The Technology Source Archives - Web Discussion Forums in

Teaching and Learning

Ideas, questions, and individual discoveries are not restricted to the three-hour-per-
week contact time of the standard classroom. However, students' discussion
opportunities and contact with instructors are restricted to scheduled class meeting
times and instructors' office hours. Recent interactive implementations of the World
Wide Web offer opportunities for sharing ideas, posing questions, and presenting
individual discoveries at a time of convenience, and better, at the time of thought.
This paper describes the use of WorldWide Web-based discussion forums to
provide an avenue for sharing information beyond time and place constraints of the
physical classroom.

Steven Gilbert (1995) of the American Association for Higher Education states that
one purpose of educational institutions is to make better connections among people
who want to learn, people who want to teach, and the world of information and
ideas. Electronic discussion forums provide a time-of-convenience and place-of-
convenience opportunity for student-student contact and student-instructor contact.
Discussion forums on the World Wide Web (WWW) are a common space for
sharing opinions, solutions, literary citations, and pointers to sites on the Web--
arguably the most publicized segment of the "world of information and ideas."

WWW Discussion Forums

Typical use of the WWW is by passive consumers, searching through information

others have made available, bookmarking useful or entertaining sites, and creating
individual libraries of information. Web-based discussion forums, on the other
hand, are built by participation. Beginning as an empty page, the forums develop as
people submit questions, provide answers/solutions, present opinions, share
pointers to other resources, and post whole documents for others to download.
Groups of people work together to create shared libraries of information.

A shared space on the Web, the discussion forums provide a common "meeting"
place for participants to contribute information. Content is presented as a collection
of threaded messages with Web interfaces for perusal of existing threads and
submission of new posts. The threaded presentation puts messages on the same
topic together and indicates response messages with indentation, allowing readers
to follow discussions topic by topic.

To include information other than simple text in messages, universal resource

locators (URLs) embedded in the text automatically become active hypertext links,
enabling participants to easily share their pertinent bookmarks. Similarly, an e-mail
address provided in a submission becomes an active hypertext link for quick e-mail
response. Because not all dialogue occurs via the forum, incorporating the e-mail
link provides a direct option for one-to-one dialogue that may not be appropriate
for the forum. The discussion forum software also allows participants to upload
whole documents as attachments to messages. These documents remain in the same
format as when uploaded and are made available to others to download via a link,
a convenient mechanism for sharing documents.

Since Web pages do not necessarily "deliver" information directly to people, but
instead must be "visited," how do forum participants know when new items have
been added? The discussion forum software has a notification module that delivers,
via e-mail, daily notices of new posts on the individual forums. The notices are brief
messages indicating new posts by subject and author and giving the URL of the
forum, which reminds those receiving the notice how to get to the forum and
provides an active link to those who read e-mail using a Netscape browser.
Instructors, as the "owners" of their forums, have an option in the creation and
maintenance menu to specify e-mail addresses of people to be notified. We
encourage instructors to use their class listserv as the notification list.

By putting discussion forum administration in the hands of the forum owners, we

gave instructors the flexibility to use forums whenever and however they wished.
Instructors can create and maintain their forums at their convenience via a Web
interface. Forums can be restricted or open. At the time of creation, forum software
automatically generates a single class ID to be used when access to the forum is
restricted. (We opted for a single class ID approach instead of having individual IDs
for each participant, to avoid introducing an ID/password maintenance problem to
the instructors.) Using an option on the maintenance menu, the instructor can
change the password to restrict or unrestrict access to the forum at any time.
Though all class members access the forum via a single ID, the submission form
allows authors to identify themselves or post messages anonymously.

Pedagogical Implications

Four examples below are suggestions of how discussion forums fit with learning
theory and teaching methods.

