Effects of Facilitation on Collaborative Modeling Sessions with a Multi-Touch UML Editor

Models are primary artifacts in software development which influence the quality of the process and product. While students are trained to use design and development methodologies few teaching approaches address how they should create and evaluate alternative models to find a good solution. This paper suggests to complement common teaching formats with facilitated modeling sessions where small groups of students collaboratively work on a modeling problem. This experience increases the students' understanding of the importance of a shared understanding of the problem and design space. Students should also understand that they can actively shape their collaboration accordingly. A facilitation method for co-located modeling sessions with a multi-touch editor for UML class diagrams is introduced and its effectiveness is investigated in a comparative empirical study. The results suggest that students in facilitated teams not only developed more ideas than self-directed teams but that they also assessed and discussed them more thoroughly to come to a shared solution. Participants in both conditions considered the modeling session as a useful supplement for learning object-oriented modeling.