ERIC EJ1144036: Integrating a Web-Based Discussion Forum and Student Peer Feedback into a High-Enrollment IS Class: Expectations and Outcomes

2013·0.48 MB·English

by  ERIC

Integrating a Web-Based Discussion Forum and
Student Peer Feedback into a High-Enrollment IS Class:
Expectations and Outcomes
James L. Sager
Department of Accounting and Management Information Systems
California State University, Chico
Chico, California
Fang Chen
Department of Accounting and Finance
Asper School of Business, University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
ABSTRACT
This paper presents results from using an asynchronous Web-based discussion forum coupled with
an integrated student peer rating system as one component of an introductory Information Systems
(IS) course with high enrollment (e.g. a class with over 100 students). There are two major issues
with the typical introductory IS course: it covers too many topics, and it is difficult to engage students
in active learning in a classroom environment due to large class sizes. To address these issues, an
open source discussion forum was modified and used for topical discussion outside of the classroom.
Students were allowed to participate in a discussion about topics of their choice and were encouraged
to rate their peers’ contribution in forum. Overall, students evaluated the online forum discussion
positively and provided suggestions for improvement.
INTRODUCTION In this paper, we illustrate how an online fo-
rum discussion can be used to improve students’
Using information systems (IS) is a pervasive learning process and learning outcomes in such
organization phenomenon; it is hard to imagine a large introductory course. An online discus-
that any organization could survive in today’s sion forum (or simply a forum) is a Web-based
business environment without support from application that provides the ability to host a
some type of information system. A basic under- persistent threaded discussion. Three objectives
standing of IS, therefore, is usually a requirement provide guidance for designing an online forum
for undergraduate business students. In a typi- discussion: 1) to make the learning experience
cal undergraduate business program, students enjoyable, 2) to increase students’ interest in IS
are first exposed to IS in an introductory course. topics, and 3) to increase students’ understand-
As Bakke and his colleagues (Bakke, et al, 2007) ing of IS topics. In sum, the purpose of the online
point out, this introductory course is often too forum discussion is to increase students’ learning
large, covers “a vast array of subjects”, focuses in an enjoyable way.
“too broadly on most topics”, enrolls students
with “a variety of backgrounds and interests”, The remainder of the paper is organized as fol-
and is often perceived as “impersonal”. Moreover, lows. In section 2, we explain issues with the
students “often enroll in these courses primarily typical introductory IS course and discuss two
to satisfy graduation requirements rather than pedagogical principles guiding the design of the
to satisfy an inherent interest in the subject mat- online forum that we used. In section 3, we de-
ter. Hence, neither students nor professors are scribe how the forum was implemented in a high-
satisfied with the learning experience and, more enrollment class over three successive semesters.
importantly, graduates from business schools do In section 4, we evaluate the effectiveness of us-
not master fundamental IS skills before entering ing the online forum and, in section 5, we discuss
the professional world.” implications of online forum use.
Journal of Learning in Higher Education
25
James L. Sager & Fang Chen
DESIGN ONLINE FORUM DISCUSSION There is consensus among pedagogi-
cal researchers that active learning
techniques have a positive impact
Issues with Introductory IS Courses
on the quality of students’ learning
While the content covered in an introductory (Astin, 1984; Association of Ameri-
IS course varies from university to university, can Colleges, 1986; Miller, 1988;
the primary goal of the course is more or less Bonwell and Eison, 1991; House,
the same: students need to obtain a basic under- 2002; Kvam, 2002; McClanahan
standing of the technological, managerial, and and MCClanahan, 2002; Udovic
societal aspect of IS. In other words, students et al., 2002). Active learning theory
need to understand how IS works, how IS can be suggests that students become an
used to facilitate business processes and manage- integral part of learning process by
ment decision making, and what societal issues studying ideas, solving problems, and
arise from use of an IS. To accomplish this goal, applying what they learn.
