bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A global blueprint for enhancing opportunities for people with disabilities to access and succeed in higher education
Authors: Wimpenny Katherine , Clouder Lynn , Tombs Gemma
Published: October 2024

This presentation will share the intercultural learning from the SWING project (Sustainable Ways to Increase Higher Education Students’ Equal Access to Learning Environments). This was a two-year project funded by EU Tempus, involving partnership between four European (EU), one Egyptian and two Moroccan higher education (HE) institutions. The overarching aim of the project was to bring together partner expertise to share best practice to support students with disabilities in accessing and optimizing their chance of succeeding in HE through the use of assistive technologies (AT). Research illustrates that there is still much work to be done in levelling higher education experiences for disabled students (Vickerman & Blundell, 2010).
The project team investigated the current state of accessibility for disabled people in the EU and the partner countries in terms of national and international legislation, HE policy and practice. The International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) (WHO, 2001) was adopted which is the WHO's framework for health and disability that emphasises health and functioning, rather than disability. This conception of disability when applied in an HE context suggests the need to focus holistically on the education experience in its widest sense, thus enabling students to enjoy the full benefits of involvement in student life.
An appreciative inquiry approach was adopted in line with a collaborative action research style ethos. The project aimed to capture the perspectives and alter attitudes and practice at all levels including students, academic and administrative staff, technical experts and senior managers.  Having provoked change there is commitment in the partner countries to sustaining and building on what has been achieved. Partners are keen to   disseminate the project outcomes nationally and internationally, and to become flagship institutions within their own countries. Mutual benefit for the EU universities has been felt through challenging taken-for-granted practice that might have lulled universities into thinking they had levelled the field for students with disabilities. For instance, the use of IT and AT had not been optimised in our own institution prior to this project, throwing local challenges into sharp relief.
‘Hospitality at a distance’
Authors: Sheail Philippa , Ross Jen
Published: October 2024

This paper is informed by a one-year research project which looked at supervisory practices and student experiences in the context of fully online Masters programmes.  In these programmes, students are often based in different country locations to their dissertation supervisors, and some may never visit the university campus. The research project examined supervisory practices and processes across four online programmes in the social sciences and medical education, including workshops with supervisors, and explored the Masters dissertation experiences of eighteen graduates who had studied on one of the four selected postgraduate programmes taught fully online from the University of Edinburgh.
In this paper, we focus on the recurrent theme of ‘connection and disconnection’ which emerged from our analysis of interviews with recent dissertation students. This theme is considered in relation to student accounts of positive experiences of support and continuity in supervisory relationships, juxtaposed with reports of disconnection and isolation during the dissertation process; experiences which were often accepted by graduates as an inevitable part of working on an independent research project.
Building on Ruitenberg's (2011) work on 'an ethic of hospitality' (situated by Ruitenberg as an alternative to the ‘ethics of autonomy, virtue and care’ (p.28) in education), we explore these experiences within the theoretical framework of 'hospitality at a distance'. We propose that ‘hospitality at a distance’ is a useful framework in the context of distance education supervision, where home and host, the ‘at-home’, might be contested, and, we suggest in this paper, where we might need to rethink what it is to, ‘leave space for those students and those ideas that may arrive’ (Ruitenberg 2011 p.33) from beyond the campus. We also suggest that achieving ‘success’ in dissertations at a distance may involve accepting the instability of relations between student and supervisor, that are marked not only by power dynamics, expectations, and performances of student and teacher identities (as all supervisory relationships are), but also by the varied and shifting conceptions of home, welcome, and ‘belonging’ that accompany the distanced encounter.
Effectiveness of Guests in Large Enrolment Online Courses as an Instructional Strategy
Authors: Costello Jane , Rohr Linda E.
Published: October 2024

