Sociocorpus

This morning I attended a CORE session presented by Gina Revill of Ultraversity. Ultraversity provides what they think is the world’s only degree course that is 100% online and 100% research-based. It is a BA (hons) in Learning, Technology and Research targeted towards people who would otherwise not typically participate in tertiary education.

The course has literally zero content and zero face to face. The first cohort are completing their final requirements at present. Amazingly, only 40% of enrollees dropped out, the staff have not burned out, and Ultraversity hasn’t run out of money.

The “researchers” (students), typically mid-career in jobs like Teaching Assistant, participate in communities of practice along with “learning facilitators” and guest subject matter experts. Their “action inquiry” and “critical reflection” processes typically involve activities relating to their work contexts, and peer review in small groups.

It’s pretty cool that this kind of thing is succeeding. While I am excited about enquiry learning, and how similar it is to the learning taking place in organisations, the questions that jumped out for me were about online participation in general.

Firstly, this course has genuinely created engaging social contexts with no face to face. Of course it doesn’t work for all but those who stayed seem to have had a rich experience. The 100% online approach does not seem to have been an impediment to this. In fact, Gina actually suggested that, in some ways, the online environment creates a more intense social experience than face to face. Everything you “say” is recorded, including if you do not respond. You may have more time to respond but the readers have all the time in the world to evaluate your reply.

Secondly, Gina suggests from her experience that the key to successful online participation is facilitation. Now, I know the value of facilitation. We try to make sure that each online group has a Participation Coach and that that person is trained and supported. We also provide an eCampus where 700 post-graduate learners collaborate actively online with no facilitation whatsoever. And I know that, with all the facilitation in the world, an online group with a bad design will not succeed. Where I wonder are the research and conversations about the relative impact of design and facilitation on the participation that takes place? And, under what conditions is it possible to do without (expensive and difficult-to-scale) facilitation? Is it possible, in fact to embed the social principles that underpin facilitation and design in the very software?

After nearly four years developing the underlying open source technology GroupServer, we decided that it’s too good to keep it to ourselves. Sure, there are variouls successful GroupServer sites but we figure that lots of people don’t want a whole installation, they just want some groups or a site. So we decided to build a site where they can have that. After many months of polishing the interface and building the ’shop’, OnlineGroups.Net is open for business.

OnlineGroups.Net allows you to create your own site and then add online groups. Sites and trial groups are free. Our online groups work equally via email and the web. There are other tools that provide this but we believe that OnlineGroups.Net has the most usable interface. What other tools don’t do is allow you to have your online groups on your own site. With a little help from us, OnlineGroups.Net sites can be completely customised.

We want to have tens of thousands of sites running on this service so that we can make GroupServer better faster, and build our specialised services business. So please, start a site and try out our online groups, tell us what you think of them and, if you like them, spread the good word (web feed).

Collaborative technologies provide the opportunity to collaborate. People use them when they have the motivation to collaborate. If the motivation is high enough, and the existing opportunity is low enough, the technology doesn’t have to be that great (eg SMS). If the technology we are offering, however, is worse than what people are used to, then they won’t adopt it.

In the adult world, the default is email. If nine out of ten people adopt the new technology and one keeps using email, everyone has to keep using email. That’s why we built GroupServer and OnlineGroups.Net to use email.

In the youth world, there is no default. It’s a highly dynamic mix of SMS, IM, social networking and MMORGs.

So what do you do if people won’t adopt your technology? I think do as the Halcum folks do and adopt theirs.