R695 Building  Online Communities
	Tue. 9:00 to 12:00, ED 2275

Course Context

… community has become an obligatory appendage to every educational innovation. Yet aside from linguistic kinship, it is not clear what features, if any, are shared across terms. This confusion is most pronounced in the ubiquitous ‘virtual community,’ where, by paying a fee or typing a password, anyone who visits a web site automatically becomes a “member” of the community…Groups of people become community, or so it would seem, by the flourish of a  researcher’s pen. (Grossman, Wineburg, & Woolworth, 2000, p. 2, italics in original)

While many of us are concerned with the loss of communal spaces and ties that broaden one’s sense of self beyond the “me” or “I” and into the “we” and “us” (Putnam, 1995), less clear are the educational advantages of a community approach in terms of learning curricular content. We know even less about whether something resembling community can be designed, and how to measure whether it has emerged. This is glaringly apparent in terms of virtual communities where designers are employing usability strategies to develop innovative designs that are usable, but have not adequately taken into account issues of sociability—that is, how does the design make links to and support people’s social interactions, focusing on issues of trust, time, value, collaboration, and gatekeeping (Preece, 2000).  Regardless, there is a virtual explosion of efforts to create online learning environments to supplement or replace traditional modes and even institutions of learning—of which this book proposal is but one example.

Developing an online forum is not very difficult.  Almost any “off the shelf” LISTERV or web-based conferencing system can provide an adequate underlying technology.  However, attracting a group of people to the forum who will form a community is a considerable accomplishment. It is common for many people to visit and leave without posting messages, for many others to stay and only read public messages (lurking). Further, when on-line discussions are unmoderated, some debates can be transformed into hostile ‘flame wars” that all too easily spiral out of control.  Nonetheless, there are many examples of  sustained civil on-line groups. Some of them have important communal dimensions.

As more and more of these on-line communities are being designed we must ask in increasingly sophisticated form whether they are succeeding and what exactly they are accomplishing.  This course will examine what we do and do not know about the processes and practices of designing communities to support learning. Some of the central questions to be addressed through this course include: What constitutes community? How do these electronic environments relate to more familiar place-based pedagogical ones?  How well do the techniques and constructs that are used to understand the processes of learning and enculturation in traditional face-to-face  community settings suffice for these new settings? What is the educational value of a community approach to learning? How do we capture and what are the relations among individual, group, and community trajectories?

[Return to TOP]

Course Requirements

1) Literature Search (25 points): Students are required to do activity A and also B or C, sharing their findings with the other participants.

A. Exemplar Online Community Search

Before we start our own work, we first need to understand what else has been done in terms of building online communities. This includes both literature about as well as an examination of actual online community spaces. Toward this end, you are expected to search the Internet, ERIC, or other resources to find exemplars (and non-exemplars) of online spaces to support community. Specifically, you will be expected to find at least three online models and/or research projects that can serve as exemplars of online communities of practice. You (and if you chose to work with a partner) are expected to write up a handout that includes brief summaries of at least two of these projects and that highlights some of the lessons that might be informative to the design of our community prototypes. Secondly, a central goal of this search is to produce a useful description, explanation, or set of criteria on what constitutes community.  Come to the second class prepared to address the following questions: What is community? What are some examples of online communities? You should come to the second class with your work documented on a piece of paper. You will be expected to share your findings of both the exemplar projects and your community definitions with your classmates.

B. Content Specific Search

During the second week of class we will discuss possible design projects for the semester for you to chose. Based on your selection there will be particular content-specific information and research with which your team will need to be familiar. This assignment will require you and your team to thoroughly search the internet and relevant research so that you can identify the relevant context-specific issues and information. You are expected to come up with a list of salient issues and necessary information, which will be presented to your group.

C. Exemplar Participant Structures

Central to the design of the respective spaces is the assumption that learning occcurs through participation not acquisition. Toward this end, each online space will consist of multiple participant structures (virtual spaces), each of which has a particular focus related to the needs of the community members. We use the term "participant structures" to denote our commitment to making these active spaces where members can participate in the community development--not simply be passive recipients of information and ideas developed by others. Your  task is to search the Internet, CD-ROMs, and other media to find 3-5 exemplar participant structures that your design team should consider using.

2) Context Analysis (25 points): Students are required to do a context analysis of their target population. All students will participate in some aspect of a Context Analysis, the purpose of which is to develop an understanding of the potential participants, their needs, the information they possess, and the technology currently available to those who will be using the site.

