The online Learning Community

In this article, the authors discussed for successful course completion students must actively contribute to both the quality and quantity of the online learning community. Successful completion of the course, students should also engage in the online learning community by interacting with a facilitator and other students. A case study was performed to respond to Beaudion's (2002) article "Learning or Lurking? Tracking the invisible online student." The authors began their study by asking the following research questions: 1) how did online participation relate to learning and successful course completion? and 2) how did participation influence the learning community?

In the case study, the authors observed 22 diverse cohorts, ages ranging from almost 30 to almost 50, and seeking a Masters degree in a computer-integrated education course at the University of Pretoria (Nagel, Blignaut, and Cronje, 2009). The web-based online course was for eight weeks; each week the students had to participate by doing scholarly research, discussion and peer-review posts, and create web-based artifacts. In the later portion of the course, the students created two-rounds of group assignments in teams of five to seven students (Nagel et al.). The groups used a rubric to score the students online group effort behavior; the rubric measured the participation of discussion posts, replies to student's pleas for help, and offering instructions and suggestion. The group effort score for each student who contributed was 10% for their discussion posts and 90% to the student's research participation, web-based artifacts, peer-reviews, teamwork assignments, and examination essays (Nagel et al.).

Nagel, Blignaut, and Cronje used mixed methods, qualitative and quantitative, to conduct their research. The qualitative allowed them to look into the environment of non-participating students; whereas, the quantitative method provided the numerical status of the student's activity during the course. The students were categorized by: the Fail group (less than 50%); the Pass group (50% - 74%); and the Distinction group 75% and greater (Nagel, et al.).

In the case study, Nagel, Blignaut, and Cronje found successful students were not only more active with quality discussion posts, but also the students were more involved with the online community, replies to students pleas for help, offering tips, advice, and readily provided voluntary feedback. They found among successful students, high quality participation rather than number of posts would build trust within in the online learning community among the mature students. Whereas, the non-participating students, they relinquished the most important components of an online community; coaching, feedback, and support from both student and facilitator (Nagel et al.). The non-participating students seem to be content that their learning needs were met with one initial post. The authors