a variety of topics are typically covered: different Since many students are not bold enough to
types of information systems used by organiza- speak up in a large section class, discussion often
tions, database design and management, comput- resembles a private conversation between the in-
er networking, wireless technology, the system structor and a few of the most outgoing students
development life cycle, and IS project budget- rather than a broader dialog. Some students may
ing and management. The underlying problem be afraid of being embarrassed if they do not an-
of covering so many topics in a single course is swer questions correctly or if they ask a “stupid”
that instructors are not able to offer in-depth question. As a result, students often become pas-
discussion for any of the topics. Moreover, stu- sive listeners rather than active participants in
dents who have different background knowledge the class. Given the difficulty in providing a class-
or different interests in the various IS topics may room environment that supports active learning,
prefer to delve deeper into some topics while sim- we chose to create an opportunity outside of the
ply ignoring others. It is unlikely that in-class lec- classroom that would encourages students to ac-
tures and discussions, even when supplemented tively seek information about course-related top-
with first-rate text-books, will be able to meet all ics of interest.
needs of all students.
The second principle guiding our forum is to
Another issue with the introductory IS class is allow students to control some aspects of the
that it is often too large, sometimes enrolling learning process. In addition to choosing topics
more than 100 students in a section. In such a of interests for the online discussion, they can
large class, meaningful student engagement is also choose the time and place to participate
difficult to accomplish. Typically, a handful of in the discussion. Researchers have shown that
students will regularly participate in class discus- people are more motivated to do or complete a
sions, but many students are simply unprepared, task when they have choices regarding the task
passive, or silent (Felder, 1997; Bhagyavati et al., (Bakke, et al, 2007, Malone, 1980; Lepper and
2005). To address both content and size issues, Malone, 1987; Liao and Tai, 2006) or have an
we provided our students with an online discus- opportunity to regulate their learning process
sion forum where they were encouraged to ex- (Csikszentmihalyi, 2000; Lin and Hsieh, 2001;
plore topics by posting links to recent IS-related Zimbardo, 2005).
articles found on the Web and by discussing the
articles posted.
USING ONLINE FORUM DISCUSSION
TO FACILITATING LEARNING
Two Pedagogical Principles Guiding Our
Design of Online Forum Gill (2006) listed several ways to use an online fo-
rum to facilitate students’ learning: A forum can
Two pedagogical principles guided our use of an be used to support assignments so that students
online forum for the introductory IS course. The can share ideas. A forum can engage students in
first principle was to engage students in active case discussion or debate. A forum can also be
learning. As pointed out by Bakke and his col- used as a tool for workflow control, archival stor-
leagues (Bakke, et. al, 2007) age, and monitoring, so that multiple classes over
26 Spring 2013 (Volume 9 Issue 1)
Integrating a Web-Based Discussion Forum and Student Peer Feedback into a High-Enrollment IS Class
several semesters can accomplish a large project. students’ forum use for dialogue on the various
In our case, an online forum was primarily used IS topics.
for topical discussion.
In the first week of class in the Fall 2006 semes-
The potential for forum discussions to enhance ter, students were tasked with locating 6 current
student participation and learner outcomes has and unique online articles (no more than 6 weeks
previously been established (Anderson and El- old) and then initiating discussion threads in
loumi, 2004, Corich et al., 2004). However, the forum by posting the URL of the article, a
providing students with pertinent feedback short synopsis, and, most importantly, a personal
and assigning a graded component for student reflection concerning implications for individu-
contributions remains problematic – especially als, organizations, or society at large. Students
for high-enrollment classes (> 100 students) in were also tasked with, over the course of the se-
which forum participation accounts for a signifi- mester, reviewing and rating 18 of the articles (or
cant portion of the overall grade in the course. As threads) posted by their classmates. Peer ratings
class size increases and instructional resources re- were indicated by a simple one star to five star rat-
main fixed, the quality of feedback that students ing reflecting the degree to which the article and
receive (if they receive any at all) inevitably de- originator’s review was found to be interesting
teriorates to the point of being superficial (Rust, or helpful. Figure 1 presents an example discus-
2001). To overcome these problems, the existing sion thread with associated reviews/ratings. The
ratings feature in an open source forum prod- forum used for this study in one course section
uct (JForum - www.jforum.net) was modified during the spring of 2008 can viewed online at
to serve as a peer assessment mechanism suited http://cisr.cob.csuchico.edu/JForum2008S01/.