3) Design of the ILF prototype (25-35 points): Each student, as part of a small work group will take an active role in the creation of the prototype online environment. An overview of possible environments is on the project page. The exact nature of this role and the requirements for receiving full credit for this assignment will be determined by midterm. Each group will also be expected to present on their completed work, including research goals and any collected data if it occurred.

4) Research Plan/Report (15-25 points): Each project will reach a different level of finality and will have different opportunities for data analysis. Based on the project you chose, the development schedule, and the potential user base, you will be expected to do some initial research on your project. All teams will be expected to develop a research plan, including literature review, research goals, data collection techniques, and analysis methods. Some groups will have the additional expectation of developing a conference proposal, and some groups may even complete an initial article on the work. The total points will be awarded based on how many of these outcomes your group is able to complete. Grading will be based on the soundness of the research plan/outcome (including issues of credibility and trustworthiness), the quality of the writing, and its connection to the theoretical framework of communities of practice (CoPs).

[Return to TOP]

Texts:

Jones, J. (1998). Doing internet research : Critical issues and methods for examining the net. Newbury Park, CA: Sage University Press.
 

Recommended:
    Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. New York: Cambridge University Press.
    Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

Articles:
    Barab, S. A., & Duffy, T. (2000). From practice fields to communities of practice. In D. Jonassen, & S. M. Land. (Eds.). Theoretical foundations of learning environments (pp. 25-56). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
    Brown, A. L. (1992). Design experiments: Theoretical and methodological challenges in creating complex interventions in classroom settings. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 2(2), 141-178.
    Guba, E. G., & Lincoln, Y. S. (1983). Competing paradigms in qualitative research. In G. F. Madaus, M. S. Scriven., and D. L. Stufflebeam (Eds.) Evaluation models: Viewpoints on educational and human services evaluation (pp. 195-220). Boston, MA: Kluwer-Nijhoff Publishing.
    Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (1994). Computer support for knowledge-building communities. The Journal of The Learning Sciences, 3, 265-283.

[Return to TOP]

Weekly Topic Outline

Week	Date	Notes	Readings	Assignments	Topics
1	Jan. 9		Review Syllabus  Read Tree Story	Complete Assignment A of Project 1	What is community?  What are some examples of online communities?
2	16	click here	Barab & Duffy,  2000	Bring completed work to class.	What is community?  What are some examples of online communities? Project Descriptions
3	23	click here	Context Analysis link, Appelman & Boling Smith & Kollock, Chap 1, 7		Context Analysis (Appelman) Online Community (Barab)
4	30	click here	Smith & Kollock, Chap 2, 4 Turkle, TBA N. Kim		Identity Online (Squire) Design Issues
5	Feb 6	click here	Smith & Kollock, Chap 3, 5, 12		Equity Issues (Scheckler) Work Time
6	13	click here			Work Time
7	20	click here	Wenger: Pages 1-18 & Intro	Context Analysis	Work Time
8	27	click here	Wenger: Pages 1-18; Intro; Chapters 1,2	Inital Design Documents	Eval Talk (Squire) Work Time
9	March 6	click here	Wenger Ch 5, (214-240)		Other Methodological Approaches (Barab)
10	13		Spring Break	Rapid Visual Prototype Due
11	20	click here	Lampert Chap. Wenger (214-240)		Network Analysis (Barab) Thick Description (Barab)
12	27		Jones Chap. 4		Discourse Analysis (Scheckler)
13	April 3	click here	Jones, 3,9,10,12	Design Complete	Barab & Schatz, pres Squire pres Group Reports Chapter Pres
14	10	Activity Theory ILF Paper Wenger ILF paper	AERA	Other Reseach Work	Work Presentations
15	17	Constant-Comparison Method paper click here		Symposium Presentations  Research Proposal	Work Presentations
16	24	STREAMS.ppt QUEST_A.ppt VLC_ILF.ppt		Symposium Presentations

[Return to TOP]

Expectations

1. Everyone will do the readings consistently.
2. Everyone will contribute to in-class discussions by reading at least one article each week.
3. Seminar format means we are all teachers as well as students- collaboration in encouraged on any and all work, except the one solo presentation and the reviews.
4. You will use the research discussion time alloted in class productively.
5. You will have fun exploring these ideas!