This paper introduces preliminary findings of an evaluation of the design-effectiveness of the guest instructional strategy focusing on guest speakers' effectiveness for learning (Costello, 2012; 2014a, b) and enhancing social presence (Short, Williams & Christie, 1976) in a networked learning course. HKR 1000, Fitness and Wellness, is an introductory online course widely subscribed by students at Memorial University, seeing about 1000 yearly registrations. In each of the three (fall, winter, spring) thirteen-week semesters, sections of 80 students are virtually combined into one course shell within the learning management system (LMS), Brightspace, formerly Desire2Learn (D2L). In the spring and fall 2015 semesters the design-effectiveness of the guest instructional strategy was evaluated based on students' perspectives (N=688). Effectiveness was determined by whether guests impacted student learning, related to course content, provided real life relevance, and fostered social presence. While large enrolments in online courses are not typical or favoured, it is possible to effectively design instructional strategies that use social learning (Rohr & Costello, 2015) to enhance learning and social presence. Content for HKR 1000 focuses on key topics for living healthy, active lifestyles, including basic principles of physical fitness, cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular strength and endurance, flexibility, body composition, nutrition, stress and weight management. To further highlight the link between real world experiences and course content, guest video presentations and discussions were included in the online course environment. Guests bring a unique perspective to a learning community as an integral, authentic resource impacting student success both in their learning and their professions (Costello, 2014b, Finkelstein, 2006). The use of guests as an instructional strategy (Costello, 2014a, Lowenthal, 2009) also served as a means to increase social presence in the course. The guests each appeared for a week during the semester, their topics being tightly linked to specific course content. Each had a unique, relevant area of expertise to share and provided a short 2-4 minute video clip and engaged in discussion with the students in the LMS discussion forum for the remainder of their respective week. An anonymous survey was administered in the learning management system to collect student feedback on these matters. Questions explored whether the students viewed the videos, posted questions, and read the discussion forums. In addition students were asked to reflect on the approachableness and warmth of each guest. Results indicate a positive guest impact on student learning, provision of real life relevance and enhancement of social presence.
Troubling the Blurred Boundaries of Online Professionalism
Authors: MacLean Sara B
Published: October 2024

Recently, professional associations have issued new guidelines that apprehensively embrace the use of social media encouraging their members to use the medium ‘appropriately'. In the academic literature, a discussion has been taking place around ‘online professionalism' or ‘e-professionalism' with some in professional education beginning to ponder about how to facilitate the development of this extended form of professionalism. Within both of these discourses, the trope of boundary blurring is often invoked as an indication of the challenging potentials of social media to the professions and professional education. However, little regard is given to what these boundaries are and how they are formed. In this short paper reporting on research in progress, I seek not to blur the boundaries but to trouble them - to bring them more in focus and to treat them as an assemblage through an ANT analysis for the purpose of informing how we educate for professionalism.
Theoretical approach: Employing an Actor Network Theory sensibility, this research reconceptualises boundaries as networks - heterogeneous assemblage of bodies, devices, technologies, algorithms, standards, representations etc. Thus, materials move from factors in boundary practices to actors constructing the boundaries in a process of generative materiality. As they are networks, boundaries are being made and re-made as the relations are constantly being performed (Latour, 2005). Moreover, networks are not inherently consistent. Parts of the network may be in conflict creating fissures and tensions. Applying this to boundaries, therefore, would allow for an analysis that explores, as Law (1992) has put it, "the precarious mechanics of organisation" (p. 389). It will inquire about what is invited and what is excluded in the boundary practices of online professionalism as well as tracing specific ways things are enacted - what enables or constrains these enactments. It will also explore what effects these assemblages produce.
Methodology: The research will focus on two groups of pre-professional students in their final year of education, one from social work and the other from nursing. It will follow a three stage design. The initial stage is an individual interview where vignettes are employed to stimulate reflection on online professionalism and to draw out the boundaries of concern. The second stage is a group interview where participants discuss digital artefacts that may surprise or push boundaries. The last stage involves individual participants tracing their digital footprint with the research investigating the materialities that assemble into their notion of online professionalism.
Breaking the boundaries of space and time
Authors: Sundgren Marcus , Jaldemark Jimmy
Published: October 2024

