The University of British Columbia Faculty of Law has developed a course in online business negotiation (OBN) which builds upon substantive coursework in corporate law to introduce students to the experience of conducting negotiations entirely online. The use of online tools and feedback assignments within a cognitive apprenticeship model of learning has provided a rich data source from which to evaluate both the successes and hurdles of this type of approach. This presentation will outline the course structure as well as touching on some of the lessons learned from initial analyses of the course.

The course involved groups of students from two university campuses completing a series of three negotiations, where each negotiation was conducted using one of chat, streaming audio and videoconference. Students were allowed to incorporate email, chat and audio tools at their discretion.

A key issue is how students overcome the lack of visual/tone feedback so critical in face-to-face communication. Examples include students notifying their peers when they were leaving chatrooms or giving a delayed response, the use of unambiguous language, inquiries for feedback, and clear friendly social discourse. We plan to continue investigating the characteristics of effective online communication with the hope of generating a best-practices guide for online negotiation.