A Sample Researcher Blog

The ubiquitous online learning environment: Is it the complete answer?

Discussion boards in online learning environments

There are currently over 50 OLE environments commercially and non-commercially available (Edutools 2004) and countless "in house" developments in place. However, Paulsen (2002) points out that of these, over 95% of Australian Universities surveyed in 2002 were using either one of two major OLEs. While it is reasonable to argue that there are significant differences between these solutions (EduTools 2004), and indeed between versions and products offered by these companies, it is equally possible to point to similarities, especially in terms of communication tools. Both these major OLEs use a discussion board format as their primary communication tool and these tools are in functionality (if not in appearance) very similar. Both essentially allow users to post messages to a shared area or reply to existing messages in order to form a thread. Both are limited to their current environment and do not provide email, messaging or syndicated updates to users, and both are proprietary to the companies which use them. In addition to this facility both provide a synchronous communication tool, functionality to allow teachers to post announcements to students and an internal messaging component similar to email but significantly often unable to be forwarded to users email accounts.

However, in considering the use of these tools, while a synchronous environment is important for the provision of fixed time and online place communication such as online seminars or office hours it is of limited use when many of the students are enrolled in the course primarily because of its flexible and asynchronous nature. Also, while messaging or mailing systems are of use, and they serve to do little more than email or mailing list functionality, and especially when they have no connection to individual students email accounts (hence offering no "push" facility (Mack 1998)), they add little to the overall communication dynamics of the OLE. As a result, the primary tool of use within these environments is the discussion board and it is this which requires examination in order to understand the degree to which the OLEs used by most Australian universities are able to successfully facilitate the development of communities of inquiry.

Limitations of discussion boards in facilitating communities of inquiry

Discussion boards can vary immensely in the kind of communication they can successfully facilitate. Yahoo! Groups (2004), for example, utilises discussion boards that function primarily as email groups. Many support sites and community areas use discussion boards for particular issues or questions, notifying users of responses to their queries through email or syndication, and the threaded message discussion board format is often used (with or without email or syndication) in comments functions on weblogs (e.g. Farmer, Levine), in online publications (Guarak et al. 2004) and some online popular media (e.g. Slashdot). However, as previously discussed, major OLEs use very similar discussion board tools containing particular key features and it is these features which facilitate and sometimes require a particular kind of behaviour from teachers and students alike, encouraging certain types of communication and discouraging others. Once the user has entered the discussion board environment, these communication features essentially allow users to read previous messages (by either clicking on a title or expanding a number of messages from just their title), post a new message to a discussion board and post a reply to a previous message (in this case forming or contributing to a thread).

In terms of social presence this kind of discussion board could be seen to offer little opportunity for users to "project themselves socially and emotionally, as 'real' people" (Garrison & Anderson 2003) as the opportunity for projection is limited and when and if it is achieved, the ability of the projector to project and appear as a "real" person is also severely limited. For example, in a face to face context individuals are able to project themselves in many ways, primarily through verbal and physical contributions to the people present in the area. However, in a discussion board, as well as being limited to the ability to express themselves through text, users are unable to express themselves to people in the area because there may not be any people there. A contribution can be viewed and read by one person, the whole group or nobody and because how a writer understands the intended audience of their work dramatically impacts on their entire approach to the task of writing (Abdullah 2003), this uncertainty impacts considerably on the ability of the individual to project themselves. Further to this, it is worthwhile to note the increasing use of detailed signatures on discussion board postings around the Web as this is arguably due to the need, as seen by users, to project and convey themselves as real people (the signature may contain a picture, a link to a personal website, a quote or any other identifying characteristic) and in this sense demonstrates the inadequacies of the traditional discussion board model in the same ways that the emergence of emoticons has demonstrated the inadequacies of text based email.

In establishing cognitive presence, issues associated with the lack of any definable audience do not only affect the nature of the way in which an individual writes, but also the discourse possible and in this the ability of a writer to reflect on their thoughts and "construct and confirm" meaning. In a face to face context a statement or question, particularly as part of a discussion or structured class environment, generally elicits a response from someone within that area. The utterance can be directed towards an individual or a group and a following utterance can be expected. This forms the basis of any discourse in which meaning can be constructed. However, in a discussion board it is not possible to know who, if anyone, will be reading an utterance, when this will occur or, unless the user is permanently logged in to the discussion board and regularly hitting the refresh key, the moment at which this occurs. This is not dissimilar to entering a room that may or may not be frequented by the people you wish to communicate with (who will, in either case, be invisible to the user), leaving a message on the table and then returning each day to see if someone has responded to the communication. Likewise, any person responding to the message would have to visit the room each day to see if the writer or anyone else has replied to it. The room may be one of many rooms (there are frequently numerous discussion boards used in a single course) and there may be little or no reason other than to check for messages or responses that a person may have to visit it. After several days of this kind of discussion it is likely in many cases that a user will visit the room less, if at all.

In developing teaching presence in a discussion board environment the teacher has no more capacity than the learner in terms of sustaining discourse or of projecting him or herself as a "real" person. While it is likely and helpful to the teacher that they will be better known to all the learners and have official contact details, in the discussion board environment the teacher is rendered unable through the technology to exert any more influence than a student and hence faces considerable challenges in designing, facilitating or directing "cognitive and social processes". As an experienced teacher and writer in the area of online teaching and learning mentioned to the author when discussing the use of discussion boards from a teacher's perspective, "they just bypass me and ignore me, it's like I'm not even there!" (Farmer 2004). If considered in a face to face context this is not dissimilar to enforcing the teacher to not stand, not position themselves any differently to the learners and not to use a whiteboard or any form of presentation, and while this might be seen to be advantageous by some, its impact on facilitating the development of effective teacher presence is significant.

It is important to note, however, that discussion boards have frequently been used successfully as communication tools in online learning environments (Rovai 2002, Bradshaw & Hinton 2004, Berner 2003) and hence it is inaccurate to argue that effective educational outcomes, in the form of communities of inquiry, cannot be achieved using these tools. However, while other online tools are available which facilitate different forms of communication, and while these are entirely unavailable in these dominant OLEs, it is important to examine how these could be used in similar contexts, especially, if as with weblogs, these technologies can appear to offer much in facilitating, through online communication, the effective development of a community of inquiry.