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Following the development of online education, design education has started to employ computer-supported or virtual environments that support collaborative design. One tool is the Virtual Design Studio (VDS), coined by William J. Mitchell, which can imported text, images, and drawings for discussion and modification across computer networks (Wojtowicz, 1995). VDS was a project collaboration platform and can be described as a networked design studio (M. L. Maher et al., 2012). The primary functions of VDS are: sharing and communicating design information. VDS aims to provide ‘an environment for collaboration that has no walls, an environment that facilitates sharing design information and supporting interaction regardless of place and time’ (Mary Lou Maher, Simoff, & Cicognani, 2006, p. 3).

Initially developed for architecture schools, VDS expanded into other design disciplines. Online studios have been flourishing since the mid-1990s, a period that is described as a 'watershed in Virtual Design Studio (VDS) evolution' (Laiserin, 2002, p. 141). VDS breaks the boundaries of time and space using computer-mediated and computer-supported platforms representing the process and outcomes of design in electronic forms (M. L. Maher et al., 2012). Through the Internet, VDS provides asynchronous and synchronous communication that allow supervision by professional practitioners.

The first asynchronous VDS, titled ‘Distanced Collaboration’ was initiated by the University of British Columbia and Harvard University in 1992. Between 1995 and 1997 several architecture schools (USA, UK, Singapore, and Australia) started the International Design Studio project. This trans-national project allows collaboration on a single task and shares design concepts and beliefs (Palalas, Berezin, Gunawardena,

& Kramer., 2015). The first and most massive graphic VDS project, titled OMNIUM 1.0- Small Red Car -- a collaborative project for artists and designers -- was established in 1999 by the University of New South Wales. The project hosts fifty students from different countries on a custom-built network interface (Bennett & Dziekan, 2005b). Omnium has conducted international surveys and held conferences to examine collaborative creativity in online environments. Creative Waves 2005 -- another global online design project for art and design students, teachers, practitioners, and writers -- built individual and collaborative studios through dialogic interaction with literary texts (Bennett & Dziekan, 2005a). The Global Studio tested the idea of distributed design in higher education to help students develop cross-organisational and cross- cultural and collaboration (Bohemia, Harman, & Lauche, 2009).

There are still many questions about how to develop and deliver online learning for engaging people in design education, and the teaching aspect of VDS has not been fully explored. Since the initiation of VDS, the focus has been on collaboration on the learner aspect. One characteristic of design education is activities in groups. In a classroom, grouped activities are assigned by teachers easily. Gestures, sketches, and conversations are commonly used between individuals or small groups. Large group teachingis also needed when the teacher needs to address the whole class. Although some platforms have started to consider grouping functions, monitoring the activities in groups is hard to achieve, and it limits teachers’ capacity to provide instant support.

Earlier efforts of VDS focused on the technological aspects of software and hardware. Issues of communication and pedagogy have now started to gain attention from design studio educators. Kvan (2001) proposed one pedagogical approach to VDS. The study performed by the Department of Architecture at the University of Hong Kong

(Kvan, 2001) suggested two principles: deliberation and collaboration. Instead of focusing on the final product, deliberation emphasises the design process, which encourages students to review and evaluate their learning process. Collaboration stresses that learning from peers and building trust is crucial for teamwork. Broadfoot and Bennett (2003), founders of Omnium, also propose fourcharacteristics for both traditional and contemporary studio learning: (1) learning by doing; (2) one-to-one dialogue for tacit knowledge experience; (3) collaboration for building relationships, and (4) attending the process throughout the design practice. The theories above stressed the importance to enable effective communication.

The teacher also needs to help the students to understand the new medium, which is ‘currently unreliable, difficult and cumbersome’ (Kvan, 2001, p. 349). A desirable VDS needs to support such teaching activities and provide synchronous communications so that teachers can smoothly conduct their class with students. Asynchronous communication via email or other social networking tools cannot provide instant response to students. It must also be noted that conversing asynchronously may be time-consuming and reduce the efficiency and effectiveness of communication.

Kvan (2001) and Broadfoot and Bennett (2003) suggest that VDS needs to develop its pedagogy different from that of the physical design studio. Since many design studio teachers received training and practices in real studios, the studio tends to be the default environment for developing the pedagogy of VDS. Virtual design studios have also reported problems with student engagement and motivation as such a teaching approach is often removed from reality. However, Rodriguez, Hudson, and Niblock (2018) suggest that having live projects where instructors and participants interact in real-time could effectively reduce the problems associated with virtual design studios.

Furthermore, in the physical design studio, students receive trainers’ supervision through informal reviews and formal presentations (Kvan, 2001). However, the virtual environment does not allow the same operation for review and presentation. If VDS is to provide an appropriate communication environment, the further step for improvement is to consider the nature of design studio from the teacher’s perspective, as teachers must change their teaching approaches for students to achieve successful learning outcomes.

Despite their challenges, VDS has received positive feedback from students, with many students preferring it to the traditional design studio. One reason for this was that given the digital nature of the studio, students were able to observe and learn from each other’s work at each stage of design as they had the flexibility to travel back and forth in virtual time (Pektaş, 2015). They also found VDS more stimulating and fun than traditional studios. However, the need for constant support and guidance posed by such VDS cannot be understated. The role of the teacher and teaching pedagogy is of critical importance in such a setting (Pektaş, 2015). In fact, the research has identified that the knowledge of the teacher and the guidance provided in successful VDS are recorded within the communications (as design documents and background study material). A study by Lahit & Seitamaa-Hakkarainen (2014) also notes that there is very little literature available on how students and teachers interact in the setting of a virtual design studio and highlights the importance of teachers identifying ways to not just transmit knowledge, but facilitate collaborative design learning within virtual settings (Lahti & Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, 2014).