Throughout history, various technologies have been used to bridge the boundaries of time and space, from 19th-century postcard education to present day mobile technology. Previous reviews examining the first decade of the new millennium showed many research projects using institutionally owned equipment, mostly supporting a teacher-centred approach and with a focus on content delivery. With the rapid development of small, portable and smart devices since 2007, devices becoming ubiquitous in the lives of students of today, has the focus of research changed? This paper reviews journal articles published 2009-2014 with the aim to examine how mobile devices are applied to bridge the boundaries of space and time in higher educational settings, and thereby supporting networked learning for the campus classroom as well as the online student. A search in major databases for English language journal articles was conducted with phrases "mobile learning" and "higher education". We found 109 articles indicating some form of bring-your-own-device (BYOD) philosophy. Categorizations were made primarily based on the abstracts. About 85 per cent of the articles were empirical in nature. Another eight per cent were theoretical and/or argumentative. The remaining articles were reviews, method development or meta-analyses. Subjects of study in the empirical articles were primarily students, but also faculty or a combination of those appears. Geographically, most studies are concentrated in the English-speaking parts of the world, although for instance Sub-Saharan Africa could benefit from development in this area. Not surprisingly, the top three countries by number of publications are USA, UK and Australia. About a third of the articles did not deal with the dimensions of time and space explicitly. Several of the non-empirical articles are among them, and so are a group of empirical articles that examined behavioural intents, perceptions, and attitudes amongst students and faculty. The principal phenomena studied with respect to the bridging of time and space was social media, the most common variety being podcasting, followed by text- and instant-messaging and social networking. Another group addressed how learning management and support systems could be developed to better support flexibility in time and space, or attitudes, intentions and perceptions regarding mobile learning implementations. Results indicate a shift from teacher-centred content delivery approaches towards student-centred communicative approaches. Recent improvements in network infrastructure and device usability seem to afford this development for teachers and students alike. However, a more thorough analysis of the material is required to validate such a claim.
Academics’ online connections
Authors: Jordan Katy
Published: October 2024

Academic social networking sites (SNS), such as Academia.edu and ResearchGate, seek to bring the benefits of online social networking to academics' professional lives. Online academic social networking offers the potential to revolutionise academic publishing, foster novel collaborations, and empower academics to develop their professional identities online. However, the role that such sites play in relation to academic practice and other social media is not well understood at present.
Arguably, the defining characteristic of academic social networking sites is the connections formed between profiles (in contrast to the traditional static academic homepage, for example). The social network of connections fostered by SNSs occupies an interesting space in relation to online identity, being both an attribute of an individual and shaped by the social context they are embedded within. As such, personal network structures may reflect an expression of identity (as "public displays of connection" (Donath & boyd, 2004) or "relational self portraits[s]" (Hogan & Wellman, 2014)), while social capital has been linked to network structures (Crossley et al., 2015). Network structure may therefore have implications for the types of roles that a network can play in professional life. What types of network structures are being fostered by academic SNS and how do they relate to academics' development of an online identity?
This presentation will discuss findings from a project which has used a mixed-methods social network analysis approach to analyse academics' personal networks online. The personal networks of 55 academics (sampled from survey participants, to reflect a range of disciplines and job positions) on both one academic SNS (either Academia.edu or ResearchGate) and Twitter were collected and analysed. Differences in network structure emerged according to platform, with Twitter networks being larger and less dense, while academic SNS networks were smaller and more highly clustered. There were differences between academic SNS and Twitter in the brokerage positions occupied by the participant. The results are discussed in relation to other salient studies relating network structure in online social networks to social capital, and implications for academic practice. Future work, including co-interpretive interviews to explore the significance of network structures with participants, is introduced.
Connecting Scholarship in the Open
Authors: Keefer Jeffrey M.
Published: October 2024

Social media and public engagement play an increasing role in how people across ages, disciplines, and interests communicate with each other and perform their own lives. While different audiences participate for a diverse of reasons, researchers increasingly explore how connections are made, remain, and shift, along with the whats and whys these occur, especially within personal learning networks or environments related to academic learning (Buchem, Attwell, & Torres, 2011; Dabbagh & Kitsantas, 2012; Kop, 2011; Rahimi, Berg, & Veen, 2014; Veletsianos, 2012). Social media commonly promotes public conversationality, with personal learning networks and connected communities utilized by developing researchers while engaging in their learning and inquiries. While researcher development is a growing speciality within higher education academic discourse (McAlpine & Amundsen, 2009; McAlpine, Horn, & Rath, 2011; Wisker et al., 2010; Wisker, Robinson, Trafford, Lilly, & Warnes, 2004), little is known about researcher support structures of those engaging in research in public.With social media and networking technologies constantly shifting how people use, learn from, and make meaning through them, a scoping study is a useful methodology to explore this topic. Scoping studies examine the range and nature of an area of research, help determine the value of undergoing a full systematic review, summarize findings of previous studies, and serve to identify gaps in the literature (Arksey & O'Malley, 2005; Paré, Trudel, Jaana, & Kitsiou, 2015). While there are numerous kinds of literature reviews, scoping studies are particularly useful when a rapid overview of the literature is needed to broadly map what is currently known about an area (Pham et al., 2014), especially one that is not directly linked to specific disciplinary communities or functions where an established coherent portion of literature exists.The question guiding this study is: How do developing researchers learn in networked public spaces? The findings of this research work in progress will be presented during the Pecha Kucha.
An investigation of technology mediation in interdisciplinary research within Higher Education
Authors: Young Erin , Winters Niall
Published: October 2024

