Building and Sustaining Community Online: Research and WebCT Strategies

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Building and Sustaining Community Online
Research and WebCT Strategies

• Sherry Clouser
• The University of Georgia

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The Road to Chicago
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Todays Session

• Online community literature review
• Research study details
• WebCT strategies for building and sustaining
  community online

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Literature Review

• Online learning opportunities continue to grow
• Sense of Community (Student Perspective)
• Workload and Technology Concerns (Faculty
  Perspective)

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The Gap

• How do faculty members build and sustain
  community in their online courses?

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Study Participants

• Nine faculty members from higher education
  institutions in the eastern U.S.
• All taught online for more than one complete term
  
• All were attempting to build and sustain
  community with and among students

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Study Techniques

• Critical Incident interviews
• Document collection
• Constant comparative analysis

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Results

• Challenges related to community
• Communication delays
• Mediating conflict
• Lack of interest in community

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Results

• Strategies
• Avoid problems through good course design
• Facilitate discussions
• Communicate one-on-one with students
• Allow students to work through problems on their
  own

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Course Design

• Hold an orientation F2F or online
• Make sure expectations are clear
• Include netiquette guidelines
• Design a predictable, user-friendly course
  interface
• Make adjustments with caution

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Facilitate Course Discussions

• Provide starting points for discussions
• Monitor progress of conversations
• Help students stay on topic
• Mediate conflict if needed

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Thank You!

• Contact me for more information
• Sherry Clouser
• sac_at_uga.edu