for our purposes. Although student peer assess-
For each discussion thread a student originated,
ment may at times be biased or more lenient than
the student earned 12 participation points. In
instructor feedback, it can potentially provide
addition, a student earned 4 points for each re-
timelier and more voluminous feedback than a
view/rating posted. If, on average, a discussion
single instructor can muster - advantages that
thread was peer rated at 3 stars, 2 additional
outweigh a certain degree of irregular quality
points (14 pts. total) were rewarded to the origi-
(Nilson, 2002-2003). In addition, students’ ac-
nator. A thread which averaged 4 stars received
cumulated peer ratings were used as one factor
an additional 5 points (17 pts. total) and a 5-star
in determining forum and course participation
thread received 9 bonus points (21 pts. total).
scores.
Factoring students’ peer ratings into their over-
We used the online forum for a large IS introduc- all scores for forum participation was viewed as
tory class in the fall 2006, spring 2007, fall 2007, a means to encourage interesting and non-trivial
and spring 2008 semesters. In each semester, two contributions. Students were allowed to post bo-
sections were offered, one in a lecture hall with nus threads or reviews not to exceed 150 percent
a capacity of 180 seats and the other in a lecture of the minimum requirements. In total, it was
room seating 140 students. The implementation possible for a student to earn 300 points (30%) of
and usage of the online forum varied slightly their overall course grade through forum partici-
from semester to semester as we imposed addi- pation. Previous research indicated that when
tional posting constraints in the second academic used in an educational setting, forum participa-
year and added a new features allowing students’ tion needs to account for a significant portion of
to view their “real-time” accumulated forum a student’s overall grade or it will not be taken se-
participation points online. Initially, there were riously. Percentages between 30% and 50% have
two major posting areas on our forum: 1) “Lab”, been suggested (Bhagyavati et al., 2005).
where students were to post questions about lab
Our early observation of students’ forum use was
sessions held over the course of the semester, and
disappointing to us in that some students only
2) “IS Topics”, which were grouped into various
input very brief comments about articles posted
subject areas such as hardware, software, IT and
by others. Responses such as “great” or “sounds
the environment, and IT and ethics. In practice,
interesting” were not uncommon. To encourage
students seldom used the forum to discuss their
students to input more detailed commentary, we
lab assignments. As the lab discussion com-
imposed an additional requirement mid-semes-
ponent was not a high priority for pedagogical
ter insisting that students provide postings of no
purposes, we will therefore focus our analysis on
Journal of Learning in Higher Education 27
James L. Sager & Fang Chen
Figure 1
Sample Forum Posting
Figure 1: Sample Forum Posting
fewer than 50 words when starting a new thread, The forum assignment was due to be completed
and no fewer than 25 words when making a fol- anytime before final exams. Therefore, students
low-on posting to an existing thread. Subsequent could choose when to do the assignment - i.e.
observation indicated that this requirement not which articles to post and which threaded dis-
only reduced the number of trivial postings but cussions to respond to. This allowed students to
also reinforced the requirement that students control their learning experience in terms of time
support their opinions by citing additional facts frame and content. It also encouraged students
or relating personal experiences. In subsequent to engage in active learning: they had to explore
semesters, we imposed these word length require- the Web to find articles in which they were in-
ments from the outset. terested and make a judgment about whether or
not the articles might be of interest to or generate
For the 2006-07 classes, students needed to man-
higher ratings from their classmates. They would
ually compute the points accumulated from their
need to actively think about the contents of the
various postings or else wait until the instructor
articles since they had to summarize them and
posted points after running a batch calculation
comments about them. Also, they had to read
process. In other words, even though students
others’ posting and respond to those. The un-
could calculate points for themselves, they did
hurried, interactive atmosphere provided by the
not have immediate access to a single score show-
forum was expected to nurture a positive learn-
ing their total forum participation points. For
ing environment and, ideally, increase students’
the academic year 07-08 classes, the forum soft-
interest in the class and their understanding of
ware was modified to calculate average ratings
IS topics.
