the selected pupils had had as main objectives:

- To prevent that the participants if moved away from the preset objectives of the design, in the direction to guide in continuous way the quarrels.

- To call the attention the pupils for the importance to cite the references of research made for recital of the work.

- To assist in the analysis of information and data gotten in the research carried through for the pupils.

- To constantly raise new questions for the reflection of the pupils in the different searched topics, in the direction to stimulate them to search it each time more.

- continuously To call the attention the pupils for the content the site the design, indicating the new introduction of texts and features to assist the work of the group.

- To decide problems appeared between the pupils during the development of the work, as attritions and discords in the works in group.

Part IV Advantages and detected limitations of the use of email for the communication

- Possibility of participation accomplishes of the professors of the Staff who are in New York, in the quarrels carried through between professors and pupils in Brazil, practically in real time.

- Possibility to reconstitute, from the careful analysis of the changed messages, strings of reasoning followed by the group in each topic to be searched and to be studied.

- Possibility of organization of goals and procedures, as well as redirect for necessary times in the works, during the development of the research, with the participation accomplishes all of the group of the Staff. Taking of decisions in group.

- the extreme number of changed messages was a significant problem faced by the Staff, a time that was necessary the analysis of all the messages sent, to guarantee the adequate monitoring of the design.

- the inadequate use of the email on the part of the participants (as many professors as pupils), magnifying very the number of messages changed without significant real increase in the quality of the gotten information. For example, many e-mails contained only information on availability of the participants for determined meeting, accuse with act of receiving with message without any new commentary or very extensive information and messages (without objectivity).

- Possibility of frequent mistakes in the reading of contents of e-mails, for times generating attritions between the participants of the group (as many professors as pupils). The written word can have many significances, depending on who he is the reader and of its psychological state at the moment of the reading (nervousness, stress, anxiety, insecurities). A great limitation of the email is the impossibility to express feelings, fact that is very important in the interpersonal relations.

In its recent workmanship entitled " Cibercultura ", Pierre Lévy (1999, p 94 to the 99) places some sufficiently common situations and frequent in the communication she saw email, which had been lived deeply in the Mars Millennium, between them, the communication easiness saw stack of quarrels, possibility to reconstitute relatively independent strings of colloquy, communication problems (attritions for divergence of ideas and cultures), possibility to generate diverse feelings in the people who receive messages (indignation, constraint, anger, malaise, solidarity, among others), and possibility to make new friendships. The author arrives to place the idea of the people, front to the computer, effectively to forget itself per some instants that exist other people of the other side of the screen, readers of its house arrests under bail, which possess feelings and can be hurt with definitive words. It can be this one of the main-causing factors of attritions in the communication saw e-mails, or either, cyberspace, that virtual space created by the linked memories of thousand of computers, seems to create a false sensation of distancing between the people, but the reactions of all the types and forms in make them to remember that this pitch exists only in our imagination.

On the basis of the one that was displayed previously, is possible to verify that the use of the email (e-mail) in the development of the Design Mars Millennium if has shown very important, being able to be evaluated positively, a time that its advantages exceed its disadvantages very.

In groups whose degree of maturity, sincerity and professionalism of the participants is significant, it is perfectly possible to skirt possible problems who appear in elapsing of the works, due to the use of this tool of communication, the email.

Until the present report, I have observed that the component group of the Staff of the Mars Millennium for times really proved to possess this so necessary maturity and sincerity for an effective work in long-distance group. This proven maturity has assisted the selected pupils significantly to decide communication problems saw email, and this possesses basic importance for the success of this work.

Lévy, P. Cibercultura / Pierre Lévy; translation of Carlos Irineu of the Coast, - São Paulo: Ed. 34, 1999. 264 p. (Collection TRANS).