Volume 7

18 pages 915 K bytes

Effectiveness of Online Discussion Groups Karen Filipski Indiana University of Pennsylvania Indiana, PA 15705 USA Michael W. Bigrigg Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213 USA

Abstract: To build an online community, which is an essential learning component for an online class, web discussion groups are utilized to engage the student population in appropriate academic learning exchanges. The concern at hand is how effective large threads are in which active students participate. We assert that there are a finite number of possible answers to a direct question, therefore online discussion threads should be capped in participant numbers due to the redundancy of answers and lack of student engagement when message counts become too high.

Keywords: online discussion, expert learners, online communities, online education, thread effectiveness, computer literacy, distance learning

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Recommended Citation: Filipski and Bigrigg (2009). Effectiveness of Online Discussion Groups. Information Systems Education Journal, 7 (86). http://isedj.org/7/86/. ISSN: 1545-679X. (A preliminary version appears in The Proceedings of ISECON 2007: §3552. ISSN: 1542-7382.)