and point totals on an on-demand basis. This
added feature was well received by students.
28 Spring 2013 (Volume 9 Issue 1)
Integrating a Web-Based Discussion Forum and Student Peer Feedback into a High-Enrollment IS Class
Figure 2
Postings by Week
Figure 2: Postings by Week
EVALUATE EFFECTIVENESS OF of the overall requirements (3 articles and 9 re-
ONLINE FORUM views) in any one-week period. The effect of the
additional constraint can be seen in the chart
There can be both objective and subjective mea- of AY 07-08 postings in which the number of
sures of the effectiveness of using an online fo- postings in the final week of class is actually less
rum. One objective measure is the number of than the prior week’s tally. Even so, forum activ-
participant logins. According to Gill (2006), if ity was still heavily weighted towards the last 3
forum participation is voluntary, then usage or weeks of the semester. In order for students to
activity statistics become important indicators of have a better opportunity to engage in thought-
success. In our study, forum participation was a ful discussions over the course of the semester, we
requirement in all semesters. Moreover, Jforum, believe that an even more finely grained posting
the particular forum software that we imple- schedule should be instituted and enforced by
mented, was not configured to track individual the software.
login events. Nonetheless, charting the number
of forum postings created on a week-by-week In addition to objective measures of forum suc-
basis does provide an indication of the level of cess, Gill (2006) suggested capturing subjective
student engagement. The two summary charts measures and points out that measures of a tech-
presented below depict the pattern of posting fre- nology’s impact on educational outcomes such
quency over the 06-07 and 07-08 academic years. as performance and satisfaction are important
for situations in which participation is manda-
From the 06-07 posting chart, it is apparent tory. Gill (2006) further reports that a detailed
that many students waited until very late in the analysis of individual student contributions is
semester to complete the forum assignment. In sometimes used to measure performance (e.g.,
mid-semester, students were posting at a rate Hazari, 2004; Gill, 2005). Characteristics such
of only one entry every two weeks. In the final as length, breadth, depth and quality can be used
week of the semester, however, there were 3375 to assess overall discussion performance (Benbu-
postings – an average of 6 postings per student. nan-Fich, 2002). Although we did not perform
We had hoped that our students would use the detailed textual analysis of students’ postings, we
forum more consistently over the course of the did gather self-report data from students in the
semester, but, in fact, more than half of all post- 12th week of the spring 2008 semester using an
ings were accomplished in the final two weeks of online survey instrument. The survey consisted
the semester. The observed frenzy of last-minute primarily of 7-point Likert-style questions but
postings was disconcerting. In an attempt to also included one open-ended question for stu-
counteract what we viewed as wholesale procras- dent comments. In most cases, we used multiple
tination, we programmed a change to the forum questions to assess student perceptions of forum
software to disallow posting of more than half characteristics. Although participation in the
Journal of Learning in Higher Education 29
James L. Sager & Fang Chen
survey was voluntary, students were encouraged For objective #3 we used four questions to assess
to participate with an incentive of 25 class par- what students learned from the discussion: 1)
ticipation points, a 2.5% bonus. Students were Online forum discussion helps me to know the
required to have earned at least 50 points in the latest trends in computing technology, 2) Online
online forum before becoming eligible to com- forum discussion increased my understanding of
plete the survey and the 50-point rule was en- technological aspect of IS (e.g., how a particular
forced by software. Across both sections of the technology works), 3) Online forum discussion
course, 188 out of 287 students total completed increased my understanding of managerial as-
the questionnaire – a participation rate of 65.5%. pect of IS (e.g., how can a technology facilitate
business processes in organizations), and 4) On-
Our survey results indicated that students put a
line forum discussion increased my understand-
reasonable amount of effort into online forum
ing of societal impact of IS (e.g., legal or ethical
discussion (Mean = 5.1) even though they did
issues caused by IS). Student responses indicated
not report being particularly motivated to par-
that the online forum helped them learn the lat-
ticipate (Mean = 4.60). Generally, students rated
est trends (Mean = 5.31) and societal impacts of
online discussion quality quite positively along
computing technology (Mean = 5.10) more than
the dimensions of discussion breadth (Mean =
technological (Mean = 4.82) and managerial as-
5.27), discussion depth (Mean = 5.03), and over-
pect of IS (Mean = 4.81). Students also moder-
all discussion quality (Mean = 5.28).
