Full Paper

Ron Oliver, Arshad Omari, Ken Knibb

Edith Cowan University

r.oliver@cowan.edu.au

This paper has described the rationale and educational need behind Web-FAQ, a dynamic web-based system to support student learning in an introductory authoring course. The WEB-faq system has 4 main components: a questions and answers section, a frequently asked questions section, a section showing authoring tips and tricks and a submit URLs section. It has been designed to enable students to share resources through the use of dynamic web pages either as novices trying to find the solutions to problems or as experts providing help and guidance to others in the class. It is built around the concept of a bulletin board and helps to support flexible learning through resource sharing.

The use of collaborative learning as an instructional strategy is well documented in the literature. Collaborative learning provides many learning opportunities and is a common feature in many classroom settings. At university, collaboration is less developed as a teaching and learning strategy usually as a consequence of the preponderance of individualised learning environments associated with mass lectures and . The use of the WWW appears to have the prospect to change the very individual nature of university teaching through its capacity to support and encourage collaborative environments. This paper describes a project conducted at Edith Cowan University to develop a collaborative learning environment using WWW technologies.

There is now a strong recognition in higher education of the value of learning environments which facilitate learners' active participation in the learning process. We are now observing substantial developments in higher education of interactive computer-based learning materials to replace the transmissive and didactic curriculum approaches of the past (Dwyer, 1995). Much of the development has focused on materials to support individual learners working at separate machines. While the bulk of the research into the use of computer-based technologies has been concerned primarily with individual learning (eg. Mevarech & Light, 1992), the emerging literature is now suggesting a move from the individual learner using a computer to learners sharing computer resources (eg. Laurillard, 1993; Laurillard, 1995).

Contemporary computer-based technologies such as the World Wide Web have powerful communication components. There are increasing opportunities with these tools for teachers in higher education to develop learning environments which connect individual learners into virtual communities sharing a common learning goal. As well as enabling communication in the process of learning, the environments enable the learners to share the resources and materials which become the product of the learning. The purpose of this paper is to argue the place for computer-based collaborative environments in higher education and to provide some examples of materials which have been produced by the authors for this purpose.

There are number of different frameworks which have been used to successfully describe the learning advantages which are frequently reported as emerging from collaborative learning. For example, the reward structures inherent in collaborative environments have been found to have a positive effects on student motivation (Slavin, 1977). When students are able to participate in active learning activities, they find the learning more pleasurable and satisfying than non-participative events (Fry & Coe, 1980). In such settings, student learning is enhanced by both individual and joint efforts within the groups, and the environments frequently lead to higher levels of task related interaction and behaviour (eg. Johnson, Johnson & Stanne, 1986).

There are known reasons behind the influence of motivation on learning outcomes. Confidence in future success is based largely on confidence in past performance. Students' self-efficacy plays a large part in determining the effort that will be expended in learning activities and as a consequence often has a significant impact on achievement (Bandura, 1986). Collaborative learning environments can lead to higher self-efficacy and achievement as well as more appropriate classroom behaviours (Moriarty, Douglas Punch & Hattie, 1995). As well as this, collaborative learning promotes self-direction in the learning by creating opportunities for learners to define their own goals and to determine how these goals are best met (Hughes-Caplow & Kardash, 1995).

Computers have long been used to support collaboration and interaction among learners in classroom settings. When the computer is brought into the field as a mediating influence in collaborative activities, many more options and possibilities are opened up. The use of computers as an instructional tool creates forms of learning environment with their own unique characteristics and features. Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) describes an environment in which learning is enhanced through the joint use of computers.

Computers provide a stimulus for learning by increasing social interactions and cooperation (eg. Hoyles, Healy & Pozzi, 1992). Hoyles, Healy & Pozzi (1994) report quite powerful interactions between students involved in computer-based tasks where the collaboration was seen to lead to higher-order thinking, hypothesis formation and reflection. Light (1993) reports on a review of studies which investigated the potential of computers to enhance group work and provides quite convincing evidence of the value of groupwork and collaboration and its positive impact on productive learner dialogue, interchange of ideas and negotiation of solutions.

In most contemporary settings the learners collaborate by sharing a computer and a learning task, but the use of modern communication technologies now makes it possible for the learning and collaboration to occur at a distance. This creates many new and powerful opportunities (eg. Crook, 1994). Many educators are now investigating how enhanced learning can be achieved among isolated learners sharing computer resources and connected through networks. This line of inquiry promises to provide powerful opportunities for distance education and open learning and the convergence of these with on-campus teaching.

It was these opportunities that prompted and guided the Web-FAQ project which is the subject of this paper. This project involved the development of a resource sharing facility whose use in collaborative settings has the prospect to solve some dilemmas facing the teachers and tutors in IMM 1102, Interactive Multimedia Foundations 2, one of the units in the undergraduate interactive multimedia degree at ECU.

IMM 1102 is a core unit and necessarily enrols many students. It deals with introductory multimedia authoring and is designed to introduce students to the principles and processes associated with multimedia development. In the past, there have been some serious problems facing the teaching staff in this unit brought about by the large numbers of students enrolled and the diverse nature of their backgrounds and experience. In some instances, students are technology novices with little or no computing experience and for whom the unit is their first introduction to computers. In other instances, students are completely at ease with computer technology and the authoring environment having worked with both for many years. Between these two extremes are students whose skills, knowledge and experience describe a continuum. Catering for the individual needs of the students in this unit is difficult and problematic. The novice students have many problems with the course and often find it difficult to build the necessary knowledge and skills in the short time provided. The expert students can find parts of the course elementary and unchallenging.

