Embedding librarians in online tertiary classrooms: A new model for learner support

Embedded librarians working in online classrooms present a new avenue of learner support direct to students in the space where they learn. The development of embedded librarian practice has evolved since 2004 and is becoming commonplace in online tertiary classrooms, but what is not yet so common is theory underlying this new practice. A multiple case study of embedded librarians in online tertiary classrooms in New Zealand was conducted to identify what makes this practice effective in providing support. Six factors were identified as contributing to effectiveness: relationality, immediacy, relevancy, interactivity, parity and faculty–librarian collaboration. The Embedded Librarian Support model was derived from, and is presented as the culmination of, the findings of this research.     

Improving online social presence through asynchronous video

Online learning has become a reality for many students in higher education. Unfortunately, something that has also become a reality is a sense of isolation in online courses, and Moore (1980) has warned that students' sense of distance can threaten their ability to learn. The community of inquiry framework (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2000) has provided insight into ways that online interactions can improve students' and instructors' social presence and learning. Emerging video technologies may be able to improve these interactions and thus more easily support the development of communities of inquiry. In this study we interviewed students in three distinct courses using different video-based instructional strategies. A large majority of students indicated feeling that the video-based communication made their instructors seem more real, present, and familiar, and that these relationships were similar to face-to-face instruction. Video communication impacted students' social presence in similar ways, although to a lesser degree than they believed it impacted instructor social presence. We conclude with discussion for future research and practice.     

Building modern online social presence: A review of social presence theory and its instructional design implications for future trends

Nowadays, online learning has become a popular option for students because of its flexibility and more online programs are customized to students’ needs. Among all the factors that affect students’ online learning experience, social presence is worth much study considering the asynchronous nature of online learning and communication issues between online instructors and students. This paper reviews the origin, major definitions of social presence and research studies throughout history. Authors also document arguments of the optimal amount of social presence and provide instructional design suggestions for the development of online social presence. Further trends for social presence studies are also proposed at the end of the article.     

The relationship between social presence and online privacy

Online privacy may critically impact social presence in an online learning environment. This study examined how online privacy affects social presence in online learning environments and whether e-mail, bulletin board, and real-time discussion affect online privacy. Mixed methods were used to examine the relationship between social presence and privacy. The participants rated computer-mediated communication (CMC) with a high degree of social presence, but the quantitative correlation between social presence and privacy failed to reach significance. Participants shared personal information on CMC knowing that it was risky because the medium lacked security despite the perceived high levels of social presence. This contradictional phenomenon can be explained as “risk-taking” behavior. Among three CMC systems, e-mail was ranked as the most private and followed by one-to-one real-time discussion, then many-to-many real-time discussion. Bulletin board was considered to afford the least privacy.     

Facilitating active social presence and meaningful interactions in online learning

Online learning has minimized many barriers and constraints that are common in traditional learning environments. However, due to the absence of face-to-face contacts, students and instructors are usually faced with the lack of active social presence and meaningful interactions in online learning. This article explores a review of the literature on social presence and various types of interactions in online learning environments in the context of a class project. The findings suggest need for online instructors to explore effective ways to design and facilitate active social presence and meaningful interactions in online learning.     

Using Facebook groups to support social presence in online learning

Building interpersonal connections in asynchronous online learning is important, but it is harder to achieve compared to face-to-face learning experiences due to its mostly text-based nature. Facebook is a popular social media platform and has been used as an outside-class communication space in formal learning contexts to supplement cognitive and affective aspects of learning. In this study, we used Facebook groups as supplemental social spaces in two asynchronous online master’s-level courses to understand if it impacted students’ perceptions of social presence (i.e., copresence, immediacy, and intimacy), learning interaction with faculty and peers, as well as sociability of the online learning environment. The results indicated that students felt more positively about social presence and learning interactions with other classmates and their instructor and perceived the course as having more sociability after they joined the class Facebook group. Findings have implications for supporting social impression formation in online learning.     