ately agreed with the statement “I obtained use-
Briggs, et al. (2003) suggested that subjective ful information that I would otherwise not able
measures of user satisfaction are appropriate for to obtain if not from online forum discussion”
cases involving group interaction. Our survey (Mean = 4.94).
used two survey questions to estimate user sat-
We conducted a correlation test between stu-
isfaction. Students reported being moderately
dents’ overall evaluation of online forum qual-
satisfied with both the way the forum discus-
ity and the number of points earned to date
sion was used (Mean = 5.19) and with how much
(R2=0.15, p=0.022) and a correlation test be-
they learned from the online discussion (Mean
tween points earned and learning outcome sat-
= 4.98).
isfaction (R2=0.18, p=0.027). The significance
According to Gill (2006), the final category of of the correlations indicate that students who
effectiveness that should be considered is the de- had used the online forum discussion to a greater
gree to which a group discussion meets its design degree and had earned more points for doing so
objectives. There were three objectives for our were more likely to report a favorable view of the
online forum: 1) Make the learning experience online forum experience.
enjoyable, 2) increase students’ interest in IS top-
To get a more in-depth understanding of stu-
ics, and 3) increase students’ understanding of IS.
dents’ feedback, we added the following ques-
We used three questions to estimate attainment
tion at the end of the survey “Please write any
of objective of our first objective: 1) I enjoyed par-
additional comments”. Of the 88 students who
ticipating in the online forum discussion (Mean
provided additional comments, 3 wrote unre-
= 4.82), 2) the online forum discussion was an
lated comments, and only 7 expressed negative
enjoyable way to learn about IS topics (Mean =
opinions regarding the forum assignment. The
5.09), and 3) I had fun reading the articles and
remaining 78 comments provided either neutral
comments posted on the online forum (Mean =
or positive overall evaluations. A summary of
5.07). Overall, our students agreed to a moderate
the positive remarks were that the online forum
degree that online forum discussion was enjoy-
was easy to use, it was a fun and informative way
able.
to learn about IS, it helped students learn some-
For objective #2, we used two questions: 1) In thing that they would not have explored on their
general, the online forum discussion increased own, and it was a good way to communicate and
my interest in IS topics (Mean = 4.76), and 2) interact with other students in such a large class.
as a result of participating in the online forum The following are examples of comments made
discussion, I become more interested in IS topics by our students.
(Mean = 4.60). Overall, students reported only
a slight increase in interest in IS topics resulting Forum helped all of the students engage
from their forum use. in IT discussions
30 Spring 2013 (Volume 9 Issue 1)
Integrating a Web-Based Discussion Forum and Student Peer Feedback into a High-Enrollment IS Class
I found the forum very interesting. I I think it would be more effective if the
really liked the responses I got back on requirements were spread out more. for
some of my articles and it was nice to example having a post due once a month
get other people’s opinions on certain rather than four at the end.
topics. I think that the forum was user-
friendly and informative. I did enjoy the forum, but thought there
were almost too many postings required.