There has been a growing awareness of interdisciplinary collaboration as a means of addressing new challenges within academic research, and digital technology has been a core underlying support in these endeavours (Scanlon et al., 2013, p.49; Haythornthwaite et al., 2003, p.144). ‘Digital technologies will be a core aspect of interaction and cooperation between different fields of expertise’ (Costa, 2011, p.84). This paper investigates the process of technology-mediated knowledge co-production in interdisciplinary research in Higher Education, and explores how researchers from different disciplines appropriate technology to break down disciplinary boundaries. Through the presentation of findings from a collective case study of two interdisciplinary research projects based at the University of Oxford - the Ashmolean Latin Inscriptions Project (AshLi) and Poetry Visualisation: Imagery Lens for Visualising Text Corpora (PVis) - this paper aims to challenge conventional approaches to investigating the use of technology in interdisciplinary scholarship, responding to the paucity of research at the intersection of interdisciplinarity, collaborative research and technology in academia.
Findings from interviews with academic researchers, and a visual analysis of project artefacts, elucidate a mutually shaping relationship between innovative research technologies and new interdisciplinary research practices. Technology can be constructed through the integration of disciplinary perspectives. Researchers from different disciplines both adopt and adapt technologies, and through these processes, disciplinary boundaries are broken down, and knowledge is co-created. This iterative process of mutual shaping assumes different nuances according to the disciplinary ‘make-up’ of a project, the technologies involved, and the ways in which the researchers appropriate technologies according to their disciplinary backgrounds.
Using the social construction of technology (SCOT) as a theoretical framework illuminates researchers’ diverse perceptions of technologies and interdisciplinary practices, and highlights the importance of interpretation in the use of technology within these contexts. This paper contributes to the area of networked learning by highlighting that collaboration around research technologies has not been explored very much in the field, nor has the potential for building on other concepts from the area of science and technology studies (STS) such as Actor-Network Theory (Clough et al., 2010; Adams and Thompson, 2014). In this way, the findings hold broad implications for substantive promotion of a more nuanced view of modern interdisciplinary practices.
Symposium 1: Problematising Participatory Research for Developing Semantic Web Technologies
Authors: Tracy Frances
Published: October 2024

This paper contributes to a symposium on ‘Designs for learning with the Semantic Web (Web 3.0)’ by presenting the outcomes of critical reflection on methodological issues relating to the design of semantic web technologies for networked learning. Semantic web technologies show great potential for supporting networked learning but are unsettled and under-researched in educational contexts, thus classed within this symposium as ‘emergent’. The design of this emergent and complex technology is considered in relation to empirical research data from an interdisciplinary, multi-institutional technology enhanced learning (TEL) research project. The research project explored the potential of semantic web technologies in Higher Education (HE) to support the use of cases in teaching and learning. Data was collected throughout the project including researcher's wiki-based reflective research logs, transcripts from project meetings and interviews and focus groups with participants and observation notes. Critical reflection on the research process was supported through engagement with this data, which allowed the recognition of nondeterministic constructs and fluidity and contingency in research practice. Therefore, this paper problematises participation by highlighting uncertainties and contingencies inherent in the enactment of participatory research methodology. Rather than viewing uncertainty and contingency as devaluing research, the case is made that this can allow for enrichment of the development process and subsequently the research outcomes. The flexible and emergent nature of semantic web technology matched with participatory approaches in the design of emergent technologies allows for reflection, adaptation and flexible action relating to pedagogy and practices which is essential in educational contexts that are rapidly changing. The findings highlight the uncertain and contingent nature of (1) the settings where design took place; (2) acceptance or rejection of research methods; and (3) the community groups that emerged as interested parties in our work. Vignettes from two different research settings are used to show how participation was enacted reflectively and responsively leading to some positive outcomes; including the development of new teaching practices and new technologies, which were fed back into the open source development of educational semantic web technologies. Therefore, researchers in the field of networked learning are encouraged to ‘design with participatory research’ to match the challenges posed by complex and emergent technologies and changeable educational contexts rather than attempting to apply standardised forms of design methodologies.
Symposium 2: Challenges to social justice and collective wellbeing in a globalised education system
Authors: Beetham Helen , Czerniewicz Laura , Jones Chris , Lally Victor , Perotta Carlo , Sclater Madeleine
Published: October 2024

