The Use of Bulletin Boards
for Discussions in Online Learning

Instructor involvement in the Online Discussion

Engaging Students in Online Discussions

Technology Supporting Online Discussions

Conclusion of Background Discussion

Introduction to the Study

This study describes the use of bulletin board technology in online classes along with developing a better understanding of the use of bulletin boards in online classes. Bulletin board software is commonly used by Internet discussion communities, although such software is not yet supported by course management software such as Blackboard. Because of this, the instructor of these two courses installed the bulletin board software on a self-provided server. This open source software used is available from the Web site http://www.phpbb.com/.

Two courses were part of this study with the experiences in the first course being instrumental to the design of the second course. For this reason each course is treated as a separate study to better show the progression between the first and second courses. Both courses were electives in the instructional technology graduate program at California State University, San Bernardino, which is on the quarter schedule with ten weeks of classes and one week of finals.

Participants

The participants in course A were 15 graduate students who were enrolled in a completely online course in the Instructional Technology graduate program. The majority of the participants were employed full-time, most as teachers. All students had basic computer skills with a few having above average computer skills.

Procedure

Course A was a completely online and asynchronous course with none of the scheduled eleven classes being held face-to-face although an optional face-to-face orientation session was available. The course made use of textbook readings with associated response questions, three online multimedia-enabled module lessons, a technology inventory assignment, a literature review assignment, and a Web site evaluation assignment. In this course the bulletin board was established and promoted as a tool for social interaction in the class as well as being a means to discuss course content with the instructor and other students. No specific assignment required the use of the bulletin board and no part of the course grade was based on using the bulletin board.

The way that the bulletin board was used in course A was designed to answer the following questions.

1. To what extent will students make use of an online meeting space to alleviate potential feelings of social isolation?

2. To what extent will students make use of an online meeting space to attempt to interact with the instructor about the course content or assignments?

3. To what extent will students make use of an online meeting space to work together or seek assistance from other students with course activities and assignments?

4. What are student reactions to the new discussion technology.?

5. Will students use the advanced features (avatars, links, automatic quotes, etc.) of the bulletin board?

While no part of the course grade was determined by the use of the bulletin board in course A, the instructor made reference to the bulletin board, and encouraged its use by mentioning it in weekly emails to each student and by providing the Internet address of the bulletin board in these emails. Additionally the instructor made 14 posts in various forums on the bulletin board in an effort to stimulate use of the technology. These posts were on a number of subjects including material directly related to the course content, items of general interest related to technology used in education, and several social posts asking students in the class to share information about themselves. These posts were placed in appropriate forums, i.e. social posts were made in the forum dedicated for social discussions, and were made modeling appropriate posting conventions to serve as a model for discussion board interaction. In addition, the instructor used a picture of himself as his discussion board avatar to model the use of this feature of the discussion board software.

Results

Despite the repeated mentions of the board by the instructor, the discussion board was not well used by participants with a total of three posts being made by students in the class. Eight students from course A participated in an email exchange and/or face-to-face discussion of ideas about the online course including the use of the bulletin board. When asked about posting on the bulletin board the majority of students responded that they did not participate because the online discussion was not required. Some indicated that the required elements of the class were time consuming and they did not have time to do any socializing. When asked if they missed the social dimension (research question 1) and professional networking that typically takes place in a face-to-face class several students said that they did miss that feeling of being engaged in a common experience with others, but not so much that they felt a need to try to make it up using the online discussion. Several others indicated that they used email or phone calls to discuss the class or have social interaction with other students in the class.

When asked about using the board to discuss issues related to the class with the instructor (research question 2) the majority said that they preferred to use email for that purpose. One student replied that email was more efficient for one-to-one communications with the instructor. Another agreed with this observation and added that email was less formal and quicker. When asked for more information about email being quicker another student in the focus group explained that they used email all the time so their email client was always up and running. They felt that it would take more time to go to a discussion board than to use email.

Students in course A made no use of the board to work together or discuss course activities (research question 3). When asked about this some students indicated that again, email was preferred for this type of activity. Some students mentioned using the telephone instead.

