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Purpose The study aims to explore and explain the affordances and constraints of two-mode virtual collaboration as experienced by a newly forming international research team. Design/methodology/approach This is self-reflective and action-oriented research on the affordances and constraints of two-mode virtual collaboration. In the spirit of professional development, the authors (nine researchers at different career stages and from various counties) engaged in a joint endeavour to evaluate the affordances and constraints of virtual collaborations in light of the recent literature while also researching the authors' own virtual collaboration during this evaluative task (mid-January–April 2021). The authors used two modes: synchronous (Zoom) and asynchronous (emails) to communicate on the literature exploration and recorded reactions and emotional responses towards existing affordances and constraints through a collective journal. Findings The results suggest both affordances in terms of communication being negotiable and evolving and constraints, particularly in forming new relations given tools that may not be equally accessible to all. Journaling during collaborations could be a valuable tool, especially for virtual collective work, because it can be used to structure the team supported negotiation and discussion processes, especially often hidden processes. It is evident that the role of a leader can contribute to an alignment in the assumptions and experiences of trust and consequently foster greater mutual understanding of the circumstances for productive team collaborations. Originality/value The findings of this study can inform academics and practitioners on how to create and facilitate better opportunities for collaboration in virtual teams as a rapidly emerging form of technology-supported working.

In this essay we reflect on some key ideas for a doctoral education pedagogy paying special attention to the social relations that contribute to students’ learning process. After presenting some broad ideas about the doc - toral experience, we focus on the importance of promoting initiatives that encourage interactions with others. This does not only allow to collectively construct knowledge but also to connect with a productive side of the doctoral loneliness. We illustrate the aforementioned by describing a pedagogical initiative centered on peer re - vision of doctoral dissertation drafts: writing groups. We conclude by recognizing the important role that peers, “others” can play as meaningful conversational partners in the long and complex learning process that leads to the development of intellectual autonomy., En este ensayo, reflexionamos sobre algunas ideas claves para una pedagogía de la formación doctoral prestan - do especial atención a “los otros” que acompañan los aprendizajes del sujeto que se forma. Luego de presentar algunas generalidades sobre la formación doctoral hacemos foco en el papel clave que pueden tener los espa - cios que habilitan el intercambio entre tesistas para acceder a una construcción colectiva del conocimiento y permitir conectarse con el lado productivo de la soledad. Para ello, damos cuenta de la implementación de un dispositivo pedagógico centrado en la tarea compartida de revisar borradores relacionados con la investigación doctoral: los grupos de escritura. Concluimos reconociendo la importancia que los tesistas pares, “los otros”, pueden desempeñar al convertirse en interlocutores significativos en el largo y complejo proceso formativo ten - diente al desarrollo de la autonomía intelectual.

Scientific publications, as the means through which the academy generates and communicates knowledge, are commonly used both to evaluate the individual production of university research professors as well as that of higher-level institutions. In this context, writing-for-publication practices gain importance and deserve greater attention for their development. However, in Latin America there are few initiatives that support this situation. Writing groups constitute an adequate professional-academic development tool to face these deficiencies. Within them participants share drafts for their peers to comment on and, through collaboration and exchange with others, authors gradually adjust their writing to the demands of an audience, a key aspect in academic-scientific writing. This case study investigated participants’ perspectives to explore how writing groups support the progress of writing for publication. The analysis of 10 semi-structured interviews with participants indicated that these groups benefit their participants in three main areas. First, learning how to give and receive feedback in a safe and low-risk space helped members to lose the fear connected to this activity inherent in these literacy practices. At the same time, the possibility of receiving reading impressions from a real and varied audience allowed them to improve their drafts for better comprehensibility. Finally, sustained meetings over time motivated participants to mark a space in their agendas and establish a rhythm to their writing; in turn, making room to write highlighted the lack of time faced by research professors., Las publicaciones científicas, como el medio legitimado para producir y comunicar el conocimiento, comúnmente se utilizan para evaluar la producción individual de docentes investigadores y de sus universidades. En este contexto, las prácticas de escritura relacionadas con las publicaciones científicas ameritan mayor atención para su desarrollo. Sin embargo, en Latinoamérica son escasas las iniciativas que apuntan en este sentido. Los grupos de escritura constituyen un dispositivo de desarrollo profesional-académico adecuado para enfrentar estas deficiencias. En ellos los participantes comparten borradores para que sean comentados y, mediante la colaboración y el intercambio con otros, gradualmente ajustan sus escritos a las demandas de la audiencia, un aspecto clave en la escritura académica-científica. Este estudio de caso indagó el punto de vista de los participantes de tres grupos de escritura para explorar cómo estos grupos apoyan el progreso de los escritos para su publicación. El análisis de 10 entrevistas semiestructuradas indicó que esta iniciativa beneficia a sus participantes en tres áreas principales. Primero, aprender a dar y recibir retroalimentación en un espacio seguro y de bajo riesgo ayudó a perder el miedo a esta actividad de referato inherente a escribir para publicar. Asimismo, la posibilidad de recibir comentarios de una audiencia real y variada permitió mejorar los borradores. Finalmente, las reuniones sostenidas a través del tiempo motivaron a los participantes a marcar un espacio en sus agendas y establecer un ritmo para su escritura; a su vez, hacer espacio para escribir puso de relieve la falta de asignación horaria para cumplir con esta actividad.

