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ASSESSING PARTICIPATION IN ONLINE DISCUSSION FORUMS: APROPOSAL
FOR MULTIDIMENSIONAL ANALYSIS
EVALUACIN DE LA PARTICIPACIN EN FOROS DE DISCUSINONLINE. UNA
PROPUESTA DE MULTIANLISIS
Dra. Rosabel Roig [email protected]
Saulius E. Rosales [email protected]
Facultad de Educacin. Universidad de Alicante.Departamento de
Didctica General y Didcticas Especficas
Campus de San Vicente del Raspeig. Ap. 99 03080, Alicante
(Spain)
El objetivo del presente trabajo es el de evaluar los foros de
discusin de un curso de EspecialistaUniversitario online sobre
Tecnologas de la Informacin y la Comunicacin de la Universidad
deAlicante basndonos en la propuesta de anlisis de Kay (2004). En
este anlisis es fundamental graficarla actividad de los foros para
mostrar, una representacin visual que facilite su estudio. La
investigacinha permitido obtener resultados definitorios sobre la
actividad del foro y ha aportado una propuesta demultianlisis en el
mbito de estudios sobre la evaluacin de la participacin en los
mbitos de comunicacindefinidos por los foros de discusin
online.Palabras clave: evaluacin, aprendizaje en lnea, comunicacin
interactiva, aprendizaje activo
This paper aims to assess the discussion forums being used in
the programme Especialista Universitarioonline sobre Tecnologas de
la Informacin y la Comunicacin, taught at the University of
Alicante, on thebasis of the analysis model suggested by Kay
(2004). In such a model, it is essential to represent
graphicallythe forum activity so that the visual representation may
improve analysis. This research has allowedreaching results which
define the forum activity and has contributed with a proposal for
multi analysis inthe area of assessing participation in
communication within online discussion forums.Keywords: Education,
E-learning, Interactive communication, Active learning
N 40 Enero 2012 - pp.137-149
2011 Pxel-Bit.
1. Introduction.
Discussion and debate forums constitutean excellent platform for
learning throughmoderated interaction between equals (peerto peer)
and are based on the idea of thestudent being the center of the
learning
environment and oriented towards thedevelopment of critical
thinking skills (Sahu,2008). Peer to peer interactions provide a
widelearning spectrum in which, besides themoderators orientation,
students are exposedto their colleagues ideas and perspectives.The
strength of these forums is based on
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getting the student involved in learningactivities, encouraging
interaction betweenequals, allowing the student to play the
majorrole in the (learning) process and the teacherthat of the
mediator-moderator of the activity(Sahu, 2008; Silva, 2004).
Thanks to this process, students internalizethe orientations and
guidelines of their morequalified colleagues when they write in
acollaborative way (Garca & Perera, 2007). Eventhough student
participation in a forum canbe assessed in different ways, the
authorsagree that a more active participation doesnot necessarily
imply a more insightful andcollaborative learning, or a better
quality ofthe interventions (Gros & Silva, 2006;
Ornelas,2007).
There are some disagreements regardingthe use of discussion
forums as a learningtool and their influence on achieving
asignificant learning. Some scholars considerthem a ground-breaking
tool and some othersthink their effective and significant use
isminimal (Kay, 2006a). The main reason behindthis divergence could
be the lack of a solidand comprehensive tool to assess forums,which
should be consistent, integral andbased on theoretical concepts
(Kay, 2006b).
Based on an extensive revision of previousresearch, Kay uses the
following variables toassess traditional discussion forums:
thread,position of the message within the thread,author (learner
vs. educator), clarity of thesubject field, time of publication,
lapse of timesince the previous message, number of timesthat a
message has been read, number ofwords, main purpose, quality of the
message,level of complexity of the subject, level ofknowledge and
level of usage and processingof external resources. All these
variables havebeen put in conjunction in a table, and foreach of
them we have specified the possible
assessment values. These variables haveproven to be effective in
the assessment ofthe 12 key areas of discussion forum usage.Kay
claims this type of metric is essential toimprove our understanding
of onlinediscussion boards.
2. Methodology.
2.1. Research design.
This study has been developed withregistered information from an
activity carriedout in the discussion forum of theSpecialization
Program on Applied ICT inEducation taught at the University of
Alicanteand developed on the universitys Eduonlineplatform. Because
of its characteristics, theresearch is descriptive and does not
intend togeneralize results (Arias, 1999). The main aimis to use a
predefined assessment tool in orderto describe the activity in
virtual discussionforums.
