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In recent years, there has been a rapid growth in the use of social networking tools (e.g., Facebook) and social media in general, mainly for social, recreational, and entertainment purposes (Smith, Salaway, & Caruso, 2009). Many educators believe that these tools offer new educational affordances and avenues for students to interact with each other and with their teachers or tutors. Considering the traditional dropout rate problem documented in distance courses (Rovai, 2003; Woodley, 2004), these tools may be of special interest for distance education institutions as they have the potential to assist in the critical "social integration" associated with persistence (Sweet, 1986; Tinto, 1975). However, as distance students are typically older than regular on-campus students (Bean & Metzner, 1985; Rovai, 2003), little is known about their expertise with social media or their interest in harnessing these tools for informal learning or collaborating with peers. To investigate these issues, an online questionnaire was distributed to students from four large Canadian distance education institutions. A systematic sampling procedure led to 3,462 completed questionnaires. The results show that students have diverse views and experiences, but they also show strong and significant age and gender differences in a variety of measures, as well as an important institution effect on the student's interest in collaboration. Males and younger students scored higher on almost all indicators (past teamwork experience, cooperative preferences, attitudes toward technology, experience with social software, etc.). These age and gender differences should be interpreted cautiously, however, as they are based on self-reported measures. The limits of the study, as well as future developments and research questions, are outlined.

Social media and social networking tools offer new educational affordances and avenues for students to interact, that may alleviate the drop-out rate problem faced by distance education institutions (Rovai, 2003). However, we know little about distance students' expertise with social media or their interest in using them to learn individually or to collaborate with peers.To investigate these issues, an online questionnaire was distributed to students from four large Canadian distance education institutions. A systematic sampling procedure lead to 3462 completed questionnaires. The results show that students have diverse views and experiences, but they also show strong and significant age and gender differences in a variety of measures, as well as an important institution effect for interest in collaboration. Males and younger students score higher on almost all indicators, including cooperative preferences. In this article we review quantitative results from the survey from earlier work (authors, 2011) and present an analysis of the qualitative data gathered from open-ended questions in the survey. Answers to open-ended questions regarding the expectation and interest in using social software in their courses, show that students have positive expectations about interactions and course quality, but also concerns about technical, time, and efficiency issues The limits of the study and future developments and research questions are outlined.

No abstract

As the offer of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) continues to grow around the world, a great deal of MOOC research has focused on their low success rates and used indicators that might be more appropriate for traditional degree-seeking students than for MOOC learners, who, because of the openness of MOOCs, represent a more diverse clientele who exhibit different characteristics and behaviours. In this study, conducted in a French MOOC that is part of the EDUlib initiative, we systematically classified MOOC user profiles based on their behaviour in the open-source learning management system (LMS) — in this case, Sakai — and studied their survival in the MOOC. After formatting the logs in ordinal variables in order to reflect a continuum of participation central to the behavioural engagement concept (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004), we incrementally executed a two-step cluster analysis procedure that led us to identify five different user profiles, after having manually excluded Ghots : Browser, Self-Assessor, Serious Reader, Active-Independent, and Active-Social. These five profiles differed both qualitatively and quantitatively on the continuum of engagement, and a significant proportion of the less active profiles did not drop out of the MOOC. Our results confirm the importance of social behaviours, as in recent typologies, but also point out a new Self-Assessor category. The implications of these profiles for MOOC design are discussed.