To provide a potential solution we have developed is a WWW-based support system built around the concept of a bulletin board. It was our idea to provide students with a mechanism and a purpose to share resources in a way that all students could benefit. We planned an on-line system for the unit that would support flexible learning through resource sharing. In designing the system we wanted to support both novice and experienced students and to provide a medium in which there was a free and meaningful flow communication and ideas between the learners. The system we finally developed appears to provide a unique solution to our problem but one which has many applications at the university level.

The system has 4 main components: a questions and answers section, a frequently asked questions section, a section showing authoring tips and tricks and submit URLs. The system has been designed to enable students to share resources through the use of dynamic web pages either as novices trying to find the solutions to problems or as experts providing help and guidance to others in the class.

1. The questions and answers section has been designed so that students can post a problem together with the program segment in which the problem has been identified. Expert students, or tutors, who can solve the problem are able to download the program segment, create a fix and post the revised segment back with appropriate explanation.
1. The frequently asked questions section provide a facility for the lecturer to post examples of common problems and questions together with solutions. This component of the system has been built with links to the post a problem database. Through this the lecturer can add examples to this section from one semester to the next, reflecting the discrete areas of the course where problems have been found to exist.
1. The tips and tricks section is free space for students who have discovered or created interesting and challenging modules or program segments which they are happy to share. This section provides an outlet for the creative work of the students with more experience and expertise and at the same time supports the learning of those students with less experience and exposure to the authoring language being studied.
1. The remaining section, submit URLs, is a dynamic page to which students can post links to relevant WWW sites. Most authoring languages are supported by a wealth of on-line material and this facility provides the students with the opportunity and a reason to explore these sites and to share their research with others.

The philosophy behind the system is to enable and encourage the experienced and competent students to provide pee-tutoring and coaching and support for others in the class. At the same time, it encourages those with problems to seek help from peers and to be proactive in the learning process. The bulletin board acts as a dynamic database which grows as students use the system and provides the forms of learning support usually given by tutors and lecturers.

The system required some rather complex programming in its design and development. The system uses forms to pass the descriptive data and files from the client to the server. A database is used to store the files and descriptions and a series of Javascripts and cookies have been used to provide the necessary information to the server to record paths and IP addresses to support the download features. The system has been designed in a very flexible manner and can easily be duplicated in its entirety for use in other units. After initial implementations we expect to discover many new and useful variations that could increase and extend its application beyond the immediate setting in which it is now being used.

Perhaps the major task facing us now is to create a meaningful place for the system in the course learning environment. The system has been designed as a learner-support and its usefulness to students will very much depend on the extent of use it receives. There will be a need to establish a critical mass of users to maintain a flow of information and to make it a resource which students are keen to use and find value from its use. Some of the issues which are planning to address in our initial implementation include:

• ways to motivate and encourage initial use of the system to build an initial database of resources and materials;
• ways to encourage students to see the system as an important part of the learning process and to actively use it for information interchange;
• ways to encourage the more capable students in the class to spend the time to view postings and to submit solutions, and tips and tricks.

The system has much more prospect for success in support of flexible and open learning than it appears to have in support of on-campus and instructor-led learning. Students using the system on-campus already have access to quite strong collaborative peer-support systems. Those who choose to work away from the campus will find much more value and use from this system. We suspect, however, that there is a high degree of scope to use the system in various ways to create more collaborative learning environments. There is, for example, the potential to be able to frame collaborative assessment activities which require students to work on various components of a large program or system and where our dynamic system could be used to support the sharing and transmission of segments and modules as is often the case in commercial examples of large systems development.

In its current form, we see the system as being a strong support for cooperative learning where students can help and assist each other. The move to have it support collaborative learning will require students to be able to use it in instances where they are looking to achieve shared goals and outcomes, in instances where they are working to common goals in which the combined actions of the students plays as important a role as the discrete actions.

The potential success of the system is very much dependent on the extent of the use which it receives. As a support system, it is not an essential component of the course and it may be more useful and helpful for some students rather than others. We are very keen to establish ways in which we can encourage all students to see value in using the system and to see the levels of sustainable use that can be achieved. Our initial task will be to link the system to aspects of the coursework so that students will see the system as an integral component of the course more than a supplement. Once students are comfortable with the system and have some sense of its utility, we expect that they will take the time needed to gain benefit from its use. We are very much aware of the fact that in instances where learners are provided with high degrees of autonomy, their choices must be respected and we must develop strategies which the learners value and see as worthwhile if we are to succeed with this system in its current form.

This paper has described the rationale and educational need behind WEB-faq, a dynamic web-based system to support student learning in an introductory authoring course. The Web-FAQ system has 4 main components: a questions and answers section, a frequently asked questions section, a section showing authoring tips and tricks and a submit URLs section. It has been designed to enable students to share resources through the use of dynamic web pages either as novices trying to find the solutions to problems or as experts providing help and guidance to others in the class. It is built around the concept of a bulletin board and helps to support flexible learning through resource sharing.

The system has 4 main components: a questions and answers section, a frequently asked questions section, a section showing authoring tips and tricks and submit URLs. The system has been designed to enable students to share resources through the use of dynamic web pages either as novices trying to find the solutions to problems or as experts providing help and guidance to others in the class.

We are currently in the throes of exploring various implementation strategies to support and encourage student use of the system. We are very keen to encourage other people to look for ways in which they might use this system or variations on it as supports to their instructional programs. It was our intention in designing the system to create a generic and content-free WWW support system which could be used in a variety of courses and units. Our future research and development will be focussed on exploring ways to improve the system as a support for flexible and open learning and to look for ways to implement it in other units and courses.

© Ron Oliver, Arshad Omari, Ken Knibb

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