Access to educational opportunity is undoubtedly extended by the availability of open learning materials, networked learning communities, and forms of open accreditation. Networked learning has, in that sense, fulfilled many of the promises of its early pioneers. The evidence is weak, however, that access to digital opportunity translates into educational success for those without other forms of educational, social and cultural capital. The distribution of functional access to digital opportunity in fact mirrors other kinds of inequality very closely, so the proliferation of networked learning opportunities can actually amplify inequalities of outcome.Beyond individual cases, an open digital landscape for learning favours globally successful institutions, as shown by the scramble to form ‘gold standard’ open course networks among leading universities. A global market in educational content risks amplifying the hegemony of the languages, educational cultures and knowledge practices of the English-speaking global north. A parallel global market in the most able and motivated students puts further pressure on the local education systems that are most able to support those currently disadvantaged.This symposium examines the globalised educational landscape from a radical, critical perspective. Some of us write from within schools of education with the experience of research and publishing behind us. From this perspective we assert the value of theory-informed research to highlight the contradictions, the political negotiations and the vulnerabilities of hegemonic discourses, to encourage scepticism and to challenge determinist views of our technological future. Some of us write from situations of responsibility in practice and policy settings. From this perspetive we assert that there are no technological solutions to inequality, only political and emancipatory educational actions. What tools of resistance are at our disposal within the academic labour force and in the 'world of work' adjacent to it?Our discussions and the links among our papers represent the hope that the divide can sometimes be bridged, and that theory-based interventions in education are always possible, on the side of social justice and collective wellbeing.
Symposium 3: Open, networked and connected learning: Bridging the formal/informal learning divide in higher education
Authors: Cronin Catherine
Published: October 2024

In the age of ‘networked individualism’ (Castells, 2004; Rainie & Wellman, 2012) students enter higher education as networked individuals with extant and diverse informal learning practices, networks and identities. While higher education institutions typically focus on Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) as the primary online hubs for students, students themselves use a wide range of online tools and resources for communicating, coordinating, collaborating and learning, i.e. building their own Personal Learning Environments (PLEs). While institutions and academic staff tend to see institutional VLEs and learner-chosen PLEs as separate entities, learners do not (Reed, 2013). Students often find that their informal learning practices sit uneasily within the formal education environments within which they study. Open education, particularly open educational practices (OEP), is one way that the formal/informal learning divide in higher education may be bridged. Advocates of open education highlight its potential to make education more inclusive and equitable. However, some critiques of open education view such claims as utopian, ignoring the workings of systemic power and privilege. This paper explores the formal/informal learning divide in higher education, the complexities and different interpretations of open education, and potential benefits for students and educators in bridging the formal/informal learning divide, i.e. working together within higher education learning communities but also as nodes in “broad networks of distributed creativity” (J. Ito, 2011).
Domesticating Everyday Technologies for Teaching
Authors: Freeman Wendy
Published: October 2024

