The ubiquity of online programs in higher education requires continued focus on designing instructional environments that improve students’ learning. We examine students’ perceptions of sense of community and learning, as well as academic achievement, using grades obtained from a final project and participation in asynchronous discussion forums. Findings indicate a significant correlation betwe...

purpose: promoting the extension programs is a challenge which extension professionals and planners faced with and detection of influencing factors on programs’ success or fail needs to significant time allocation and commitment, so extension and education programs aim to farmers’ empowerment are very important. today, many farmers are not interested in these programs for several reasons, so fa...

By sponsoring, promoting or simply monitoring virtual communities related to their products, work processes, and other topics of interest, organizations leverage the efforts, insights and abilities of individuals inside and outside their organization. Lurkers are participants who persistently demure from engaging in the core activities that sustain a virtual community. Because virtual communiti...

Upon completion of a graduate level course at the Open University of Israel, one instructor received very high student ratings while the other received very low ratings. We utilized this exceptional situation to perform ad hoc analyses of their course forums. The objective of this study was to map the dialogic behavior that occurred and to create suggestions for best practice and for worst prac...

From News to Chat, electronic discussion groups are widely acknowledged as a popular medium of communication. Unlike electronic mail which is rather easy to handle since it operates on a one-to-one bases, to keep up with forum discussions is extremely demanding. Participation in forums requires a constant effort of selection and attention from the user which goes beyond the limits of cognitive ...

Online communities promote wide access to a vast range of skills and knowledge from a heterogeneous group of users. Yet implementations of various online communities lack consistent participation by the most qualified users. Encouraging such expert participation is crucial to the social welfare and widespread adoption of online community systems. Thus, this research proposes techniques for rewa...