This paper argues that the internet is built around key technology design features of openness, robustness and decentralisation. These design features have transformed into social features, which are embodied within the cultural values of the internet. By examining applications that have become popular on the net, the importance of these values is demonstrated. If e-learning is considered as a sub-set of internet activity, then the types of approaches that will be popular and meaningful for students will be those that appeal to these three core values. An examination of online communities reveals that these are indeed in keeping with these, and provide a valuable learning experience. The community can be seen as a natural conclusion in e-learning driven by the expectations of a generation of learners who have been enculturated into the values of the internet. p. 1

One way of looking at the values of the internet is to ask what social values it seems to champion. This might cover questions such as: p. 1

• What are the social norms expected of behaviour when you join an online community?
• How are you expected to communicate?
• What is unacceptable behaviour?
• What sorts of topics generate online debate?
• What does the online community perceive as threats to its core values?
• Is there such a thing as one set of values for the internet?
• What sort of technologies take oV online and why?
• How do people actually use the diVerent technologies in everyday life? p. 2

Anything that appeals to these three key features of the net, namely openness, decentralisation and robustness, is likely to take oV online. Anything that threatens or impinges these is likely to cause concern and debate. p. 2

The educational motivation for adopting a community-based approach is then set out. These two areas combine to suggest that communities are a natural end point in e-learning, since they meet the three social characteristics and there are powerful pedagogical advantages for their adoption. Some of the issues in realizing e-learning communities are then addressed. p. 3

Napster p. 3

2.2. Blogging p. 4

2.3. Open source p. 5

3. The educational motivation for communities p. 6

There has been some research examining the development of online communities, particularly amongst learners. For example, Brown (2001) suggests that there are three levels of community: p. 6

• Online friends and acquaintances – individuals communicate with other students who they get on with or with whom they share interests.
• Community conferment – this is when students felt a degree of membership to the community of learners. This is gained through participation in threaded, thoughtful discussion.
• Camaraderie – this was the highest level of community, involving signiWcant levels of commitment and involvement. It is usually achieved through prolonged association, for example, when students have studied more than one course together, and often extends beyond the timeframe of the current course. p. 6

The temporal element is interesting, since it may (although not necessarily) be in conXict with other trends in e-learning, such as just-in-time delivery, personalised content and learning objects. Rheingold (1993), one of the gurus of internet community, similarly stresses the importance prolonged discussion plays in the formation of community. He deWnes a virtual community as “social aggregations that emerge from the [Internet] when enough people carry on those public discussions long enough, with suYcient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace”. p. 6

While we have seen some good examples of online communities having beneWts in the learning process, this does not necessarily mean that online communities have inherent features that make them useful in education. It is these more fundamental characteristics we will look at next. p. 7

4. Learning communities as a natural end-point p. 7

Given the reservations above regarding the uptake of online communities as a widespread approach in education, we shall now look at reasons why these reservations may be overcome. If we return to the original three features that determine the success of a technology or service on the internet, we can analyse e-learning communities in the light of these. p. 7

The Wrst of these characteristics is openness. E-learning communities are necessarily open in that all individuals are encouraged to contribute, and the ethics of collaborative activity usually dictate that all contributions are valid. However, in order to prevent them from becoming subject to the same sort of disturbance and attacks as newsgroups have suVered, there may need to be a degree of control over this openness. For example, most universities have a code of conduct for online behaviour, breaches of which can result in the individual being set to read-only status or p. 7

banned altogether. Similarly, access to communities may be limited to individuals within an organization, or on a particular course. p. 8

The key aspect of openness though is that an online community is open to the Xow of material. In many ways, the approach of traditional education has been analogous to that of established broadcast media. p. 8

Decentralization is fundamental to the diVerence between a community approach and traditional approaches, including those adopted by many e-learning providers. Much of the current e-learning material is based around an instructivist pedagogy, and is Wrmly rooted in the belief that ‘content is king’. This is seen with the use of video-lectures, high quality animations, lecture notes, etc. There has been a good deal of interest in constructivist approaches to online learning, and indeed some (e.g., Beaty, Hodgson, Mann, & McConnell, 2002) suggest that e-learning should always be constructivist in approach. p. 8

Castells (2002) argues. He proposes that the internet can enable networks to compete against the traditional centralised models of control in terms of eVective realisation of goals while retaining their advantages of adaptability and Xexibility. The emergence of the network as the most eVective organisational model is, he suggests, the result of three convergent factors: p. 8

1. Changes in the economic climate which have seen the globalisation of business and a demand for Xexibility in management. 2. The social values of individual freedom and freedom of communication. 3. Advances in technology, particularly the internet and related computing. p. 8

The last characteristic is that of robustness. The open source model is again a good analogy here. This is a working model of how knowledge is best created by a community, to the mutual beneWt of all. p. 9

Gongla and Rizzuto (2001) propose a Wve stage model of community evolution: 1. Potential, when the community is starting to form. 2. Building stage, when the community begins to coalesce and deWne itself. p. 9

3. Engaged stage, when the community operates with a deWned and shared purpose. 4. Active stage, when the community reXects and analyzes its own purpose and value. 5. Adaptive stage, when the community may expand into new environments and adapts to external conditions. p. 10

Firstly, if we examine the people element of the triangle, there needs to be an appropriate set of users. p. 10

as I argued above, it is likely that increasingly learners will come to education with an expectation of learning in exactly this way. Perhaps more problematic is having the right input from educators. Again, these need to be willing and enthusiastic, but importantly, they need to adopt new pedagogies. p. 10

The next element in the triangle is that of process. In e-learning terms, this can be said to refer to the pedagogy and the accompanying support structures. From a pedagogical perspective, communities need to form around dialogue, and so approaches that promote this will be successful. An obvious contender here is to include collaborative or cooperative tasks (which help foster the ‘community conferment’ level in Brown’s analysis). Communities can also form around discussion of content, and so content that suggests or promotes dialogue is important (as are educators who foster it). Similarly, activity-based approaches that give students a common experience and ability to share resources can foster community. p. 10

This brings us to the last element in this triumvirate of seeding factors – technology. Easyto-use asynchronous tools, with aVordances for dialogue are usually seen as the sine qua non of an online community. While this may be true, there is some suggestion that synchronous ‘events’ are important in establishing a sense of communal identity. For example, Haythornthwaite, Kazmer, and Robins (2000) claim that, “synchronous communication, particularly during the live lecture times, contributes much more to community building than asynchronous communication”. p. 10

References p. 11

Haythornthwaite, C., Kazmer, M., & Robins, J. (2000). Community development among distance learners: temporal and technological dimensions. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 6, 1. <http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol6/issue1/ haythornthwaite.html> Accessed 3.10.03. p. 11