The complexity of technology integration into the teaching and learning practices of higher education students and instructors is not adequately captured in technology adoption models. Technologies are shaped not only by faculty as they integrate these tools into their teaching, but by students in their learning. Studies examining technology integration tend to take the classroom as the beginning and ending point for technology integration; however, beliefs, values, expectations, and experiences of technology begin long before the classroom. This study takes these experiences into account, exploring university faculty understanding of social media for teaching through the lens of domestication theory.Domestication theory (Berker, Harmann, Punie & Ward, 2006; Haddon, 2011; Silverstone & Hirsch, 1992) draws on family studies, media consumption studies and studies of the social construction of technology to examine the confluence of the social meanings and political structures of the home as technology become integrated into domestic practices. This study uses the domestication framework to explore how values, beliefs, and experiences of social media and of teaching shape the decision-making processes of instructors as they integrate these everyday communication platforms into their courses. The domestication framework traces the trajectory of a technology from the point at which it enters the home through the social processes of domestication. The first stage is appropriation, in which the imagined uses for the technology lead someone to bring it home. The dual processes of objectification and incorporation describe the ways in which an individual or a group integrates a new technology into the physical arrangements and everyday routines of the household. It is through these negotiations that values and beliefs about everyday practice and the role of the technology become apparent. Finally, conversion, in which newfound practices and technologies are displayed, begins the process of appropriation for others.Twelve university faculty were interviewed about their decision-making and experiences as they integrated social media into their teaching practices. Participants had varying levels of experience with social media prior to their decision to use social media in their teaching.Analysis using the domestication framework suggests that the everyday experiences with technology outside the classroom affect the approach to integrating new technology into teaching. The domestication framework provided a valuable lens for teasing out the social and material beliefs inherent in the negotiation processes in which both instructors and students engage as technology is introduced into the classroom.
Communities of Practice
Authors: Tremblay Diane-Gabrielle
Published: October 2024

Over the last decades, there has been more and more interest in various modes of networked learning, knowledge creation, communities or practice (CoPs) but there is not yet a clear identification of the conditions to succeed in such initiatives. This interest for CoPs stems from the fact that organizations expect substantial gains from knowledge development and networked learning. Communities of practice are seen in many organizations as a source of networked learning, and ultimately of competitiveness and innovation. The interest for communities of practice arises from this objective of learning and innovation, but it is viewed as a specific form of learning and sharing, in principle more centred on the individuals and their exchanges than on “management” by the firm, although the firm does seem to have a role to play in fostering such initiatives. Thus, the use of communities of practice has emerged as a way to develop collective skills and organizational learning, in order to foster innovation and success for organizations. In this paper, we identify the conditions of success or failure of communities of practice as a mode of networked learning, knowledge management and knowledge sharing, as these conditions have not yet been established. We first define this new form of learning and knowledge sharing through communities of practice. We then present some of the results concerning success, or more precisely attainment of objectives, as success can be defined in various ways. We do this on the basis of 7 case studies of communities of practice implemented in firms. The empirical results are based on a questionnaire survey administered to the participants of these communities of practice, but also on qualitative interviews and regular work and exchanges with some of the animators and participants in these communities of practice. We highlight some interesting differences observed according to age and gender, as well as some limits and challenges that were observed in the learning and sharing process, which are often underestimated. We mainly highlight the factors which explain success, defined as attainment of objectives, and these are : commitment and motivation of participants for the attainment of objectives, as well as the presence of a leader, animator or steward.
Symposium 2: The role of teachers in professional studies and perspectives on networked learning
Authors: Cendon Eva
Published: October 2024

This paper examines the roles of teachers in higher education with regard to networked learning. Based on the assumption that learning is a social endeavour that incorporates both individual learning and learning with and from others, learning requires a relation between the learner and the subject, a relation between the learner and others, and last but not least a relation between the learner and the teacher. While lots of attention has been put on learning not least from a social constructive view on how to establish a learning environment in order to support learning processes, the central role of teachers in this process has often been neglected. Starting from this perspective the paper presents findings from an explorative qualitative study on the roles of teachers in learning processes in the context of higher education, more precisely in professional studies in Germany. Based on the study's findings future perspectives for the roles of teachers in higher education with regard to networked learning are outlined.
Students’ use of Facebook for peer-to-peer learning
Authors: Dalsgaard Christian
Published: October 2024

