How to foster forum discussions within MOOCs: A case study

Elke Lackner; Mohammad Khalil; Martin Ebner

doi:10.17985/ijare.31432

How to foster forum discussions within MOOCs: A case study

Elke Lackner, Mohammad Khalil, Martin Ebner

Educational Technology (94090)

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Discussion forums are an essential part to foster interaction among teachers and students, as well as students and students, in virtual learning settings. If interaction can be enhanced, this has a positive influence on motivation and finally also on dropout rates. These days, a special form of online courses, so called MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), are popping up massively. Those courses are characterized by a high number of students. In this paper, we would like to examine discussion forums and their role concerning interaction. Therefore, Gilly Salmon’s well‐known Five stage model is taken and adapted to MOOCs based on a case study. As a method, we tracked learners’ data through learning analytics applications and concluded that
there is a positive correlation between reading from one side and writing in forums from the other side.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	1-13
Number of pages	13
Journal	International Journal of Academic Research in Education and Review
Volume	2
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.17985/ijare.31432
Publication status	Published - 7 Nov 2016

Fields of Expertise

Information, Communication & Computing

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.17985/ijare.31432Licence: CC BY 4.0

5000184487-5000424814-1-PB(1)Final published version, 835 KBLicence: CC BY 4.0

Cite this

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abstract = "Discussion forums are an essential part to foster interaction among teachers and students, as well as students and students, in virtual learning settings. If interaction can be enhanced, this has a positive influence on motivation and finally also on dropout rates. These days, a special form of online courses, so called MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), are popping up massively. Those courses are characterized by a high number of students. In this paper, we would like to examine discussion forums and their role concerning interaction. Therefore, Gilly Salmon{\textquoteright}s well‐known Five stage model is taken and adapted to MOOCs based on a case study. As a method, we tracked learners{\textquoteright} data through learning analytics applications and concluded thatthere is a positive correlation between reading from one side and writing in forums from the other side. ",

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How to foster forum discussions within MOOCs: A case study

Abstract

Fields of Expertise

UN SDGs

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