The use of on-line instruction at the university level is becoming increasingly prevalent. In one Arkansas university, computer assisted instruction occurs in the form of web-based assignments through on-line courses and degree programs. Students, who are aspiring to become educational leaders, engage in weekly web discussions and activities…

The world needs young people with hope, vision, empathy and the ability to transform ideals into reality. As economies, societies, and geopolitical environments become more globally interconnected, youth are faced with a more complex world where intercultural communication skills and experiences are emerging as essential elements for addressing…

Over the past 20 years, researchers have begun to examine data from asynchronous computer-mediated student discussions in courses. Some results have shown students to demonstrate lower or mid-level thinking skills, while others suggest students routinely demonstrate higher-order thinking skills. The authors investigated the relationship between…

Informed by sociocultural theory and guided especially by "collective scaffolding", this study investigated the nature of computer-mediated interaction of three groups of English as a Foreign Language students when they performed collaborative writing tasks using wikis. Nine college students from a Chinese university participated in the…

Establishing a Transactive Memory System (TMS) is essential for groups of learners, when they are multidisciplinary and collaborate online. Environments for Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) could be designed to facilitate the TMS. This study investigates how various aspects of a TMS (i.e., specialization, coordination, and trust)…

In "Pietrylo v. Hillstone Restaurant Group," the plaintiff filed a wrongful-discharge claim against his employer after he was fired for content he had posted about the employer on a social media web site. This article discusses the implications of the court's decision on athletes in the sport industry.

This article addresses key issues embedded within what some commentators are describing as a "virtual" or "digital" ethnography. Namely, that through the adoption of new (virtual) spaces for ethnographic inquiry it is possible to trouble previous notions of site, place, space and meaning when collaborating in online fields.…

Students' non-posting behaviour in online discussions is often neglected in educational research. However, it can be a potential indicator of student learning. This study examined the relationships between motivation, peer feedback and students’ posting and non-posting behaviours in online discussions in a distance learning class. Fifty-seven…

This column addresses the importance of acknowledging the knowledge-making practice of Chicana bloggers. The author argues the online practices of Chicanas can be used to determine ways to develop 21st-century literacies of students, especially students of color. The author presents findings from a case study of three Chicana bloggers that reveal…

Asynchronous online discussion forums are increasingly common in blended learning environments but the relationship to student learning outcomes has not been reported for anatomy teaching. Forums were monitored in two multicampus anatomy courses; an introductory first year course and a second year physiotherapy-specific course. The forums are…

The authors' intent was to show the effect of student discussion board activity on academic outcomes, after accounting for past academic performance. Data were collected from 516 students enrolled in a junior-level required business course. Controlling for students' grade point average, stepwise regression showed a significant…

Social media provide a multitude of opportunities for knowledge contribution and sharing. However, the content reliability issue has caused comprehensive attention, especially on credible social media, such as Wikipedia. Despite Wikipedia's success with the open editing model, dissenting voices give rise to unreliable content due to two…

A mixed-methods research study was designed to test whether undergraduate engineering students were better prepared to learn advanced topics in biomedical engineering if they learned physiology via a quantitative, concept-based approach rather than a qualitative, system-based approach. Experiments were conducted with undergraduate engineering…

As online education continues to expand, colleges are demanding faculty to keep up with the pace and add new online classes. Oftentimes, online instructors rush the course creation process by focusing more on the course content than creating a sense of human presence in the virtual online community of learners. It was theorized that by simply…

Location-based services have been identified as a promising communication paradigm in highly mobile and dynamic vehicular networks. However, existing mobile ad hoc networking cannot be directly applied to vehicular networking due to differences in traffic conditions, mobility models and network topologies. On the other hand, hybrid architectures…