Using Kays metric (2004 and 2006) toanalyze virtual discussion
forums, we havecarried out the assessment in two parts:
onededicated to describe the forum using Kaysmetric (and to
understand the metric better,adapting it if necessary to a specific
universityenvironment) and to suggest a way ofrepresenting the
forums activity graphically.We have decided to use this metric and
toperform a manual assessment. However, wehavent ruled out the
possibility of developinga similar research study in the
futureperforming a qualitative assessment (withtools such as AQUAD,
NUD*IST, etc.)
2.2. Participants.
In order to carry out the investigation wehave taken into
account the total number of
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students (N=17) and teachers (N=6) in theaforementioned
Specialization Course. Theseparticipants have published a total
number of720 messages, out of which a representativesample has been
selected.
The student group was formed by graduatestudents of different
disciplines andoccupations, from both a scientific and ahumanities
background, ranging fromcomputer programmers or IT engineers
tosecondary school music teachers, socialsciences teachers, or
English and primaryschool teachers. Once the size of our samplewas
clear, we selected the items (messages)which were meant to be our
object of analysis.The sampling has therefore been made in
anon-probabilistic and unintentional way,following some criteria
based on the revisionof related bibliography.
The course is divided into topics and foreach topic several
discussion threads weresuggested and developed. Based on
thisstructure, we have selected arbitrarily onethread for each of
the topics. The itemsselected are the ones which show a
significantsocial learning based to the level of activity,student
and teacher participation and numberof active participants in the
discussion (Kay,2004).
2.3. Data collection.
The data has been obtained following twodifferent procedures 1)
logging into the onlinecourse and then entering the online
discussionforum; 2) accessing Eduonlines databasetables for this
specific course. These tablesinclude data about the topics,
threads, numberof messages, message sequencing within thethread,
message author and message date,among others. Due to the point in
time in whichthis study has been planned and developed,
we have not conducted any surveys as theanalysis has been
performed after the closureof the course.
The assessment has been carried out withtwo perspectives: a
quantitative and aqualitative one. The data received about
forumparticipation has been treated with MicrosoftExcel in
conjunction with SPSS Statistics 17.0and Statistica 8.0 for the
graphs.
2.4. Forum activity graph: a proposal foranalysis.
When trying to represent the differentinteractions established
in a discussion forum,there is an element which must be taken
intoaccount which acts as a unifier of theparticipant interaction.
This element is thediscussion thread. Therefore, taking as
astarting point the article by Rallo and Gisbert(2008) and taking
into account the importanceof the thread in the current study, we
suggestthe following guidelines to construct thegraphs which will
to show visually the boardsactivity: (1) There are two types of
nodes:Type 1: participant (user); type 2: thread; (2)All the nodes
represented in the graph haveat least one edge; (3) The type 1
nodes (user)are represented with an ellipsis or a roundcorner
square; (4) The type 2 nodes (thread)are represented with a
straight corner square;(5) The type 1 nodes (user) are labeled
withthe name of the user which might be either astudent or a
teacher. The type 2 nodes arelabeled with the thread name, taken
from thesubject field, or the thread number, taken fromits
identification number in the originaldatabase; (6) Type 1 nodes and
type 2 nodesare presented in a different colour so that theycan be
easily distinguished (optional). In thisstudy the student
participants are alsodifferent in colour from the teachers or
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tutors; (7) If there is a connection betweentwo different type 1
nodes this will beindicated through a type 2 node, which is tosay
the users are interacting betweenthemselves through the threads;
(8) The edgesare not directed and therefore the graph is
notdirected; (9) The size of the nodes (of bothtypes) will increase
with the number of edgeswhich come to (or go out of) them. The
nodeswith more activity will therefore be bigger andwill stand out
visually; (10) User participationis measured by the number of edges
in thenode representing it. (11) The interestgenerated by the
thread can be measured byits number of edges. The more edges
thereare in the node, the more interesting we canconsider the
thread to be, as it has stimulatedmore participation. There are
different waysto indicate who started a thread: (1) Adding inthe
corresponding node the numbers of thethreads started by that user;
(2) Adding thetag 1 in the edge that connects the user tothe
thread. (3) The edges can be numberedwith the participation order
of the users in aparticular thread. By doing this we will be ableto
track whenever a user took part in thediscussion. Multiple posts by
a user in thesame thread can be represented as follows:(1) Each
participation generates a new edgetowards the thread; (2) An only
edge is shownand we increase its thickness with the numberof
interventions; (3) A type 2 node (thread)with one edge represents a
thread which didnot get any replies; (4) The most heavynodes are
placed towards the centre of thegraph (optional).
