Abstract:What makes online communities successful? There are many indicators of success. Some are easily observed and measured, such as the number of people registered in the community, or the number who participate, or the number of messages posted, replied to or read over a certain period. How community members judge their community is also important. What do they like or dislike and how committed are they to the community? In this paper, we describe participatory community-centred development -an approach that relies heavily on iterative evaluation. We then point out that standard evaluation techniques are inadequate for evaluating online communities because they do not address sociability. Finally, we propose two approaches from research that can be tailed for evaluating online communities. Both attempt to draw directly on what community users want. The first is rooted in ethnography and the second is a form of heuristic evaluation. The paper ends with an agenda for developing these approaches to make them practical yet robust.

Context Bedside clinical teaching is the backbone of clerkship education. Data-driven methods for supplementing bedside encounters with standardized content from vetted resources are needed. Objective To compare a flipped-classroom versus an interactive online-only instruction for improving knowledge, skills, self-directed learning (SDL) behaviors, and satisfaction in a medical school clerkship. Methods An IRB-approved prospective study employing a peer-reviewed clinical reasoning curriculum in neurology was conducted; 2nd-4th year medical students rotating through a required clerkship were enrolled. Students were randomized to flipped-classroom (i.e., flipped ) or interactive asynchronous online instruction (i.e., online-only ), which supplemented existing bedside teaching. Baseline and end-of-course knowledge, skill development, SDL behaviors, satisfaction, and long-term retention were assessed by peer-reviewed clinical reasoning exam, NBME scores, faculty/resident clinical evaluations, non-compulsory assignment completion, end-of-clerkship surveys, and objective structured clinical exam (OSCE). Results 104 students (49 flipped , 55 online-only ) were enrolled. Age, gender, and training level did not differ by group (all p > 0.43); baseline knowledge was higher in the flipped group (p = 0.003). Knowledge-based exam scores did not differ by group even after adjusting for differences in baseline knowledge (2.3-points higher in flipped group, 95%CI −0.4–4.8, p = 0.07). Clinical skills were significantly higher in the flipped group, including examination skills (4.2 ± 0.5 vs. 3.9 ± 0.7, p = 0.03) and future housestaff potential (4.8 ± 0.3 vs 4.5 ± 0.6, p = 0.03). Students in the online-only group were more likely to engage in SDL (42 vs. 12%, p = 0.001) and reported more hours studying (6.1 vs. 3.8 hours, p = 0.03). Satisfaction (p = 0.51) and OSCE scores (p = 0.28) were not different by group. Conclusions In this comparative study of two evidence-based curricular delivery approaches, we observed no difference in knowledge acquired. Greater clinical skills were observed with flipped instruction, while more SDL was observed with online-only instruction. Supplementing bedside teaching with blended instruction that balances live skill development with vetted online resources is optimal for clerkship education.

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. E-learning is becoming a major component in academia today. Therefore, the success of e-learning online communities is crucial in order to ensure their permanency and effectiveness. There is a need for formalized guidelines in e-learning that instruct the designer (course instructor) on how to design, maintain, and manage a course. Some research has been done on the subject, but none proposes formalized guidelines, and none draws the results from the users' perspectives. The users, students in this case, should be at the heart of the design and their thoughts, wishes, and needs should be implemented in the user-centered design. In this study, through an iterative testing approach, the researchers formalized and validated a set of design heuristics that instruct an online educator on how to design, manage, deliver, and nurture an e-Learning online community.

It was establkhed early on in this study that aLanguage, Literacy and Culture Program (LLC) site is needed to keep the community connected. A communi&-centered design was considered, and implemented in the fall of1999. The current study was implemented to assess why the site failed and what could be done to revive it.The findings of the current study indicated that the community did not develop as expected despite the team's effort to follow a community-centered approach. In this paper we consider the reasons for the site's failure, and what could be done to revitalize the community. Through surveys, and interviews it was determined that the communiy needed more active participation from the moderator and faculty. They also required a more interactive and better developed design, and special care should be taken to train the members who need it on the use oftechnology involved.

Pete Bradshaw [1]"Our online community provides a dynamic forum for you to discuss current topics and concerns with the wider education community."This quote is taken from the Teachernet website [2], but could be claimed to apply to any number of education sites. Increasingly, online content is being complemented by with opportunities for readers to interact with each other or participate in debate. This article will look at the proliferation of such 'online communities'. It will consider how they might be used to support teachers and school managers, how they might be most effectively used and how 'virtual' communication complements and overlaps with the 'real world'. Finally it challenges the very notion of this dichotomy.