Role of social presence and cognitive absorption in online learning environments

This article investigates the relationships between social presence, cognitive absorption, interest, and student satisfaction in online learning. A hypothesized structural equation model was developed to study these critical variables that may influence interaction in online learning environments. Contrary to expectations, the study determined that social presence does not impact satisfaction directly. However, the study concludes that while social presence is related to student satisfaction, its impact is not direct but rather mediated by cognitive absorption. In addition, the study clarified the impact of students’ interest on social presence, cognitive absorption, and satisfaction. The results of this study indicate that interest affects social presence and satisfaction directly. Additionally, interest appears to influence satisfaction indirectly through social presence and cognitive absorption. Contrary to expectations, this study did not reveal any significant relationship between interest and cognitive absorption.     

一种可控传播与演化的小型在线社交网络模型

分析了在线社交网络中信息传播引发的安全问题,提出一种基于SSH架构的小型在线社交网络模型,探讨了模型的架构及搭建,借助校验器、拦截器、角色访问控制等多项安全策略,保障信息流转的准确性,拦截各种形式的非法访问及各种形式的恶意信息传播.实例验证了模型的有效性,为在线社交网络信息的良性流转和可控提供了有效参考.     

A theoretical framework and model towards media-rich social presence design practices

Educators are seeing rapid developments in online instruction with regard to not only available technologies, but also in design and teaching practices. Developing and maintaining social presence in an online environment is paramount to the success of a learning environment. This article touches upon some historical perspectives of social presence and proposes a theoretical framework and design guide towards media-rich social presence practices for future research. The design guide in this article adds to the historically text-based social presence applications by posing media-rich, higher-level thinking questions based upon a grounded theoretical framework.     

The use of social robots in classrooms: A review of field-based studies

Social robots are being adopted in PreK-12 schools around the world and have the potential to initiate far-reaching changes in education. Analysis from high-quality field studies is essential for educational researchers, administrators, and practitioners to make informed decisions about using these robots. We identified 23 studies between 2000 and 2020 that examined social robots in classroom settings. The 23 studies illustrated the feasibility of using social robots in natural school settings but revealed how difficult it was to obtain long-term, highly autonomous interaction between robots and children.The studies varied considerably on key conditions (e.g., length of deployment, the autonomy of robotic action, and length of interaction time). The studies did not demonstrate that social robots are more effective than human teachers (or even other forms of technology), and only occasionally explored important ethical and safety issues.     

Reciprocal teaching of social studies in inclusive elementary classrooms

Reading comprehension relies on the use of metacognitive strategies. Reciprocal teaching has been found to be an effective comprehension technique to use with students with learning disabilities. This study examined the effectiveness of reciprocal teaching during social studies instruction with several students with learning disabilities in fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade inclusive classrooms. One hundred and twenty-eight students in Grades 4, 5, and 6 participated. Four comprehension assessments were administered, as well as an external measure and 30-day maintenance assessment. A mixed-design MANOVA was used to determine interaction on three reading comprehension measures. Results indicated that all students improved their performance on comprehension measures compared with students in the control groups. Improvement continued to be displayed after 30 days in both the sixth and the fourth grades. Students with learning disabilities significantly improved their ability to compose summaries compared to the control students.     

Predictors of course outcomes: early indicators of delay in online classrooms

Studies have long shown that students who begin or submit their work later tend to have negative academic outcomes. The measures of procrastination used in those studies may not have provided information timely enough for instructor intervention. This article focuses on delay in the online environment among graduate students. We propose two new measures of delay that can be disclosed in a timely manner, enabling instructors to help students who are prone to late submissions to succeed. Date of class registration and date of initial class posting are negatively associated with final letter grades. Date of first class posting can serve to alert instructors to those with potential delay problems. The results for date of class registration are less clear.     

Assessment discourse and constructions of social reality in infant classrooms

The 1968 structural reform of the education system in Israel was part both of a global process of democratization of education launched after the Second World War and of a larger modernization project in which the social sciences played a crucial role. This dynamic was an expression of a conjunction of interests, in which political forces used research on educational matters in order to advance their socio‐political agendas, while researchers used the state's interest in their work and in the ‘social problems’ they elaborated in order to receive public funding and to obtain state recognition of their scientific contribution. This article traces the reformist discourse structuration—the process of institutionalization of the different social science discourses in state institutions, such as universities and national institutes—in order to disclose the social sciences/politics linkage in Israel. It also puts forward the argument that in order to understand discourse structuration at a national level, it is essential to consider an additional factor: global education networks. Global networks adopted a discourse inspired by the American school model that tended to be adopted by scholars in different countries. The article focuses on the processes in Israel whereby knowledge producers elaborated the ‘inequality of opportunity’ and ‘ethnic gap’ social problems, and proffered the 1968 structural reform as the solution.     

