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.

This research attempts to answer the following question: What is the form of the organization of work between the design teams and tutors and how does it impact the work of tutors? Semi-structured individual interviews with 44 respondents from four schools, three Canadian and one european, along with 8 group interviews were conducted. The results show difficulties that are particularly significant concerning the division of labour, the com-©Auteur(s). Cette oeuvre, disponible à

Dans la foulée des préoccupations concernant les taux d’abandon et le manque d’interactions dans les formations ouvertes et à distance, nous avons expérimenté une forme d’encadrement collectif de type « un à plusieurs » à l’aide de rencontres par visioconférence Web, suivant une méthodologie de type « design-based experiment ». Trois établissements de formation à distance de niveau postsecondaire participent à l’expérience depuis quelques sessions. Les données quantitatives (questionnaires et traces laissées dans les logiciels) et qualitatives (entrevues) révèlent que la participation aux visioconférences, bien que de plus en plus importante d’une itération à l’autre, est plus importante dans le modèle autorythmé de la TÉLUQ. La visioconférence Web permet de véhiculer la présence transactionnelle du tuteur, celle-ci étant davantage orientée vers l’aspect du soutien cognitif à la FEP et vers les aspects relationnels à la TÉLUQ. En ce qui concerne la perception de la valeur des visioconférences, l’aspect de l’intérêt des visioconférences ressort plus nettement que celui de l’utilité. Les perceptions développées par les étudiants semblent liées à la manière dont les tuteurs ont mené les visioconférences, mais possiblement aussi à des besoins relationnels et à des besoins de soutien cognitif plus importants dans le modèle autorythmé.In the context of concerns over the high attrition rates in distance education, we experimented a particular form of student support activities relying on one to many communication based on Web conferences led by tutors. Three postsecondary institutions collaborated in this research. Quantitative (questionnaires and traces) and qualitative data (interviews) were collected and show that participation has grown and reached its peak at TÉLUQ’s iteration. In all three cases perceived value of these activities as well as tutors transactional presence perception were positive. Interest in Web conferencing was stronger than perceived usefulness. Cognitive aspects of tutors transactional presence were stronger at Université de Montréal while relational aspects were stronger at TÉLUQ. These perceptions seem linked to the fashion in which Web conferences were led by different tutors, but they may also depend on particular cognitive and/or relational needs of students in the self-paced model of TÉLUQ

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