I enjoyed using the forum [for the class]. I think that each student should have to
It enabled me to interact with my class- post 2-3 articles, and maybe 8-10 replies.
mates, learn interesting and new facts,
and learn more about what is going on in The point system was confusing.
the business world.
While the majority of the written comments
were quite positive, we wondered why the stu-
It is a good idea because it forces you
dents’ overall rating was lukewarm. There might
to learn something that you probably
be several explanations: First, those students most
wouldn’t have if it weren’t for the forum.
likely to take time to type in a specific comment
might have been those who had the most posi-
The Forum was a good way to gain infor-
tive overall experience using the forum, whereas
mation about new issues in the technol-
students who had negative overall perceptions
ogy market. Instead of doing research
of forum use may have chosen not to comment.
yourself, it was a collaborative effort by
Second, many students simply had little interest
the entire class and a whole cornucopia
in the class or in the various IS topics. They took
of different topics were brought up and
the class simply to fulfill a business school gradu-
you could find something interesting
ation requirement and not out of any inherent
with relative little research.
interest. As a result, they may have cared little
about the instructional methods or how much
I thought the forums were very infor-
they actually learned. The following three com-
mative. I really did learn a lot about
ments provide examples:
current computer related issues that I
would have normally never have learned. I understand the need for a forum and,
I think the forums were the best part of for a class like this, it is an appropriate
[the class]. addition. But I did not enjoy being re-
quired to post topics, especially when,
Students also made suggestions regarding ways to
even though I have respect for all com-
improve the online forum discussion. A number
puter topics, have very little interest in
of students observed that many of their class-
the topics.
mates waited until the last minute to participate
in the online discussion and they suggested that
The forum is a cool feature. But it isn’t
there should be a means to spread the posting ac-
something that kept me interested in IT.
tivity across the entire semester rather than have
This can be due to my already existing
it cluster at the very end. Students also suggested
lack of interest in IT.
that there should be improved quality control to
ensure that posting are more relevant to the as-
I found the forum very challenging be-
signed topics of discussion. Students further sug-
cause the information learned in this
gested that scoring their participation in the fo-
class does not interest me very much. I
rum should be more explicit and straightforward
know that it is very useful, and you did
and that there should be fewer postings required
a great job with the class! I think the fo-
of each student. Among the comments we re-
rum made me think about IS in a more
ceived regarding students’ posting habits were
critical way then I normally would have.
the following:
In regards to the peer rating component of the
“I like the [forum] requirement. Maybe
forum assignment, only four students expressed
requiring a certain # of postings by the
negative comments explicitly about this feature.
midterm might help spread out the post-
One student suggested that the grading should
ings a little more.
Journal of Learning in Higher Education 31
James L. Sager & Fang Chen
be based entirely on the teacher’s evaluation and however, able to use timestamp data to track the
not on peer evaluations because the popular- rate at which postings were made over the course
ity factor forced students to choose articles that of the semester and we charted this on a week-by-
their college students peers would find inherently week basis. Second, we did not conduct content
interesting. For example, postings regarding Ap- analysis of students’ postings in order to assess
ple’s iPhones and other mobile devices were very the depth, breadth, and overall quality of forum
popular as were postings regarding sustainability discussion. Instead of having both objective and
or green computing. subjective measures, we used students’ self-report
data to gauge discussion quality.