2.5. Forum content: the thread selection.
In order to analyze the forum by surveyingthe content of the
posted messages, we havetaken as a starting point the graphic
representations previously shown, from whichwe have selected the
threads which seem tobe more interesting according to the numberof
active participants and the number ofmessages published in it.
These selection criteria allow us to observetwo different
dimensions: when the criterionis the number of edges connected to a
thread,that is to say, the amount of messagespublished, we can
assess whether thisdiscussion has been active or not. The biggerthe
number of messages, the more intense theactivity is, and we can
therefore say that thethread reflects the development of
aninteresting discussion. On the other hand, thenumber of
participants which have taken partin a discussion comes to reflect
a bigger (orsmaller) social reach of a particular discussion.If the
number of participants is big, the topicis considered of interest
for a larger numberof users which have wanted to take part in itand
make a contribution. In any case, bothdimensions can co-exist and,
in fact, a threadwith a high number of participants publishinga
substantial amount of messages should bereflecting the personal and
social growth ofthe group and the personal growth of itsmembers,
and should be an indication of ameaningful and notable discussion
in itssocio-educational dimension.
Another key element which has been takeninto account is the
subject field. Sometimesa thread with a more intense activity
(highernumber of edges) has only made a smallcontribution to the
course. An example of thisis the thread number 3991: the topic
aboutmailing lists is the most active one (accordingto its number
of edges: 8 messages) and theone with the highest number of
participantsinvolved (n=5), but the content of thediscussion only
serves to find an answer to aspecific doubt about how to use a
computer
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application. Another negative aspect of thisthread is the lack
of a close up. One positiveaspect about it, though, is related to
its socialdimension, as several students offered theirhelp in order
to solve another studentsproblem.
3. Results.
A total of 720 messages have beenpublished (see Graph 1),
distributed in 237threads on about 15 topics (M=15, SD= 8.72,Min=5,
Max=37 threads per topic).
The published messages (720 in total) aredistributed between 15
topics and have anarithmetic average of 48 messages per topic(SD=
17.94, Min=14, Max=82 messages pertopic). The average thread length
(measuredby the number of messages in it) is 3 messages.The maximum
thread length is 24 messages(on the topic of digital
blackboards).
The average word count per message is91.64 (SD=101.52, Min=1
word andMax=989 words).
The average response time to themessages is 3.39 days (SD =
10.71; Min = 0;Max = 73). A total of 96 messages have beenanswered
on the same day (13.33%) and a total
of 85 messages have been replied to thefollowing day (11.80%).
In some cases therehas been an extreme response time such as66, 79,
54 or even 118 days.
The number of threads which have fiveor more messages is 34
(14.35%). In 48 threads(20.25%) the students and teachers havetaken
part more than once in the discussion,with a maximum of 7 comments
made by thesame person.
The messages published by the teachersconstitute a total of
29.63% of the messagesand represent almost a third of
theparticipation. The introductory topics to thecourse have a
teacher participation rate of47.22% and a topic about Webquest
inquirieshas a 42.86% (see Graph 2). The peculiarity ofthe
presentation topic is that the teacherreplies to each of threads
started by studentswith a welcome message.
3.1. The forum seen through graphs.
Following the guidelines explained in theprevious section we can
represent graphicallythe discussion forums activity, taking
intoaccount the more relevant elements: users,threads and the
interrelations between them.
Graph 1. Number of threads per topic
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The graphical representation of the threadsin this particular
forum has been createdmanually, but supported by a
computerapplication. Therefore, we have generated thegraphs in two
stages: in the first stage wehave revised every single course
thread andhave generated the first outlines manually,following the
guidelines stated above. Then,
with the help of the tool Cmap Tools developedby the Institute
for Human and MachineCognition in Florida, we have digitalised
themanually-created outlines. Cmap Tools is anapplication which
allowed us to work withconcept maps effectively.
These are some examples of the threadgraphs:
Graph 2. Students/Teachers forum posts
Figure 1. Forum participation - Topic 0
Topic 0: Course welcome.
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This activity involved posting a briefmessage in the forum about
the studentsforeknowledge and experience, etc. As we cansee in
Figure 1 this was basically a one to oneinteraction between each
participant and thecourse tutor, whose answer was a welcomemessage
to the course.