Participation,interaction and social presence: An exploratory study of collaboration in online peer review groups

A key reason for using asynchronous computer conferencing in instruction is its potential for supporting collaborative learning. However, few studies have examined collaboration in computer conferencing. This study examined collaboration in six peer review groups within an asynchronous computer conferencing. Eighteen tertiary students participated in the study. Content analyses of discussion protocols were performed in terms of participation, interaction, and social presence. The results indicate that collaboration does not occur automatically in asynchronous computer conference. Collaboration requires participation because no collaboration occurred in the two groups with low student participation; however, participation does not lead to collaboration, evidenced by student postings receiving no peer responses. Collaboration requires interaction but does not end with interaction, substantiated by different levels of collaboration across different interactional patterns. Social presence helps to realise collaboration through establishing a warm and collegial learning community to encourage participate and interaction, exemplified by the contrast of the group with the highest level of social presence and the group with the lowest level of social presence. A model of understanding and assessing collaboration in online learning is recommended, consisting of participation, interaction and social presence.     

Teachers' embodied presence in online teaching practices

This study aims to examine teachers' embodiments online. The analysis is based on online ethnographic data from two online courses in higher education settings using different information and communication technologies. The perspective of practice theory and the concepts of being a body, having a body and the instrumental body were used to analyse how teachers step into an embodied presence. The embodied presence depends on both teacher judgements and what the technology offers. The finding adds to the understanding of the concept of teacher presence online, in showing that teacher embodiment occurs online and furthermore that the body could be understood as multiple. The result also shows how online and offline bodies hang together, actualising the offline body in the online setting, which in turn raises questions on the dualism of online and offline. Teachers also deliberately used their embodiments and bodily traces online in order to sustain presence and to bring about certain teaching practices. Their bodily positioning signalled what kind of teaching that would take place. A deliberate positioning of the online body in a virtual world also helped to reduce the complexity of the arrangements for the students.     

Predicting continued use of online teacher professional development and the influence of social presence and sociability

This study examined how a well‐established Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) could predict teachers' intentions to continue using e‐learning for professional development based on perceived ease of use and usefulness. Although studies have shown social interactions are important to teachers, no study has analyzed the mediating influence of social presence and sociability within e‐learning professional development. Therefore, the original TAM was expanded to encompass user perceptions of social presence and sociability. Structural equation modeling was used to measure the mediating affects on their intention to continue using e‐learning for their professional development. The results indicate that the expanded hypothesized model was a good predictor of continuance intention. Perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and social presence were found to be significant determinants of teachers' intent to continue using e‐learning to meet their future professional development needs. The results have implications for educational leaders, designers and facilitators who want to promote teacher online professional development and embed e‐learning conditions that will be readily embraced by classroom teachers.     

Theoretical foundations for enhancing social connectedness in online learning environments

Group social structure provides a comfortable and predictable context for interaction in learning environments. Students in face‐to‐face learning environments process social information about others in order to assess traits, predict behaviors, and determine qualifications for assuming particular responsibilities within a group. In online learning environments, however, negotiating social information and maintaining social connectedness can pose challenges for participants. Nonverbal strategies one typically uses for enhancing communication and overcoming ambiguity – such as an approving smile or a questioning brow – must be approached differently while learning online where fewer sensory communication channels are typically available. We present the theoretical foundation for how social information processing and group structure theories may be combined to assist instructional designers in further examining the social system perceived by the online learner. We propose a framework for thinking more systematically about the development of group social structure in online learning environments.     

A performance‐based development model for online faculty

Faculty development in distance education does not happen in a vacuum. It is often interwoven with efforts to increase adoption of distance education programs and increase the effectiveness of online teaching. Training might not be the only way to meet these needs. This article presents a new faculty‐development model, based on a systematic performance analysis schema. Several alternatives to traditional training are proposed, including performance support, knowledge sharing, communities of practice, and formative evaluation.     

