Community building, emergent design and expecting the unexpected: Creating a quality eLearning experience

Thompson, Terrie Lynn; MacDonald, Colla J.

doi:10.1016/j.iheduc.2005.06.004

Cited by 84 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Today, it holds the potential to meet the needs of people who cannot attend on-campus courses because of family and work obligations (Hirshhorn, 2011). With the increasing pressure to provide quality online learning experiences (Thompson & MacDonald, 2005), many instructors have become cognizant of the need to support the social dimension of learning. They recognize the importance of encouraging student interaction (Hew, 2015) and the adoption of practices that foster a sense of community, that is, a sense of belonging and interactivity in an online learning environment (Rovai, 2002a;Liu, Magjuka, Bonk, & Lee, 2007;Ouzts, 2006), because community is believed to enable a collaborative, supportive, and positive learning experience (Palloff & Pratt, 2007).…”

Section: Student Actions and Community In Online Courses: The Roles Pmentioning

confidence: 99%

Student Actions and Community in Online Courses: The Roles Played By Course Length and Facilitation Method

Epp

Phirangee

Hewitt

2017

OLJ

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Fostering a strong sense of community among students within online courses is essential to supporting their learning experience. However, there is little consensus about how different facilitation methods influence students' sense of community or behaviors. This lack of understanding means instructors do not have the information they need to select an appropriate facilitation method when teaching online. This challenge is further complicated by a poor sense of how community building is influenced by the length of an online course. To better understand the relationship between these factors, we explored students' sense of community across four graduate-level online courses. Two of these courses employed an instructor-led form of facilitation and two employed a peer-led form of facilitation. For each facilitation method, one course lasted an entire term (12 weeks) and the other lasted half a term (6 weeks). This two-by-two betweensubjects design is augmented with interview data. This design enabled the study of both variables and possible interaction effects. The findings revealed students in instructor-facilitated courses experienced a stronger sense of community. Longer courses were also associated with a stronger sense of community, although the relationship was weaker than that of facilitation. No interaction effects were detected between facilitation method and course length. Follow-up analyses examined the relationship between facilitation style, course length, and a set of twelve student behaviors (e.g., note writing, note reading, and replying). The results revealed that both facilitation style and course length were associated with differences in students' note attributes including note length, the Flesch-Kincaid grade level of the text, and the frequency of their replies. Collectively, these findings offer evidence that both facilitation style and course length are related to students' sense of community and the behaviors they exhibit online.

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Section: Student Actions and Community In Online Courses: The Roles Pmentioning

confidence: 99%

Student Actions and Community in Online Courses: The Roles Played By Course Length and Facilitation Method

Epp

Phirangee

Hewitt

2017

OLJ

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“…The model views community as something that emerges in support of online learning (Rovai, 2002;Thompson & MacDonald, 2005;Shea, 2006) in the relationship between three elements: social presence, teaching presence, and cognitive presence. Social presence is defined as the degree to which learners feel socially and emotionally connected with others in an online environment; cognitive presence describes the extent to which learners are able to construct and confirm meaning through sustained reflection and discourse.…”

Section: Emotion and Learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emotional presence, learning, and the online learning environment

Cleveland-Innes

Campbell

2012

IRRODL

232

100

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<p>In spite of evidence that more and more students are engaging in online learning experiences, details about the transition for teachers and students to a new learning environment are still unconfirmed. While new technologies are often expected to make work easier, they also involve the development of new competencies. This change may, in itself, elicit an emotional response, and, more importantly, emotion may impact the experience of online learning. Knowledge about the impact of emotion on learning broadly is available, but not about emotion and online learning. This study presents evidence of emotions present in online environments, and empirical data which suggests emotional presence may exist as a fundamental element in an online community of inquiry. <br /><br /></p><input id="gwProxy" type="hidden" /><input id="jsProxy" onclick="if(typeof(jsCall)=='function'){jsCall();}else{setTimeout('jsCall()',500);}" type="hidden" />

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“…Community members maintain contact over long periods of time and engage in common activities at various levels (Lave & Wenger, 1991;Wenger, 1999). Participation in CoPs can comprise face-to-face interaction, technology-mediated communication and interaction, or a combination of both (Johnson, 2001;Lee & Cole, 2003;Thompson & MacDonald, 2005), so that CoP participation does not necessarily require a common location for all CoP members. Depending on the individual degree of participation, CoP members can be described as "experts" (with intensive and central participation, advanced knowledge of the community practice), "intermediates", or "novices" (with peripheral participation, little knowledge; Handley, Sturdy, Fincham & Clark, 2006;Lave & Wenger, 1991).…”

Section: Knowledge Sharing and Conceptual Artifacts In Communities Ofmentioning

confidence: 99%

Online help-seeking in communities of practice: Modeling the acceptance of conceptual artifacts

Nistor

Schworm

Werner

2012

Computers & Education

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Interactive online help systems are considered to be a fruitful supplement to traditional IT helpdesks, which are often overloaded. They often comprise user-generated FAQ collections playing the role of technology-based conceptual artifacts. Two main questions arise: how the conceptual artifacts should be used, and which factors influence their acceptance in a community of practice (CoP). Firstly, this paper offers a theoretical frame and a usage scenario for technology-based conceptual artifacts against the theoretical background of the academic help-seeking and CoP approach. Each of the two approaches is extensively covered by psychological and educational research literature, however their combination is not yet sufficiently investigated. Secondly, the paper proposes a research model explaining the acceptance of conceptual artifacts. The model includes users' expectations towards the artifact, perceived social influence and users' roles in the CoP as predictors of artifact use intention and actual usage. A correlational study conducted in an academic software users' CoP and involving structural equations modeling validates the model, suggesting thus a research line that is worth further pursuing. For educational practice, the study suggests three ways of supporting knowledge sharing in CoPs, i.e. use of technology-based conceptual artifacts, roles and division of labor, and purposeful communication in CoPs. Highlights• FAQ collections play the role of technology-based conceptual artifacts.• Artifact use and acceptance in communities of practice is insufficiently studied. • This study combines the community of practice and the help-seeking approach. • A conceptual model of artifact use and acceptance is empirically tested.• The findings suggest ways of fostering communities of practice at workplace.

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Community building, emergent design and expecting the unexpected: Creating a quality eLearning experience

Cited by 84 publications

References 22 publications

Student Actions and Community in Online Courses: The Roles Played By Course Length and Facilitation Method

Student Actions and Community in Online Courses: The Roles Played By Course Length and Facilitation Method

Emotional presence, learning, and the online learning environment

Online help-seeking in communities of practice: Modeling the acceptance of conceptual artifacts

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