While only three students posted messages on the bulletin board, several more indicated that they had read the posts through the quarter. When asked for feedback about the bulletin board (research question 4) these students responded that they liked the way it was arranged, the different forums seemed clear to them and they liked that pictures could be used as avatars. One student mentioned that they liked this type of bulletin board much more than threaded discussions and several students agreed. One student dissented, saying that the threaded discussion seemed to be just as good. Several students mentioned that they had read the posts made by the instructor in the various boards on a couple of occasions but wanted to wait for other students to respond first before they would commit to engaging in the bulletin board discussion. One student mentioned that they were not sure how to use the forum.

Students in course A did not make use of the advanced features of the software (research question 5) such as avatars, clickable hyperlinks or automatic quoting to aid in contextualizing responses to other posts. When asked about these features most students said they were not very aware of them some students reported that these features sounded like they would be useful.

Discussion

Despite reporting that they did feel some sense of isolation or lack of the social dimension that exists in face-to-face classes, few students attempted to use the bulletin board established for the class to help alleviate feelings of social isolation. Students in course A seemed to feel capable of completing the course despite the feelings of isolation or they used other, more familiar means for contacting other students in the class to share experiences or to collaborate on assignments. Students did not view the bulletin board as a means for interacting with the instructor, again preferring to use a more familiar method (email) for this purpose. It is easy to speculate that with the need for efficiency identified by at least one student, and the heavy work load of the course mentioned by others, students did not want to take on the task of learning to use yet another technology that was not required to complete the online course. The bulletin board software was viewed favorably by many students in the class who examined it, despite the low usage of the system.

Participants

The participants in course B were 25 graduate students who were enrolled in a hybrid course in the Instructional Technology graduate program. The majority of the participants were employed full-time, most as teachers. All students had basic computer skills with a few having above average computer skills. Several students in course B had also been enrolled in course A described above.

Procedure

Course B was a hybrid class with four of eleven scheduled class meetings being held face-to-face. This course included textbook readings with associated response questions, a project with a required presentation, and mandatory online discussions. Based in part on findings from the prior course some changes were made to the way the bulletin board was used in this course. Specifically, participation in the online discussion was graded comprising, 31% of the grade. The criteria for grading was established and communicated to students so they would understand the expectations of the instructor. These grading criteria included a definition of indicators of quality posting, including direct responses to and quoting of other poster’s responses, thoughtful reflection and the inclusion of information relevant to the discussion from sources outside of the course materials.

Some additional changes to the structure of the course were made in response to findings from the first use of the bulletin board. The instructor demonstrated the bulletin board in the first class meeting, which was held face-to-face and required students to sign up for the board and make an initial post. This was done to provide initial familiarization to the bulletin board and to ensure that all students were able to access the board. Along with this experience the instructor also reminded students in weekly emails to engage in the bulletin board discussions and provided a weekly grade update to communicate to students their level of performance in the online discussion.

The way that the bulletin board was used in course B was designed to answer the following questions.

1. To what extent will students participate in online discussions if they are a graded requirement of the course?

2. To what extent will students make use of an online meeting space to alleviate potential feelings of social isolation?

3. To what extent will students make use of an online meeting space to attempt to interact with the instructor about the course content or assignments?

4. To what extent will students make use of an online meeting space to work together or seek assistance from other students about activities and assignments?

5. What are student reactions to the new discussion technology?

6. Will students use the advanced features (avatars, links, automatic quotes, etc.) of the bulletin board?

Results

Eleven students participated in a post class interview to share their experiences using the bulletin board as part of the hybrid class. This interview took a focus group approach to discuss the structure of the course and the use of the bulletin board in the class. In addition, the bulletin board itself was a source of information to help answer the research questions.

