Online collaborative discussion (OCD) focuses on promoting individual knowledge inquiry and group knowledge construction through active peer interactions and communications. In practice, it is necessary to explore how different modes of OCD come into play, in which student engagement can function as an evaluating indicator. To identify student…

Understanding the relationship between interactive behaviours and discourse content has critical implications for instructors' design and facilitation of collaborative discussion activities in the online discussion forum (ODF). This paper adopts social network analysis (SNA) and epistemic network analysis (ENA) methods to jointly investigate the…

Literature on MOOCs has shown that understanding learners' perspectives in taking MOOCs is critical if a MOOC needs to be successful. Now that MOOCs have been in wide use, in this study we took an updated look at learners' perspective of taking MOOCs designed for working professionals and course aspects that these MOOC participants found…

Student-generated tagclouds provided an intuitive overview of a group of learners' collective knowledge. Although such tagclouds may have the potential to be used as effective learning tools, it has not been clear how students use this tool for knowledge construction. In this paper, we report a two-stage study that investigated college students'…

The facilitator plays a key role in guiding students' efforts during case discussions. However, few studies have compared differences in learning outcomes for students participating in facilitated versus non-facilitated discussions. In this research, we used "problem space coverage" as a learning measure to compare outcomes between…

After a discussion of the state of both misaligned and informative online and distance education research, the authors in this special issue (hereafter called the collective) extract evidence-based principles about strategies that work. Both are addressed in this article. First, their criticisms centered on the value of comparative research. Those…

This study examined the relationships among question types and levels and students' subsequent responses/interactions in online discussion forums. Question prompts were classified both by type, as outlined by Andrews ("POD Q J Prof Organ Dev Net Higher Education" 2(34):129-163, 1980), and by levels of critical thinking, as outlined by Bloom…

This exploratory analysis examined the nature of asynchronous, text-based communication in peer-directed educational discussions. The nature of communication changed over time and women exhibited greater tendency for epistolary communication than men. Initial posts, which were expository in nature, focused on disseminating information whereas…

There is a need for further research to understand the potential uses of asynchronous electronic discussions in higher education courses. Electronic discussion boards were conducted with two different graduate speech-language pathology student cohorts to supplement in-class instruction regarding assistive technology. One year's discussions were…

This study examined the content of email messages to the listserv "CESNET-L" in order to identify trends, common themes, and "hot topics;" to clarify its purpose; and to offer suggestions for the future of CESNET-L and similar email lists in higher education. CESNET-L is an unmoderated listserv mostly used by counselor educators and doctoral…

This paper discusses Mapping Temporal Relations of Discussions Software (MTRDS), a Web-based application that visually represents the temporal relations of online discussions. MTRDS was used to observe interaction characteristics of three online discussions. In addition, the research employed the Practical Inquiry Model to identify indices of…

This paper presents a pre-orientation program for incoming college students, Active Citizenship through Technology (ACT), that engaged students in civic dialogue early in their academic experience while fostering a long-term peer support network. It leveraged youth's interest in Internet technologies to engage them in civic discussions and…

This study explored the use of Garrison, Anderson, and Archer's (2000) version of Dewey's (1933) practical inquiry model for assessing the influence of social presence and teaching presence on the quality of critical inquiry experienced by online learners. Students (N = 33) enrolled in an online version of a graduate-level, educational statistics…

This descriptive pilot study employed the Grascha-Riechmann Student Learning Style Scale (GRSLSS) to examine student communication and interactions in an online educational discussion that occurred for fourteen days. Discussion activity exhibited conversational turns and messages appeared as conversation rather than expository. Individuals scoring…