This paper presents the findings from an empirical study of five non-institutional Facebook groups created and managed by students in Danish upper secondary schools. The objective of the paper is to study educational potentials of Facebook with a focus on students’ self-organized academic communication. The empirical study includes a questionnaire distributed to 2035 students and 182 teachers and a qualitative analysis of communication spanning more than two years within each of the five Facebook groups. The study provides an insight into how students communicate about school work without the participation of teachers. The findings from the questionnaire show that whereas students and teachers primarily use institutional learning management systems to communicate among each other, students clearly prefer social media when they communicate with fellow students. The study shows that students’ school-related use of Facebook is widespread. More than 80 % of the students in the questionnaire specified that they use Facebook as a communication tool in relation to their school work. Further, 67 % of the students state that they “almost all the time” or “often” use social media (which is primarily Facebook) to help each other with homework and other school-related work. Only 11 % answer “rarely” or “never”. Based on the findings from the questionnaire, a qualitative analysis of student communication in five Facebook groups is completed. The paper presents findings from the study that demonstrates students’ extensive use of Facebook groups to help each other with all kinds of school-related matters, including issues relating directly to academic subjects. The study rejects the claims that students do not wish to use Facebook for school-related activities. The empirical study demonstrates that students are using Facebook groups to help each other with all kinds of school-related matters, including issues relating directly to academic subjects. Based on the findings from the study, the paper concludes that there is an educational potential of Facebook groups in supporting peer-to-peer learning between students. The study has identified a usage of Facebook among students that differs from studies of Facebook being used as a learning management system, where the teachers is present and manages the groups.
Learning from a deceptively spacious policy discourse
Authors: Hayes Sarah
Published: October 2024

Networked Learning, e-Learning and Technology Enhanced Learning have each been defined in different ways, as people's understanding about technology in education has developed. Yet each could also be considered as a terminology competing for a contested conceptual space. Theoretically this can be a ‘fertile trans-disciplinary ground for represented disciplines to affect and potentially be re-orientated by others' (Parchoma and Keefer, 2012), as differing perspectives on terminology and subject disciplines yield new understandings. Yet when used in government policy texts to describe connections between humans, learning and technology, terms tend to become fixed in less fertile positions, linguistically. A deceptively spacious policy discourse that suggests people are free to make choices conceals an economically-based assumption that implementing new technologies, in themselves, determines learning. Yet it actually narrows choices open to people as one route is repeatedly in the foreground and humans are not visibly involved in it. An impression that the effective use of technology for endless improvement is inevitable cuts off critical social interactions and new knowledge for multiple understandings of technology in people's lives. This paper explores some findings from a corpus-based Critical Discourse Analysis of UK policy for educational technology during the last 15 years, to help to illuminate the choices made. This is important when through political economy, hierarchical or dominant neoliberal logic promotes a single ‘universal model' of technology in education, without reference to a wider social context (Rustin, 2013). Discourse matters, because it can ‘mould identities' (Massey, 2013) in narrow, objective economically-based terms which 'colonise discourses of democracy and student-centredness' (Greener and Perriton, 2005:67). This undermines subjective social, political, material and relational (Jones, 2012: 3) contexts for those learning when humans are omitted. Critically confronting these structures is not considered a negative activity. Whilst deterministic discourse for educational technology may leave people unconsciously restricted, I argue that, through a close analysis, it offers a deceptively spacious theoretical tool for debate about the wider social and economic context of educational technology. Methodologically it provides insights about ways technology, language and learning intersect across disciplinary borders (Giroux, 1992), as powerful, mutually constitutive elements, ever-present in networked learning situations. In sharing a replicable approach for linguistic analysis of policy discourse I hope to contribute to visions others have for a broader theoretical underpinning for educational technology, as a developing field of networked knowledge and research (Conole and Oliver, 2002; Andrews, 2011).
A Critical Discourse Analysis
Authors: Lee Kyungmee , Brett Clare
Published: October 2024