Examining the usage of the bulletin board in course B found a great deal of use by students (research question 1). Student posts were evaluated each week to assign a participation grade for the course. Nineteen students were evaluated as having excellent participation with excellent participation being defined as multiple postings each week of the course discussion that responded directly to the instructors initial post or which responded directly to another student’s prior post. Four students were evaluated as having good participation, which was defined as at least one post per week of the course discussion that responded directly to the instructor’s initial post or which responded directly to another student’s prior post. Three students were evaluated as having low participation which was defined as less than one post per week of the course discussion that responded directly to the instructors initial post or which responded directly to another student’s prior post.

All students who completed the course posted on the bulletin board and several students posted in more than one of the forums on the bulletin board. There were 347 posts made by students in the bulletin board discussion. Of these 347 posts, 93% (324) were evaluated by the instructor as being directly related to the course content. The remainder were social or off-topic (research question 2). This reflects the fact that the vast majority of posts made by students were in the course-specific forum of the bulletin board. These results indicate that students either did not use the bulletin board much for social purposes to alleviate perceptions of social isolation or that their participation in the course discussions were sufficient for them to feel an adequate amount of social connection to others in the class. When asked about social isolation, some students reported that they did not feel excessively socially isolated in this class. One student offered the opinion that this was because they already knew other students in the class and because there was some face-to-face contact in the class. Some students reported that they still missed social interactions and that the forum couldn't completely make up for this lack. However most students indicated that they did not feel a need to use the bulletin board for social conversations, and as was the case in course A, some reported preferring to use email or the phone for these types of conversations.

A significant number of the posts in the bulletin board were made in direct response to topic starter questions posted by the instructor, which indicates that students will use this type of communication to interact with the instructor about course content (research question 3). However relatively few posts were made to request information about assignments. Students still tended to use email as the primary communication tool for direct interaction with the instructor.

Students generally reported that the bulletin board was a good opportunity to share in-depth thoughts about course material and related subjects and that the technology adequately supported this purpose in the class (research question 5). Some participants related that the bulletin board was actually better than a face-to-face discussion because it was obvious that some people put more reflection and time into writing a more thoughtful response than would be the case in a face-to-face discussion. Some students agreed that they had been able to take more time to formulate responses to discussion topics, which helped improve quality. Students also reported that they appreciated the asynchronous nature of the bulletin board as opposed to a discussion in a face-to-face class or even a live chat because it gave them more flexibility in choosing interaction times. Several students also said they appreciated the opportunity to participate in the class online via the bulletin board because it saved them considerably in terms of travel time and gas money.

It was natural for students to compare the bulletin board system used to support discussions in course B to previous experiences, specifically the Blackboard threaded discussion. Common themes emerged including that it was much easier to respond to one person using the bulletin board than it was using a threaded discussion because of the ability to quote the post to which the response was being made. Several agreed that this made it easier to see the relationship between the original post and the subsequent post because of the way it was displayed in the bulletin board. Some students mentioned the way ranking of topics by views and responses as helpful, making it easier to keep up with the discussion without having to scroll through numerous lines of posts. In general the bulletin board was considered by students in the focus group to be easier to use than the Blackboard threaded discussion.

One of the features of the bulletin board that was used by the instructor was the pinning of weekly discussion topics. This kept these instructor initiated topics at the top of the post listings. Students were asked about this and almost universally students reported that this helped because it prevented posts that students thought might be ungraded from overpowering the course discussions that they were sure were evaluated. Clearly the stimulus for participating in the bulletin board in this course was the fact that their discussions were graded. One student said that keeping this post on top helped to make it clear what the instructor felt was important.

Of the 25 students who participated in the class, 18 used a picture of themselves as a board avatar (research question 6). In addition, many other posts made use of advanced features of the bulletin board software by including such things as hyperlinks and automatic quotes of other posts.