1. Constructivism suggests that learning is the process of adjusting our own

understanding of the world around us through reflection on our experiences.
 Among the constructivist approaches are extensive student-student dialogue,
and making visible the student process of analyzing, interpreting, predicting,
and synthesizing. (On Purpose Associates, 1996a). Web discussion forums
provide an additional avenue as an adjunct to classroom discussions. Students
can interpret and analyze others' writings, reflect on their knowledge and
readings, present their points of view, and provide pointers to information that
support their ideas. The Web's public forum promotes the practice of the
scholarly argument: well articulated, factual-based writing with appropriate
references.
2. A central component of Piaget's developmental theory of learning is
participation of the learner: students need to explore, question, and seek out
answers for themselves. Discussion forums enable students to become active
participants in discussing topics presented in class and in bringing to the group
additional information sources. Asynchronous participation allows students
time to reflect and carefully construct their points-of-view. Additionally, via
anonymous submissions, students can openly question the content delivered in
textbooks and class lectures instead of holding back their thoughts. Perhaps
most important is the students' ability through the WWW to ask questions,
share ideas, and present opinion at the time of study, instead of having to wait
hours or days until the next scheduled class meeting time or next available
office hour.
3. In the communities of practice approach, the ability to contribute to a
community creates the potential for learning (On Purpose Associates, 1996b).
Evaluations of discussion forums by students and instructors often mention the
feeling of comradeship and community, the satisfaction of contributing
information to the group, and the sense of team sharing as positive features.
4. Higher-order learning skills expected of graduates of higher education include
effective communication, ability to interact effectively, and critical thinking.
Since writing is the primary means of communications in discussion forums,
students must practice formulating points-of-view and presenting facts and
opinion clearly. Participants interact by interpreting, evaluating, and critiquing
peers' comments and by sharing information; the practice of group knowledge
building. In addition, a forum can be designed to promote critical thinking by
presenting effective strategies as major topics for comment.

Discussion Forums Applied

Guest experts. Using a discussion forum for her "Health Care Informatics" class,
Professor Sheila Englebardt of UNC-CH's School of Nursing offered her Informatics
students access to experts in the major topics to be covered. These guests
participated remotely from a variety of places around the world; from Indian Rocks
Beach, Florida to Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia. Presiding over the
discussion for a topic's time frame, each guest introduced the topic, posed questions
to the class, responded to comments and questions, and provided pointers to
additional background reading. Through WWW discussion forums, students in this
class had the opportunity to discuss topics with 13 guest experts, providing students
and instructor an enhanced learning experience.

Inclusion of literary citations. Citations in hypertext or plain text established a factual

overtone in the Informatics forum, resulting in an expanding knowledge and
reference base for participants. The power of team research and information sharing
"ramped-up" the group on the current literature and theory.

World wide sharing. Shortly into the semester, a health care Informatics class at
Washington State University joined the forum. Without modification to the existing
forum and with no noticeable degradation in service, this second class participated
from 3000 miles away--with access to the same experts, with ability to reference and
contribute to the shared knowledge bases, and with an interface already familiar
and available to them--their Web browser of choice.

Teamwork. In Spring 1996, UNC-CH's School of Information and Library Science

offered an independent study focusing on design and development of an
information retrieval system prototype. The course objectives were to provide a
team-based software development experience; to encourage research in information
retrieval methods; and to promote application of theory into working systems. As
an independent study, the course lacked scheduled meeting times. The students
chose a discussion forum to fill that void.

Two immediate problems to be addressed were (a) the great disparity of

programming experience among the students--the prototype was to be written
using Perl, unfamiliar to all but one or two; and (b) system design decisions--how
could they decide how the system should be built and how could they come to a
consensus on the approach to take?

Concerning use of Perl, even though 5.0 manuals were not yet available in print,
students readily adopted the discussion forum as a common space for sharing
useful Perl 5.0 resources found on the Web, essentially creating their own Perl
reference manual, to be referred to throughout the semester.

Concerning system design, students again turned to the WWW discussion forum.
They were able to post their ideas accompanied by flow diagrams, thereby
presenting an illustrated argument. In addition, students included citations and
URLs of other approaches to designing such systems, analysis of those models, and
speculation of how those approaches could benefit or limit the system they were
designing.

Issues of use support. All instructors, whether actively using discussion forums or
considering use, need support. The "innovators" and "early adopters" (Rogers, 1995)
seek information regarding the extended potential of the technology: Is it extensible
to include more advanced features? Is it customizable? These instructors tend to
generate new ideas for applying the technology and for enhancing the learning
experience for their students. It is essential to work closely with these instructors to
help them explore new applications and, perhaps more important, to learn from
them.

It is just as important to support the "early majority" and "late majority" who have
seen others implement technology in instruction and are ready to attempt
incorporation of the technology in their teaching. There is, perhaps, nothing more
frustrating to faculty than to watch a technologist give a flashy demonstration of
how technology can enhance their teaching, get excited to use the technology, and
then find no assistance to pursue that use.

