All Ireland Society for Higher Education

AISHE Conference 2006

31^st August & 1^st September 2006

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[Full Conference Programme]

How to Foster Collaboration in an eLearning Environment - Lessons from Oscail

Submitting Author

Additional Authors

Seamus Fox, foxs@dcu.ie

Abstract

This paper will detail how social interaction was integrated into a degree programme run by Oscail - the National Distance Education Centre (DCU). While a key objective was to introduce an element of mandatory group work into a module of their distance education programme, the course designers also held the opinion that (given the discursive nature of the content of the chosen module) student learning would benefit greatly from engaging in online discussions on the content of the module.

The process of integrating social interaction into the degree programme started in 2004. A major challenge was how to integrate group work while (as far as possible) maintaining the time and place independence of distance education. After an in-depth review of the results of 2004, major changes were implemented in regards how group work was presented in 2005. In particular, how the students' online social interaction was assessed was radically changed. This paper will present the outcomes of the 2005 implementation and discuss the (less radical) changes that have been introduced for the 2006 presentation.

This paper will:

• Outline the rationale behind introducing group work;

• Detail the practical implementation of online social interaction and group work;

• Outline the various online tasks that students have to undertake;

• Outline the measures taken to ensure that teacher/tutor work overload did not occur;

• Discuss the assessment procedures for the online social interaction and group work;

• Present the outcomes of the students' evaluation of their experiences of online group work;

• Review the implementation of the online social interaction from the course designer perspective and

• Look forward to the potential of online social interaction to enhance teaching and learning in third level courses.

[Full Conference Programme]