A theoretical framework for building online communities of practice with social networking tools

This paper proposes a theoretical framework as a foundation for building online communities of practice when a suite of social networking applications referred to as collective intelligence tools are utilized to develop a product or solutions to a problem. Drawing on recent developments in Web 2.0 tools, research on communities of practice and relevant theories of learning, and the authors' own action research experience in collaborative knowledge creation utilizing Web 2.0 tools, this paper discusses a learning community's spiraling process as it moves from a given sociocultural context through discourse, action, reflection, and reorganization toward socially mediated metacognition.

Un cadre théorique pour construire des communautés de pratique en ligne en utilisant des outils de maillage social

Cet article propose un cadre théorique sur lequel édifier des communautés de pratique en ligne lorsqu'on utilise, pour mettre au point un produit ou des solutions à un problème, une série d'applications destinées à la construction de réseaux humains et connues sous le nom d'outils d'intelligence collective. En s'appuyant sur les évolutions récentes des outils Web 2.0, sur les recherches sur les communautés d'usage et les théories de l'apprentissage pertinentes ainsi que sur l'expérience propre aux auteurs en matière de recherche action sur la création collaborative de savoir en utilisant le Web 2.0, le présent article examine le processus en spirale d'une communauté d'apprentissage qui part d'un contexte socio culturel donné et qui passe par le discours, l'action la réflexion et la réorganisation pour atteindre la métacognition reposant sur la médiation humaine.

Ein Theorierahmen für den Aufbau von “Online‐Communitives of Practice” mit Hilfe von Anwendungen für Social Networking

In diesem Beitrag wird ein theoretischer Rahmen als Grundlage für den Aufbau von Online‐Praxis‐Gemeinschaften vorgestellt, wenn eine Reihe von Social Networking Anwendungen, auf die man sich als kollektive Intelligenz‐Tools beziehen kann, benutzt wird, um ein Ergebnis oder eine Problemlösung zu entwickeln. Wenn man den neuesten Entwicklungsstand bei den Web 2.0 tools mit einbezieht, die Forschung im Kommunikationsbereich, die relevanten Lerntheorien und die eigenen Forschungen und praktischen Erfahrungen des Autors in der Benutzung von Web 2.0‐Anwendungen auf dem Gebiet der gemeinschaftlichen Wissensermittlung, belegt dieses Papier den spiralförmigen Prozess beim Bewegen von einem bestimmten soziokulturellem Kontext aus durch Diskurs, Aktion, Reflektion und Reorganisation hin zu sozial vermittelter Metaerkenntnis.

Un marco teórico para la construcción de comunidades de práctica en línea con herramientas de creación de redes sociales

Este artículo propone un marco teórico como base para la construcción de comunidades de práctica cuando se utiliza una serie de aplicaciones sociales en redes (conocidas como herramientas de inteligencia colectiva) para desarrollar un producto o solucionar tal o tal problema. Basandose en las evoluciones recientes de las herramientas Web 2.0, en las investigaciones sobre las Comunidades de Uso y las teorías del aprendizaje más pertinentes así como en la experiencia propia de la investigación/acción por parte de los autores sobre la creación colaborativa de conocimiento a través del uso de herramientas Web 2.0, este artículo examina la evolución « en espiral » de una comunidad de aprendizaje que sale de un contexto socio cultural determinado y pasando por el discurso, acción, reflexión, alcanza la metacognición basada en la mediación humana.     

Student outcomes and perceptions of instructors' demands and support in online and traditional classrooms

In this study, seven graduate students were interviewed and 187 (91 online; 96 traditional) graduate students were surveyed about perceptions of differences in instructors' demands and support and student' motivation, self-regulation, satisfaction, and perceptions of learning in these environments. Results indicated significant differences in students' perceptions on all variables except self-efficacy. Results indicated a strong effect for differences between perceived instructor affective support in online and traditional classrooms. Although students in traditional classrooms ranked instructors' affective support higher, the variable had a stronger relationship with online students' satisfaction. Differences between online and traditional students' reports of instructors' academic support, instructors' demands, and students' satisfaction were significant with medium effect sizes. Results are important because they provide information about students' perceptions of the differences in environments created by instructors that relate to students' affective outcomes.