In this topic there is a very discreet teacherparticipation (see
Figure 2), which can beinterpreted as a positive strategy to let
thestudents be the protagonists of the discussionand the learning.
Moreover, a more interestingdiscussion structure can be noted due
to thehigh number of students involved in thethreads with a more
active participation. Wecan also appreciate a possible trend
whoeverstarts the thread is usually the most activeparticipant in
the thread. It could be said thatthe users who start the threads
feel in a wayresponsible for their evolution or that theymight have
to stand up for the ideas originallystated. After observing this
diagram we couldsay that in this topic the threads play a
fairly
bigger role than the participants.In the topic about teacher
roles, we can
again appreciate an important participation ofthe moderators,
and an interest in it from apart of the student group. Moreover, as
wecan see in Figure 3, three of the users involvedin the discussion
made up to 4 contributionsto it. The rest of the threads are
lessoutstanding. It is interesting to see in the graphthe
interaction between all the students,regardless of the threads that
got no reply orwere not very active. Practically all thestudents
registered in the course were activein this topic, which makes it
an illustrativeexample of social learning.
We can generally observe that the forumhas been used a direct
asynchronouscommunication tool between two interlocutorswhich also
allowed the rest of the students tofollow the discussion. When seen
in thegraphs, we can appreciate that there are veryfew threads with
a discussion involving allthe students actively.
Topic 2: ICT and education in the society of information.
Figure 2. Forum participation - Topic 2
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We must also emphasize that in most topicsit was one of the
teachers who participatedmore actively in the forum, taking part
inalmost every thread and leading, maybeexcessively, the current
discussion.
3.2. General analysis of the selectedthreads.
After carrying out an assessment of eachof the selected threads,
we have displayedthe results in a table and have performed abrief
general analysis.
Clarity of the Subject field: in most cases(n=87; N=140; 62%)
the threads subject fieldis not clear enough and is usually made up
oftwo or less words. It seems to be a commonpattern to use two
words in the subject fieldwhich do not indicate clearly the content
ofthe message: 13% (n=18) are somewhat clear,19% (n=27) are quite
clear and 6% (n=8) arevery clear.
Main purpose of the message: (see Graph
3) following the pattern of the field questioneasily answered by
using other sources, 76%of the messages (n=105; N=140) are
answersto questions asked at the start of the threador to
activities suggested as course material.7% (n=10) of them are open
responsequestions, presumably seeking aninvolvement in the activity
of all the membersin the group even though, regardless of
thequestions complexity, as we have seen in theprevious section: 7
messages (5%) involveda student query about the discussion;
16messages (12%) are independent andunrelated to the thread
discussion and justone message (1%) of the ones underassessment has
been a comment unrelated tothe discussion and with no educational
value.To sum up, practically all the messages wererelated to the
course, regardless of theircontribution (which we will discuss
later).
New information added: almost half of themessages (n=65; N=140;
46%) do not addany new information to the discussion.
Topic 3: Functions, roles and competences in the current
technological context.
Figure 3. Forum participation - Topic 3
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Sometimes the messages are published inorder to support or
confirm somethingpreviously stated. Other times, once thediscussion
threads have become lengthy, themessages have become repetitive and
haveacquired a social dimension because of theuse of greetings and
anecdotes in them. Thesemessages are usually related to the topic
butthey dont always add any new knowledge:15 messages (11%) add
some knowledge inan indirect way and 60 messages (43%), quitea
considerable percentage, provide an answerto the questions or
activities suggested.
Quality of the message: in 19 (14%) caseswe havent found in the
table the conditionsrequired for the messages to be assessedwithin
the scale and there is no incorrectmessage: 20 messages (14%)
provide someinformation which is not related to thediscussion topic
or to the course; almost halfof the messages (n=69; 49%) are
acceptablebecause they reply in some way to thequestion or to one
of the suggested activities;24 messages (17%) are valid because
theyrespond to a part or to the whole threadquestion; only 8
messages (6%) are excellent
as they provide an answer in a clear andrelevant manner and also
add significantdetails. These excellent messages have beenpublished
by the teachers. On severaloccasions the questions and activities
wereopen and they encouraged the students togive their opinion or
reflect on their ownexperience. In such situations, the
answerscould be taken as correct, but depending onhow pertinent
they were and on theinformation they provided they were markedas
either good or acceptable. Very few threadshad specific questions,
and that is why theassessment of this line should be consideredto
be very subjective and dependent on theexperience and knowledge of
the assessor.