There is a lot of rhetoric related to current internet based distance education as accessible, flexible, just-in-time, cost-effective, innovative and interactive. In particular, discussion about the value of interaction for successful online learning experiences, which is grounded in social constructivist learning theories, has been ongoing for recent decades. The burgeoning popularity of online learning such as a MOOCs phenomenon and the rapid proliferation of its new name “e-learning” have pushed aside the older connotation of distance learning as an inferior form of learning compared to face-to-face instruction. With the advent of web technologies and the growing public interest in the Internet, a simultaneous claim from internet-based research that such environments are inherently interactive has reinforced the rhetoric about the “interactive nature of online learning”. As a result, literature suggests researchers have single-mindedly focussed on developing more effective interactive online learning with neither empirical examination of the claims nor careful investigation of distance educational contexts where their designs would be implemented in. In this context, the changing roles of online teachers have drawn great research attention and so have been conceptualized and theorised. This Foucauldian critical discourse analysis project looks closely into the rhetorical discourse and their influences on instructors’ perspectives and behaviours at open universities to address the gap in our current understanding about distance education. Two foci of this study are i) instructors’ language use: how instructors at open universities talk about their perspectives and experiences of online learning and ii) instructors’ subjects: how each instructor is described and characterized by other members at the universities and why. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 17 instructors in two open universities, one in North America and the other in Asia-Pacific region. Our findings show the powerful impact of the rhetorical discourse on instructors’ perspectives and their subjects, which has increased the potential danger of the institutional abuse of power against or the marginalization of a particular group of instructors. The ultimate aim of this study is not to refute social constructivist assumptions but to provide a different framework to broaden our understanding of the nature of online learning beyond the current set of assumptions.
A social network analysis of learning in corporate training context
Authors: Tufan Didem , Yıldırım Soner , Günel Banu
Published: October 2024

It is obvious that, human life is being affected by the facilities of new technologies with all of its aspects including learning and development. On the other hand, besides the increasing use of the facilities, we have limited knowledge about the question of how social interaction and Web 2.0 technologies affect the training environments in workplace context. This study, which is a part of an on-going doctoral research, aims at investigating the interactions among participants within the networks constructed in an online learning environment in corporate training context (Sosyal 2.0) while verifying network coding procedures and providing evidence for the methodological issues regarding the use of SNA in combination with other methods in researching Networked Learning.Training and adult learning literature is limited when compared to the areas of formal education, teacher training or higher education. The current study, examining corporate training, aims at contributing to the literature, as the field of NL research is untouched, especially in Turkey.The study is conducted in cooperation with Enocta, an e-learning company in Turkey. The logs of Enocta's LMS with social interaction capabilities, called "Sosyal 2.0", are used as the data source. The members of Enocta who participate by using facilities of Sosyal 2.0 formed the actors of the network. Networks are constructed according to different web 2.0 facilities in Sosyal 2.0: "wallpost-comment" (WPC), "wallpost-like" (WPL), "question-answer" (QA), "question-comment" (QC), "question-like" (QL) and "blog post-like" (BPL) networks are constructed. To be able to examine the interactions among participants Average Degree, Degree Centralization, Closeness Centralization, Betweenness Centralization and Cohesion analysis are carried out using PAJEK Software.The results revealed that the tightest interaction was constructed via wall platform in Sosyal 2.0 in comparison to BPC, BPL, QL and QA platforms. The results of cohesive sub-groups reveal that, the users of Sosyal 2.0 form a comparatively big community by using wall platform. On the other hand; QAC, BPC and BPL networks had revealed weak components and small mutual relationships. These findings indicate that the information sharing among participants are not dispersed into several, middle sized sub groups in Sosyal 2.0. Rather it is more centralized in wall platform and mostly in mutual level for the QAC, BPC and BPL networks. These findings deserve further investigation including users' preferences and gratification and individual level network analysis methods.
Methods for mapping operational proximity in professional learning networks
Authors: Whitworth Andrew , Calvo Maria Carme Torras i , Moss Bodil , Kifle Nazareth Amlesom , Blåsternes Terje
Published: October 2024

This short paper reports on the first two phases of the Bibliotek i Endring (BiE) or “Changing Libraries” project. This project addresses a gap in the literature in that organisational change in academic libraries has not previously been studied from perspectives which emphasise practices and networked learning. The first phases of the project gathered data from participants regarding how they perceived the social networks in which they were embedded at work. A 50% sample was achieved at both locations. Informants were first asked 15 questions regarding their role, values and perceptions of their ability to enact change. They were then asked to draw a map of the social network in which they saw themselves as embedded, and “thought aloud” as they did so. A scoring system was then used to measure their perceptions of proximity within this network: who they worked most closely with, who they were most likely to share information with and so on. Through this process, individuals' maps were amalgamated into composite sociograms that could be drawn of both institutional research locations, showing that one was divided into two distinct clusters whereas the other was more connected, though both networks had isolated members. Cross-references were also made with how interviewees perceived their ability to enact change in their practices and those of others. These conclusions were presented to participants for member checking, and will now drive phase 3 of the research, in which change will be recorded over a period of a year to see how social networks influence learning and change management in these specific contexts.