This article presents a summary of the findings of a study with the aims of exploring the conditions for achieving communication, interaction and collaboration in open and flexible e-learning environments. It reflects work undertaken with students in an international online learning community on a Masters programme that was developed from a Socrates Erasmus project. The context is a joint Masters programme between Sheffield Hallam University in the UK and Hogeschool van Arnhem en Nijmegen in the Netherlands.

This summary is based on the paper “Working on Educational Research Methods with Master students in an international online learning community”. An updated and revised version of this paper has been accepted for publication in the British Journal of Educational Technology.

The process of evaluation of the students experience was structured around three key research questions. The analysis of the data collected is presented in the following lines under each key question.

How best can we facilitate purposeful engagement of autonomous and independent learners in e-learning environments?

In general the use of a variety of strategies involving discussion fora in response to set reading tasks, discussion topics in response to reflections on prior experience, group activities and peer formative assessment on drafts of assignments worked effectively in promoting purposeful engagement, autonomy and independence. The curriculum design which involved the overall structuring of the various tasks, assessment requirements and orchestrated feedback all was a key factor in the process of facilitating purposeful engagement.

In addition the local meetings played an important role and were cited by more than half of the students, through the open responses at the end of the module, as one of the most important aspects in promoting their learning. However a particularly striking aspect of the student feedback involved the responses to those questions which focused on the affective dimensions of the experience.

All the students responded by agreeing or strongly agreeing to feeling a sense of belonging to the learning community, a feeling of succeeding in the module and to a sense of the atmosphere of the learning community promoting their learning. These responses were despite the fact that a few students had not felt the benefit of peer support or the international dimension.

To what extent is the notion of assessment for learning a key condition for achieving orchestrated interdependence and autonomy in e-learning?

It can also be said that the use of a variety of strategies involving discussion fora in response to set reading tasks, discussion topics in response to reflections on prior experience, group activities and peer formative assessment on drafts of assignments worked effectively also to promote a high level of interdependence within the learning community. This conclusion can be drawn from the evidence of the high levels of interaction, communication and collaboration in the discussion forum. It is also supported responses to the questionnaire which indicated that all the students agreed that they felt as if they belonged to a learning community, that the atmosphere of the learning community promoted their learning and that they had enough support for the studying process.

Also this sense of community was one that was shared by the staff team. Furthermore the responses to the question about which activities promoted learning confirmed the importance of assessment in this module because of the way in which the role of the assignments was stressed by the students.

What all the responses illustrated is that the staff team was able to engage most students in this e-learning environment as a result of the complex interaction of (i) structure of the module as a whole (e.g. reading tasks, group tasks, local sessions, discussions on line and processes of peer feedback), (ii) the content of the tasks and assignments and also (iii) the processes of staff feedback to the students.

What are the optimal conditions for achieving well-orchestrated interdependence in open and flexible e-learning environments?

This question is one that will continuously drive ongoing development. A strong sense emerged within the local meetings and final focus group discussions at the end of the module that it would represent a considerable improvement to the experience of the module if the photograph activity, or something similar, could be brought forward right to the beginning of the module.

Some very strong reactions had resulted from the reading of chapter 1 on the "Nature of Enquiry" from Cohen et al (2000) which reflected those of the first cohort a year earlier. There were numerous protests about the difficulties of the language {including the native English speaking students} and the complexity of the ideas after the initial reading. However as the ideas were repeatedly returned to throughout the module, the relevance of thinking about the philosophy of the research process seemed to become apparent to all.

The discussion in the local meeting in Sheffield prior to the final video conference was summarised by one of the Sheffield students as follows:
"Yes, we had a conversation about the way in which some of the activities in the unit might be placed in a different order and the one which we took was the very good activity where people were giving initial reactions to the photograph and then the discussion that followed on from there.

We thought it might be valuable to put that right at the start of the unit in order to encourage discussion about the kind of assumptions that people make and then how those assumptions may well be changed and developed by the addition of further information and that actually then links very well to that initial question that we had some very good discussion on about i.e. What is educational research? I can’t remember the exact wording of the question, but I think those two link together and I think that probably would make, for me, a much more coherent start for the course. I don’t know what you feel about that?"

His comment about raw reactions and emotions followed as his rationale for “why it would work better for me and I think it’s definitely worth a try at the next cohort.”

A primary aim of the module team was to engage students with idea that the aims, processes and outcomes of empirical educational research need to subjected to critical scrutiny of underlying assumptions and that the process of interpretation is one to be approached only after careful and deliberative reflection. This perspective of educational research as a critical social and human science challenges the relatively widespread instrumental view of research about teaching and learning as some kind of practical reasoning based upon the gathering of relatively unproblematic information. The general sense of the staff team is that we succeeded to a large extent with this aim. However the real test of that interpretation will lie in the quality of work contained in the final dissertations from the group of students in subsequent years.

The importance to design a social infrastructure.

To conclude we would like to return to the strongly positive responses from the students to questions about the affective dimensions of their experience. This finding resonates with the ideas arising from the field of computer supported collaborative learning which highlights the importance of the need to design and develop an appropriate social infrastructure which is seen to operate at three levels.

Firstly is the ‘cultural level’ which is associated with the philosophy and norms established between teachers and students. Secondly is the ‘activity level’ which involves social practices and thirdly is the ‘tool level’ which involves the use of the technology. There is a growing body of knowledge arguing for the secondary importance of the technology and for the primacy to be given to advanced and innovative pedagogical practices that already exist which can exploit the opportunities afforded by the technology to take them further.

A key influence on our pedagogical practices has been the project-based approach of W. H. Kilpatrick whose ideas were first published in 1918!. Accordingly our experience is entirely consistent with this latter perspective.