The Relationship between Student Perceptions of Satisfaction of Social, Teaching, and Cognitive Presence with Asynchronous Communication Tools for Online Learning in a Region V Community College

As a commonplace medium for instructional content in community colleges, the use of online courses is prevalent in higher education and is expected to continue to grow. While online classes offer a number of benefits to students, drawbacks of online education also exist. Because participants in an online classroom are not physically present together, they rely on communication tools to allow for interaction and collaboration. This study addressed the relationship between community college student perceptions of satisfaction of the use of asynchronous communication tools and community college student perceptions of satisfaction of social, teaching, and cognitive presence in a Region V community college. This study also addressed how that relationship varied depending on particular demographics of student program of study, age, gender, GPA, and prior online experience. The Community of Inquiry (CoI) instrument was utilized to measure social, teaching, and cognitive presence in the online classroom environment. A survey based on the literature review was developed to gather the perceptions of students’ satisfaction with the use of asynchronous communication tools in the online classroom. Tools included e-mail, discussions or forums, blogs or weblogs, wikis, and podcasting. The study population was the 1,363 enrolled students in the Spring 2014 semester who were taking at least one online course at the time the survey was conducted. The return rate was 31.5%. The study found eight conclusions: (1) these community college students are more satisfied with the use of three asynchronous communication tools: e-mail, discussions or forums , and podcasts, and less satisfied with the use of two asynchronous communication tools: wikis and blogs in online courses; (2) podcasts had the highest satisfaction among these community college students; (3) students who had taken three or more online courses were more satisfied with asynchronous communication tools in online courses; (4) students indicated a strong positive correlation in regards to student satisfaction with social, teaching, and cognitive presence; (5) not one specific presence emerged as more satisfying than the others for students; (6) demographics did not have a significant effect on student satisfaction with social, teaching, and cognitive presence; (7) students indicated a strong positive correlation between student satisfaction with the use of asynchronous communication tools and student satisfaction with social, teaching, and cognitive presence; and (8) students indicated a higher satisfaction with the use of e-mail and discussions when they had taken three or more online courses. Recommendations for practice and future research are included

Collaboration and motivation in an online learning environment: students’ perceptions of collaborative activities and attitudes towards online learning

The report about distance learning in higher education in Portugal (2009) states that only a small percentage of HE enrolments are in DL courses, that the demand for the modality is growing, and that the Portuguese research in DL needs development, to support innovation in the modality. This study aimed to identify the collaborative activities that the 122 students enrolled in Masters’ courses between 2009-2012, in two Portuguese Universities, considered more motivating, their preferred type of assignment, the tools’ perceived ease of use, the social and cognitive aspects of teamwork, the tutor’s influence on teamwork and preferred team organization. The results indicate that the students feel comfortable participating, interacting and debating and that some collaborative activities such as designing projects, simulations, problem-based activities, discussions and written reports are more motivating than others. The results also show that the students have positive attitudes towards online learning, that online trust takes time to develop, that both face-to-face meetings and videoconference increase trust, though time flexibility is a practical advantage of online collaboration and that the way that collaborative assignments are designed can facilitate or hinder adequate collaboration

Informal Online Decision Making: Current Practices and Support System Design

Existing group decision support systems are too complex to support lightweight, informal decision making made popular by the amount of information available on the Web. From an examination of related work, an online survey and a formative study to examine how people currently use the Web for decision support, we present a set of design recommendations towards the development of an informal Web decision support tool

Maximising Social Interactions and Effectiveness within Distance Learning Courses: Cases from Construction

Advanced Internet technologies have revolutionised the delivery of distance learning education. As a result, the physical proximity between learners and the learning providers has become less important. However, whilst the pervasiveness of these technological developments has reached unprecedented levels, critics argue that the student learning experience is still not as effective as conventional face-to-face delivery. In this regard, surveys of distance learning courses reveal that there is often a lack of social interaction attributed to this method of delivery, which tends to leave learners feeling isolated due to a lack of engagement, direction, guidance and support by the tutor. This paper defines and conceptualises this phenomenon by investigating the extent to which distance-learning programmes provide the social interactions of an equivalent traditional classroom setting. In this respect, two distance learning case studies were investigated, covering the UK and Slovenian markets respectively. Research findings identified that delivery success is strongly dependent on the particular context to which the specific distance learning course is designed, structured and augmented. It is therefore recommended that designers of distance learning courses should balance the tensions and nuances associated with commercial viability and pedagogic effectiveness

Use and perceptions of second life by distance learners: comparison with other communication media

Research has demonstrated that the use of communication media in distance education can reduce the feeling of distance and isolation from peers and tutor, and provide opportunities for collaborative learning activities (Bates, 2005). The use of virtual worlds (VW) in education has increased in recent years, with Second Life (SL) being the most commonly used VW in higher education (Wang & Burton, 2012). There is a paucity of information available on students’ use and perceptions of SL in relation to other online communication media available to the distance learner. Consequently, in the study described here, this area was explored with a group of students registered in a part-time distance education Master’s program at a large UK University open to international students. A self-completion survey was designed to assess students’ use and perceptions of using SL compared with other communication media. The majority of students rated SL lower than other forms of communications media such as email, WebCT discussion boards, Skype, and Wimba for facilitating communication, promoting the formation of social networks, fostering a sense of community, and benefiting their learning.  It is possible that the results of this study were influenced by the lower frequency of use of SL in this program compared to other work reported on this subject. Further work is required to evaluate the effect of frequency of use of SL and availability of alternative communication media on students’ use and perceptions of this virtual world