Some discussion about the instructor's role in the course and in the bulletin board occurred during the focus group. This discussion pointed to the importance of the weekly grade report which included an evaluation of each student's weekly progress in the bulletin board as being extremely helpful to students because it let them know if their participation in the board was being noticed by the instructor and at what level they were performing. Most students indicated that it was important that the instructor be present in the discussion although the instructor did not have to be in control of the discussion. Many agreed that it was essential that they feel that the instructor was looking at the discussion to grade it and be involved. However, some students reported a desire for more instructor interaction in the bulletin board than there was. Some students wondered about having the opportunity to take on moderator roles in the bulletin board for some specific topics while other students reported that they felt this might be stressful. With very few exceptions, students indicated that grading participation in the bulletin board stimulated their use of the board. One student summed it up by saying, “ungraded equals lurkers not posters.”

Discussion

Clearly, students are more likely to participate in an online discussion if their participation in that activity is a graded part of the class. This seems to be in contrast to experiences in face-to-face classes where ungraded discussion are common. This may be due in part to some online students’ quest for efficiency in online classes. That is a tendency for students in online classes to seek clarity in understanding the requirements of the class, and upon knowing these, to focus their attention on them to the exclusion of other possible courses of action in the course. Because the extent to which students interact with each other using a bulletin board system is probably most associated with what will be graded the course grading system can be used to encourage students to interact on course assignments or on collaborative projects. For this reason instructors and course designers should be careful in crafting course grading requirements to ensure that students are not forced into using technologies that are not best suited for the task. On the other hand it is also important to know that the way the course is graded can be used to require students to use technologies that are suited for the task, even if students are not at first proficient or comfortable with such use.

Students do seek interaction with their instructors. However a public forum such as a bulletin board may not be seen by students as the best communications medium for this type of interaction, especially if a more personal communication medium exists. Students in this study used email to interact with the instructor about course content, assignments and other issues much more than they used the bulletin board for such purposes. This may be a result of the importance the instructor of these courses placed on rapidly responding to student email. It would be interesting to see how student use of a bulletin board might shift to include more interaction with the instructor if the instructor placed more emphasis on responding rapidly to bulletin board posts than on email.

The students in this study seemed to adapt to using this new technology with little difficulty and in general students found the bulletin board as good or better than previously used technologies such as threaded discussions. Students pointed to some of the advanced features of the bulletin board system, such as picture avatars and the ability to easily quote previous posts as reasons this was the case. In general students reported that the bulletin board used in this study was effective for supporting course discussion.

Conclusion

The usual cautions about overgeneralization of results from a small sample such as this are in order here. The participants in this study were busy professionals with full-time jobs and seeking an advanced degree. Because of this they may be more interested in the efficiency that asynchronous online educational experiences offer than other students. Additionally the results of this study are largely descriptive of the experiences of these students in two classes and should be judged accordingly. Further, the instructor of the course is a proponent of the use of bulletin board software in online courses and the enthusiasm of the instructor for the medium may have influenced the students in the courses. With these qualifiers in place this study still offers some information of use to online instructors, course designers, or those who support the technology infrastructure of online classes such as the course management software.

This study describes the use of a bulletin board software system that has some significant advantages compared to previously used systems such as the threaded discussion. Not the least of these advantages is the power the software gives the moderator/instructor to shape the discussion through the ability to pin posts to the top of the list, delete or move posts. Additionally this software gives participants the ability to modify their posts by editing them. Other advantages include the ability to use photos as avatars, which help other users visually associate the poster with a person.

If there is any disadvantage of using a bulletin board system instead of a threaded discussion it is that this software is not yet built into course management systems such as Blackboard. This means that instructors who wish to make use of these more advanced systems must install them on their own servers or find support for the installation of this software within their technology support infrastructure. This type of software is available from the open source community free of charge but this type of software does require someone familiar with server operation to install and maintain. In some institutions there is little incentive for those charged with managing online course infrastructure to use software other than the licensed course management software that is already available. Thus it may be some time before this type of bulletin board software is available to all online classes. However, there is little doubt that as these systems continue to mature the advanced features of bulletin boards described in this study will make their way into these course management systems and thus into more online courses.

Future research related to the effective use of bulletin board software in online learning should include, methods of grading online discussions, the role of and importance of advanced features on Social Presence, effects of advanced features on instructor immediacy, and effective means of structuring student engagement in and use of bulletin boards.

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Author Biography