Type of knowledge: due to the nature ofmany of the questions and
activities, there isa high percentage (41%) of messages
(n=57;N=140) which contribute with facts(anecdotes and comments
with littleelaboration, among others); however, 27% ofthe messages
(n=38), are more elaborated anddraw a connection between two or
more facts;9% (n=13) of the messages provideinformation about which
procedure to follow
Graph 3. Main purpose of message (all of them)
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in order to carry out a specific task. Thesemessages are
generally replies to equallyspecific and punctual questions.
Finally, a12% (n=17) of the messages have beencharacterized as
being metacognitive, becausethe students are reflecting on how to
find apossible solution to a problem. This last resultcan be seen
as a very positive aspect whichsuggests evidence of the students
ability toprovide solutions.
External resources: in general terms linksto external sources
are rare in the messages(n=97; N=140; 69%). In some cases (n=12;9%)
the course information or a post writtenby a teacher is referred
to; 16% (n=23) makereference to the information posted in
anothermessage; 3% (n=4) mention a website.
We can interpret this as a result of theteachers having provided
enoughinformation to cover the topics, but it couldalso be a sign
of the students either not beingfamiliar with making references to
externalsources or not making the effort to do anyfurther research
on the topic beyond theinformation provided.
We must also take into account that somethreads were asking the
students to narratetheir personal experiences with the use of ICTon
their own work, while in other threads theyhad to comment on the
material provided.
4. Discussion.
The metric suggested by Kay (2004) hasbeen very useful in order
to systematize theanalysis of forum activity. Kays guide
ispractical in nature and allowed us to structureour assessment,
and to take into accountmany variables which are put into practice
inthreaded discussion forums. However, we hadto make a prior
revision and updating of theguide in order to define the variables
that could
be assessed in the forum. Despite having ruledout some of these
variables, by using Kaysguide we had to add the value NA (Does
NotApply) for some fields which did not apply tothe messages under
study. Even though theguide allowed us to systematize the
analysis,it should be noted that the assessment of thecontent was
at the discretion of the researcher.This manual task involved
reading each andevery thread message, assessing some of
theircharacteristics and attributing different valuesto them
according to Kays table. In somecases the message was in the
borderline divingthe two categories, and the assessor had tolean
towards one of the two options. There isa level of subjectivity in
this task and itthoroughly depends on the assessorsinterpretation
of the guide and messages.Performing this work manually implies
asubstantial effort as the selected discussionmessages have to be
read several times inorder to assess all the variables at play, and
todetermine in which category they should beplaced in. At the
beginning of the analysisthe assessment is even more complicated
asthe assessor has not yet memorized all theindicators that allow
evaluating the messageaccording to the metric. This situation
getssolved as soon as the forum assessmentproceeds and it
eventually evolves into amechanical dynamic.
After carrying out this manual assessment,we consider of great
importance the use of ameasuring tool in order to organise
andexpedite the process. We also wonder howwould the analysis be
carried out if we wereto emulate Ezeiza and Palacios (2009) and
doit in a semiautomatic (or even automatic?) wayusing software
tools such as NUD*IST orAQUAD.
One of the aims of the current study is tosuggest and we say
this with all humility- a
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good way of showing graphically the activityof a thread so as to
facilitate its visualinterpretation. In these graphs we can
clearlysee the more active threads, which threadsoutstand from the
rest because of their activity,which user has taken part in a
discussion,which threads didnt get any replies, etc.
All in all, the guide to turn data into graphshas been very
useful in order to begin theforum analysis, but we recommend its
revisionand improvement, as well as encouraging itsregular use in
the analysis of virtual discussionboards. On this topic, we must
also say thatthat even though Cmap Tools, the applicationused to
generate the graphs, has been of greathelp, we consider it
necessary to look into thecreation of new software designed
specificallyfor this purpose. A starting point in the creationof
such a tool could be the analysis of theinformation registered in
the database andusing each register to create the structure ofthe
graph automatically.
Generally speaking, and regarding theforum analysed, we would
like to reflect onsome interesting observations. First of all,
wethink the students havent made the most ofthe learning
possibilities which online forumscan provide, as we have seen in
the theoreticalframe of this study. An average of threemessages by
thread is a considerably lownumber of messages. According to Kay
(2004)social learning happens after the 5th message,and this
situation has only happened in 14%of the discussions. It seems a
common practiceamong the students to start a new threadevery time
they have a contribution to make,which implies that they have not
beenfollowing the discussions closely. In generalit can be
perceived that the forum has beenused as a direct
asynchronouscommunication tool between twointerlocutors, where the
conversation can be
read by all the members of the group. Whenseen graphically,
there are not manydiscussion threads in which every user
getsactively involved.
