'Sorting the wheat from the chaff': investigating overload in educational discussion systems.

This paper reports on research to investigate design features of asynchronous discussion systems for higher education. The research aims to identify features that increase the benefits of discussion systems and reduce the problems. The paper focuses on a major theme that emerged from interviews with...

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Publicado en:Journal of Computer Assisted Learning Vol. 23; no. 3; pp. 235 - 248
Autores principales: Kear KL, Heap NW
Formato: pictorial research tables/charts Journal Article
Publicado: Wiley-Blackwell Jun2007
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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        10.1111/j.1365-2729.2006.00212.x
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        atl: 'Sorting the wheat from the chaff': investigating overload in educational discussion systems.
      aug:
        au:
          Kear KL
          Heap NW
        affil: Department of Information and Communication Technologies, Faculty of Technology, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK. Email: k.l.kear@open. ac.uk
      sug:
        subj:
          Education, Non-Traditional
          Electronic Bulletin Boards
          Learning Methods
          Student Attitudes
          Colleges and Universities
          Faculty Attitudes
          Grounded Theory
          Human
          Interviews
          Outcomes of Education
          Questionnaires
          Software
          Teachers
          Thematic Analysis
          United Kingdom
      ab: This paper reports on research to investigate design features of asynchronous discussion systems for higher education. The research aims to identify features that increase the benefits of discussion systems and reduce the problems. The paper focuses on a major theme that emerged from interviews with learners and teachers: information overload. Interview findings, together with literature and system reviews, were used to identify four areas of possible system enhancement aimed at alleviating overload: branched message threading; user recommendations of messages; message filtering; and a personal 'clippings' area for useful messages. The paper discusses these enhancements and their evaluation in a prototype discussion system used on a UK Open University course. Data from the student evaluation indicated that students preferred branched threading to linear threading; they thought filtering and clippings were helpful in principle, although they did not use them very much; and they felt uncomfortable with the idea of recommending each others' messages. Students felt less overloaded in the second part of the course, which was when the system enhancements were made available.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype:
        pictorial
        research
        tables/charts
        Journal Article
      ougenre: Article
    language: English
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