Maximising social interactions and effectiveness within distance learning courses : cases from construction

Advanced Internet technologies have revolutionised the delivery of distance learning education. As a result, the physical proximity between learners and the learning providers has become less important. However, whilst the pervasiveness of these technological developments has reached unprecedented levels, critics argue that the student learning experience is still not as effective as conventional face-to-face delivery. In this regard, surveys of distance learning courses reveal that there is often a lack of social interaction attributed to this method of delivery, which tends to leave learners feeling isolated due to a lack of engagement, direction, guidance and support by the tutor. This paper defines and conceptualises this phenomenon by investigating the extent to which distance-learning programmes provide the social interactions of an equivalent traditional classroom setting. In this respect, two distance learning case studies were investigated, covering the UK and Slovenian markets respectively. Research findings identified that delivery success is strongly dependent on the particular context to which the specific distance learning course is designed, structured and augmented. It is therefore recommended that designers of distance learning courses should balance the tensions and nuances associated with commercial viability and pedagogic effectiveness

Rules and tools: collaborating over networks for art and design students

As the popularity of the Internet grows, the roles it may play in different contexts and disciplines - e.g. archive/library of information, publicity tool or meeting place - become more apparent. The JISC-funded Enhanced Collaboration with Shared Tools for Art and Design Systems project is based at Ravensbourne College and it is studying the potential of the Internet for supporting collaborative work between students in art and design. This paper gives an overview of results from the first stage of Enhanced Collaboration with Shared Tools for Art and Design Systems. This has involved doing some initial research into the experiences of those who have already been involved in such projects and the 'lessons learnt' from them and these experiences. The resulting guidelines are discussed here. A survey of existing tools for collaborative working and an overview of some of these is also provided; the tools are described in terms of whether they support 'real-time'or asynchronous communication and the degree to which they afford communication of ideas visually

An Investigation of the Utility of Microblogging in a Virtual Organisation

Virtualisation is one possible business strategy of an organisation. The nature of virtual organisations is that individuals or teams are distributed over different work sites. This leads to barriers in communication,coordination and collaboration between these entities due to dispersed expertise, time zones, languages, cultures, etc. To address these issues, virtual organisations have invested in ICT for supporting collaboration between cross-site colleagues. One very new collaborative technology is microblogging. Microblogging supports asynchronous communication between multiple persons. Microblogging is based upon transmission of short messages that can be sent from Web-based microblogging systems, instant messaging tools, email or mobile phones. Microblogging has some relevant features like simplicity, immediacy, accessibility and presence. This paper describes our investigation of the utility of microblogging, particularly the Twitter tool, for collaboration support in a virtual organisation. Since microblogging is very new and was introduced only recently, no work has been done on this exact topic. The investigation involved conducting an online survey to collect participants’ opinions about the utility of Twitter in the workplace after using Twitter over a three-week period. The study yielded quantitative and qualitative results regarding participants’ experience of Twitter. It was found that microblogging could be adapted to virtual organisations quickly due to ease of use in terms of taking less time and effort for creating microblogs. Twitter could be used in virtual organisations for collaboration support because it is believed that the use of Twitter could somewhat improve communication between cross-site co-workers. However, to be well accepted by virtual organisations, Twitter needs improvement and addition to its existing functionality

The Scholarship Circle: an introduction to writing for publication for nursing faculty

Background: This case report describes a collaborative effort between a health sciences librarian and an instructional designer to create and implement a writing professional development experience called the Scholarship Circle. It was aimed at increasing scholarly productivity by junior and nontenure-track faculty in a college of nursing. Case Presentation: The Scholarship Circle activities were carried out in a synchronous and an asynchronous online environment over ten weeks and included weekly lectures from nurse-scholars, discussions and peer reviews, and writing support from the librarian. The Scholarship Circle designers surveyed participants before and after the course to explore faculty perceptions and conducted a bibliographic analysis to gauge increases in scholarly productivity. Conclusions: While both tenure-track and nontenure-track faculty perceived lack of time as a significant barrier to publication, only nontenure-track faculty perceived lack of writing experience and getting started as significant obstacles. In the two years following the Scholarship Circle, faculty with doctor of philosophy and doctor of education degrees produced the greatest number of scholarly publications, whereas faculty with other degrees demonstrated a modest increase in scholarship. Online writing support programs have the potential to positively impact scholarly productivity for junior and nontenure-track faculty, especially if they emphasize time management for writing, confidence-building strategies, and a flexible format that allows peer review and collaboration as well as participation by seasoned scholars and remote participants. Partnership between health sciences librarians and instructional designers is key to the successful design and implementation of writing support programs.Publisher allows immediate open acces