In the last decades, the links between writing and learning have been widely studied. In higher education, researchers have focused on students´ productions, on their standpoints towards writing in different disciplines, and on the complex relations between subject contents and writing practices, among others. However, teaching practices that intertwine writing and disciplinary contents have received scarce attention. This work emphasises two key aspects of teaching practices related to writing to learn activities: teaching time and responsibilities in knowledge-construction. A multiple case study was conducted with two first-year courses, one in Linguistics and the other in Biology. These classes were offered in two public universities in Argentina. Data collection techniques included, mainly, classroom documents, class observations and semi-structured interviews with students. Focusing on class observations, this paper shows how the teaching time was extended by intertwining teaching practices with writing as a learning tool. In both courses, writing extended class-time when students had the opportunity to write outside the classrooms and to discuss what they wrote in whole-class discussions. Additionally, these uses of writing helped students and professors to share, in a more symmetrical way, the responsibilities towards knowledge construction., En las últimas décadas, los vínculos entre la escritura y el aprendizaje han sido ampliamente estudiados. En la enseñanza superior, en particular, los investigadores se han centrado en las producciones de los estudiantes, en sus puntos de vista respecto de la escritura en las diferentes disciplinas y en las complejas relaciones entre los contenidos de las disciplinas y las prácticas de escritura, entre otros. Sin embargo, escasas investigaciones se centran en las prácticas docentes que entrelazan la escritura y los contenidos disciplinarios. Este trabajo analiza dos aspectos claves de las prácticas de enseñanza cuando se escribe para aprender: el tiempo didáctico y las responsabilidades en la construcción del conocimiento. Los resultados forman parte de una investigación didáctica diseñada como un estudio de casos múltiples en dos disciplinas universitarias (Lingüística y Biología). Los casos estudiados pertenecen a dos cursos de primer año impartidos en dos de las principales universidades argentinas. Las técnicas de recolección de datos incluyeron, principalmente, análisis de documentos, observaciones de clase y entrevistas semiestructuradas con los estudiantes. En este sentido, centrándose en las observaciones de clase, este trabajo muestra cómo se amplió el tiempo de enseñanza en esos cursos al entrelazar las prácticas de enseñanza con la escritura como herramienta de aprendizaje. En estas clases, la escritura prolongó el tiempo didáctico en la medida en que los estudiantes tuvieron la oportunidad de escribir fuera de las aulas y de discutir lo que escribieron dentro de ellas. Además, esta práctica ayudó a estudiantes y profesores a compartir, de manera más simétrica, las responsabilidades vinculadas con la construcción del conocimiento.

Peer response writing groups present several benefits in language learning classrooms. However, they are usually supervised by the instructor and thus become time consuming when carried out in class. This descriptive case study offers a model for extramural peer feedback and analyzes 12 meeting transcriptions of four undergraduate EFL writing groups implemented outside class time as support for an academic writing course with limited time for student interaction. These peer response groups were organized to: 1) provide participants with an additional audience, 2) open a space to practice the L2 in an authentic communicative situation, and 3) engage in peer review activities, a literacy practice associated with scientificacademic writing. Based on the data analysis of participant interactions, three main themes emerged according to what the members talked about: interacting as authors and reviewers of research articles, using the L2 in authentic communicative situations, and talking about and enacting literacy practices Although the experience of these writing groups was mainly positive, one of the limitations was their short lifespan, which prevented additional training to model peer response that would help facilitate the interaction among the participants, an important consideration to achieve beneficial peer feedback and to scaffold the process