Sometimes there is a very active teacherparticipation in the
discussion. We mustremember that the student should play theleading
part in the learning process (Garca &Perera, 2007) and that the
role of the tutorshould be to stimulate the group, organizingthe
activities, motivating the students,creating and sustaining a
pleasant discussionenvironment and facilitating the
teaching-learning process (Silva, 2004).
The quality of the messages published(according to Kays table)
is overallacceptable (49%) and only 6% of them areexcellent. Based
on Garca and Perera (2007)this is not rare, as encouraging the
studentsto share their ideas to build their knowledgethrough debate
entails a considerable degreeof difficulty.
We can also appreciate after having madethe analysis with the
graphs and the aid ofKays metric that, as noted by Gros and
Silva(2006) and Ornelas (2007), discussions with amore active
participation are not necessarilythe ones with a better quality. We
can observein this study after using Kays metric thatthreads with
an interesting participation didntshow any quality messages or
arguments. Inaddition to this, many of the first messages inthe
threads were interesting and focused onthe initial problem, while
the rest were socialcommentaries and anecdotes (without takinginto
account the threads which involvednarrating their personal
experience with ICTin learning).
In any case, there are some examples inwhich the students have
made the most ofthe forums possibilities. In topic 2 (ICT
andeducation in the information society), threads
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3988 and 3994 are good examples of what sociallearning should be
like, as it allows the studentto play the leading role and to
internalise theorientations and guidelines from the most
ablestudents when writing in a collaborative way(Garca &
Perera, 2007). In these cases, theinitial topic questions asked by
the teacherhave encouraged dialogue among studentsas well as social
learning. Later on, the teacherhas made a couple of interventions
to keepthe discussion active and to clarify someaspects so as to
lead the conversation backto its original purpose. This could be
read asthe teacher allowing the students to be incharge of the
conversation, always keepingtrack of its development but stepping
backand making contributions only whennecessary.
In order to make the best use of onlinediscussion forums in the
learning environment,it is advisable that the teachers and
tutorsshould previously define the characteristicsand the use they
will make of the forum(inquiries, discussion, bulletin board, etc.)
andplan in detail the topic that will be discussedin the forum, the
orientation the discussionshould be following and, most of all,
wherethe discussion should lead to (conclusionsand thread close
up). This way the teacherwill be able to guide and moderate
thediscussion and make the minimal interventionsnecessary in order
for the students to be theones who construct knowledge and be
thekey of the learning process.
On the other hand, it is recommended thatstudents should lose
fear to participate andcover the topics in depth. As we
havementioned before, according to Garca andPerera (2007) it is
very difficult to makestudents go from sharing their ideas
tobuilding knowledge, and therefore thestudents should be aware of
their
responsibility in the learning process andremember that the
better the quality of theirinterventions in the discussions, the
betterresults they will obtain.
We wouldnt want to bring this study to anend without remarking
that communication isessential in the teaching-learning
onlineprocesses. Beyond technology, it is humancommunication and
the changes in the socialinteraction patterns which are the key
(Roig,2009). Taking this consideration as a startingpoint,
discussion forums could then be validtools in order to establish
the necessarycommunications channels needed to achievea significant
learning.
5. Research funding sources.
The present study is framed within theResearch Project
EDUTIC-ADEI (Ref.:Vigrob-039), the Research Group onInnovation in
Education Technology (GITE)EDUTIC-ADEI-EDAFIS, and the
NetworksProgramme of Investigation and UniversityTeaching of the
ICE, all of them based in theUniversity of Alicante (UA); of the
Projecte-Accesible (LIA for Deployment andInternationalization of
the System, GeneralSub directorate for Public-Private
PartnershipStrategies, Subprogram INNPACTO, SpanishMinistry of
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the projectIVITRA (http://www.ivitra.ua.es) and theProject
DIGICOTRACAM (ProgramPrometeo of Research Groups of Excellent,Ref.:
Prometeo-2009-042, co-financed by theERDF of the EU and the Spanish
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Revelec2/revelec17/silva_16a.pdf
Reception date: 2011-04-24Assessment date: 2011-06-20Acceptance
date: 2011-06-29Publication date: 2012-01-01
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