The Academic Technology and Networks unit at UNC-CH has a structure designed
to support both groups. A program called Simple Start introduces Internet
technologies to instructors via training classes, technology demonstrations,
workshops, and individual consulting. Simple Start focuses on simple yet powerful
tools such as e-mail, listservers, the World Wide Web, and discussion forums.
Working in collaboration with Simple Start, a research and evaluation team tracks
new developments in instructional technologies, consults with the innovators and
early adopters, and evaluates and demonstrates tools that have potential in that
environment. Appropriate new tools and effective implementations are added to the
Simple Start tool set for use by the larger group.

Encouraging use. Forced participation is certainly appropriate and perhaps the most
effective approach in some situations. Ideally, though, if learning is the primary
objective, then forced use seems less appealing. Any tool will be readily used when
that tool provides an advantage--in this case, an aid in learning. Participants will
use a discussion forum when it becomes a valuable information resource and an
effective communications tool for linking students to instructors, students to
students, and instructors to instructors. In this light, instructors are encouraged to
plan their use of forums, to keep the discussions focused, and to promote sharing
information via URLs, citations, and uploaded documents.

The discussion forum software itself promotes use of the forums by delivering
notices after new information has been added. Once a day, a brief, gentle reminder
is sent via e-mail to addresses designated by the instructor. These notices include
the name of the forum, a list of new posts by title and author, and the URL of the
forum to make the return trip easy. The notification feature was added after
evaluation of early forums indicated a problem of knowing when to visit a forum. It
takes only a few visits to an inactive forum before people decide not to come back.
The notices circumvent unnecessary visits.

Students' reluctance. Students' reluctance to post to discussion forums is due in part

to the presence of "experts," and in part to the permanence of the posts. Unlike e-
mail, usenet news, and listservers, a discussion forum is, by nature, an archive. A
message posted to the forum remains in clear view of all participants until the
forum owner removes it. This public display may intimidate students. On the
upside, the permanence promotes well thought and well articulated arguments. One
could argue that this is no different than the reluctance of students to speak in a
classroom. However, there are two significant differences. First, in many classrooms,
one or two students often respond to nearly all questions and tend to monopolize
the discussion. These same students may be prolific writers on discussion forums as
well, but, their actions do not impede upon others because the time and place
constraints are no longer in place. Second, we know that quiet, reflective students
rarely find the classroom a comfortable place to share their thoughts. With
discussion forums, we are seeing these students participating more frequently, to
the benefit of all.

Lessons Learned

Perhaps the most valuable lesson learned in our discussion forum project is to keep
the tool as simple to use as possible. The few options of the forums are available via
menus and fill-in-the-blank forms. While there may be other ways of doing things
behind the scenes, it seems unwise to introduce those complexities. The forums do
one thing--provide a common, shared discussion space--and they do it well.

Where appropriate, we encourage integration of other tools with the forums. For
instance, we suggest that forum notices be sent to established class listservers. The
listserver software has been tested and has proven effective for delivering e-mail to
groups; no reason to reinvent that feature in discussion forums. By integrating with
existing tools, we can focus our development effort on functionality that is not
available and add those modules, tools, as they become robust. From the systems
administrator perspective, problems can be isolated to specific modules making
support easier. From the user perspective, new modules can be added with minimal
interruption.

It is clear that simply making discussion forums available does not result in
effective use. In several cases, forums were created with enthusiasm only to sit idle
due to ineffective moderating by the owner. Presentations not only to faculty
groups, but also to students, plus testimonials from faculty peers are essential in
generating willing and eventually enthusiastic participation.

Conclusion

Web-based, asynchronous discussion forums provide a valuable avenue for sharing

information outside the classroom. Students and instructors can share their ideas,
questions, and individual discoveries whenever they wish and wherever they have
Internet access. Many of our instructors are using discussion forums in their classes.
More important, students are requesting that instructors use them because the
forums provide the students an advantage--a tool for learning.

References

Gilbert, Steven W. (1995) Important questions for higher education: Sex, drugs, rock and
roll, books ... or computers? [On-line]. Available URL: http://www.aahe.org/tltr-
ch1.htm.

On Purpose Associates. (1996a). Constructivism [On-line].

On Purpose Associates. (1996b). Communities of practice [On-line].

Rogers, E.M. (1995). Diffusion of innovations (4th ed.). New York: Free Press.