In sum, while students’ overall evaluation of
the online forum discussion was positive, there Overall, students’ rating of the online forum
might not be too much room for instructors to discussion was lukewarm, and not as good as we
increase student interests in IS topics where that had anticipated. We speculate that the reasons
interest is lacking before students enter the class- behind the lukewarm reception may include: 1)
room. our students in general lack any inherent inter-
ests in IS topics before enrolling in the class and,
as a result, it was difficult to motivate them to
DISCUSSION
engage more deeply in the learning process; 2)
A typical IS introductory course usually faces the content of the forum discussion was allowed
two challenges. One challenge is that there are to diverge into topics related to lecture content
too many topics to allow in-depth discussion of but not explicitly mentioned or covered in class
any particular topic. The other challenge is that lectures. Therefore, many students may not un-
class sizes are often too large to engage students derstand all of the concepts needed for discus-
in meaningful class participation. To address sion of a particular IS-related topic brought up
both challenges, we used a Web-based discussion in the forum; and 3) many students postponed
forum complemented with an integrated peer- their engagement in the online discussions until
rating system for discussion of IS topics outside of the final weeks of class. This phenomenon re-
the classroom. Based on statistics regarding stu- sulted in a foreshortened span of time for many
dents’ participation and students’ survey results, discussions and precluded students’ having the
the forum was largely a success. First, the forum in-depth learning experience we had expected.
involved students in discussion to a greater ex- As for issue #1, students’ lack of interest, in fu-
tent than classroom discussion did. For a typical ture studies we believe it will be informative to
high-enrollment class, classroom participation assess students’ interest in IS topics and IS classes
is limited to a small cadre of students, whereas both at the beginning of the semester and then
our online forum discussion involved nearly all again toward the end of the semester. This would
students in discussion of multiple topics. Sec- allow for an estimate of the degree to which the
ond, according to our survey, students agreed to online forum in particular and the IS course in
a moderate degree that the online forum discus- general served to increase students’ interests in IS
sion was enjoyable and that their interests in and topics. In regards to issues #2 and #3, we antici-
learning about IS topics had been increased due pate that requiring a weekly posting on a topic
to involvement in the forum discussion. The peer covered either in lecture or in the assigned read-
rating system was also well accepted by most stu- ings might serve to supply additional motivation
dents. In sum, the online forum did allow stu- and to keep discussion focused on topics upon
dents to engage in a wider exploration of topics which all students should be able to converse. In
of interests, and many students encountered in- addition, as instructors, we might also post some
formation they otherwise might not have inves- “seed” articles for a particular week for students
tigated. to read and comment upon. By doing so, we have
a ready mechanism to make available additional
Although the forum use appears to have been
ad-hoc reading material that complements our
moderately successful, the following limitations
basic course content. In addition, we have a venue
should be borne in mind when evaluating our
by which to influence the course of “outside” dis-
results. First, we did not record the number of
cussion.
logins for individual students. Doing so may
have given us more insight into the degree of Despite the challenges discussed above, we be-
students’ engagement with the forum. We were, lieve that online forum software can be used
32 Spring 2013 (Volume 9 Issue 1)
Integrating a Web-Based Discussion Forum and Student Peer Feedback into a High-Enrollment IS Class
(and also improved or customized) by other in- of Instructional Technology and Distance
structors in order to increase student learning Learning, Vol.1, No. 12, pp. 3-12.
outcomes in an IS introductory course. We hope
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000) “Beyond Boredom
that sharing our experiences will give other in-
and Anxiety,” 25th Anniversary Edition. Jos-
structors (and developers) insights into the use
sey-Bass Publishings, San Francisco.
of, and possible enhancements to the design of,
online forum systems. Felder, R. M. (1997) “Beating the Numbers
Game: Effective Teaching in Large Classes,”
retrieved March 1, 2006. http://www.ncsu.
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Appendix A
Objective 1 (make learning experience more enjoyable): question 5, 6, and 7
Objective 2 (increase students’ interest in IS topics): question 8 and 9.
Objective 3 (increase students’ understanding of IS topics): question10, 11, 12, 13.
Usefulness of online forum: 14.
Perceived motivation, 18
Perceived effort: 16, 17, 18, and 19
Discussion quality: 20, 21, and 22.
Peer rating feature: 23
Peer rating quality: 24 and 25
Satisfaction: 26 and 27
34 Spring 2013 (Volume 9 Issue 1)