+Social Informatics

E-learning as a socio-technical interventionCaroline Haythornthwaite

Leverhulme Trust Visiting Professor, Institute of Education, University of London and Professor, GSLIS University of Illinois

5th is a series on ‘Learning Networks’

+My Background and Interests

How do people work, learn and socialize together at a distance and through computer media? Communication, Collaboration, Community

Studies : Online Learning Networks Social networks / virtual communities Distributed learners / e-learning Collaborative research teams / distributed knowledge Information sharing and learning / ubiquitous learning

Today Sociotechnical considerstaions in E-learning

+Leverhulme Trust Series on Learning Networks

Dec. 1, 2009 Learning in the age of Web 2.0

Feb. 4, 2010 Learning and scholarly communication in the age of the Internet

Feb. 23, 2010 New theories and perspectives on learning in the digital age

Mar. 11, 2010 Social networks and learning

Mar. 30, 2010 Social informatics: E-learning as a socio-technical intervention

May 10, 2010 Ubiquitous learning

For Slides, Texts, Reference

http://newdoctorates.blogspot.com/2009/10/leverhulme-trust-public-lectures.html

http://haythorn.wordpress.com/recent-activities/

+What is social informatics?

Sociotechnical systems approach Design for efficient, optimal

work and organizational practice entails a mutual alignment of social and technical systems (Tavistock group, 1950s)

Social Informatics “interdisciplinary study of

the design, uses, and consequences of ICTs that takes into account their interaction with institutional and cultural contexts” (Kling, Rosenbaum & Sawyer, 2005, p.6)

Educational Informatics “study of the application of

digital technologies and techniques to the use and communication of information in learning and education”(Levy, et al, 2003, p. 299)

E-learning Informatics e-learning is “a problem at

the meeting place of social, technical, administrative, and pedagogical considerations” (Haythornthwaite & Kazmer, 2004)

+Other relevant perspectives

Social impact of technology Anticipated and unanticipated consequences of

technological innovations (cars and suburbia, commuting, pollution)(Rogers; Kling)

Diffusion and adoption of innovations (Rogers) Awareness, Persuasion, Adoption, Confirmation/Rejection

Ecological perspectives Ecology of Games (Dutton); Ecology or Resources (Luckin);

Visible and Invisible work (Star); Activity systems (Engestrom); Actor Networks (Latour)

ICT & Cultures ICT use by different cultures, subcultures, societal sectors

(national, regional, gender, race, ethnicity)

+Why a social informatics of e-learning?

E-learning implementations parallel ICT history Thus can show what is likely to

happen with small, medium and large scale introduction of ICTs

Current ICT trends show next e-learning phase

SI design and analysis perspectives apply to e-learning E.g., From task-technology ‘fit’

to co-evolution of social and technical

SI draws our attention to larger contexts Beyond ‘how to teach’ to ‘how

are we learning, with whom, where, and under what circumstances’

Influences from wider contexts + influences out to these contexts

‘the questions we already have about [e-learning] programs – e.g., how to establish a program, how to teach online – must be supplemented by questions addressing the environment as a whole – e.g., how to create and sustain a community of learners, how to provide technical assistance at a distance’

(Haythornthwaite & Kazmer, 2004)

+What technology are we talking about?

Learning Management Systems Formal, institution-wide,

records-management oriented Tailored to local use

Learning Objects Formal, education-wide, lesson

or module-oriented Designed to be mobile,

transferable

Educational Technologies Simulations, virtual

environments, games

Independent, discipline-based and content-oriented

Computer-Mediated Communication Informal, society-wide,

communication oriented

Virtual Learning Environments Combinations of technology

options Adopted as is from LMS or

Adapted in combination with other technologies

Enacted in social use

I suggest that a VLE only makes sense if we use the term to refer to the sociotechnically defined learning environment

+Whose view?Images of E-learning Technical

Designers, programmers: Creating, implementing systems

Institutional Univ. administration, boards:

Selecting systems Administrative

Faculty, staff, visiting teachers: Managing online enterprise

Educational Teachers: Learning how to teach

Pedagogical Researchers: Theories

Information Librarians, teachers: Delivery of

content, materials

Communication Participants: How to talk online

Financial Administrators, politicians,

students: How to pay Student Life

Student communities, alumni: Learning how to learn online

Work Life Employers: Evaluating

graduates Teachers: online work

Material Laboratories: internships Libraries: information

resources

+E-learning Science and E-learning Practice

In medicine, a distinction of the kind required is often made by talking about 'medical practice' when a general term is required, and employing the phrase 'medical science' for the more strictly technical aspects of the subject. Sometimes, references to 'medical practice' only denote the organization necessary to use medical knowledge and skill for treating patients. Sometimes, however, and more usefully, the term refers to the whole activity of medicine, including its basis in technical knowledge, its organization, and its cultural aspects. The latter comprise the doctor's sense of vocation, his personal values and satisfactions, and the ethical code of his profession. Thus 'practice' may be a broad and inclusive concept.

Once this distinction is established, it is clear that although medical practice differs quite markedly from one country to another, medical science consists of knowledge and techniques which are likely to be useful in many countries.

(Arnold Pacey, 1983; emphasis added)

+What are we learning with e-learning?

How to teach and learn online New roles and responsibilities

Collaborative Learning: teacher as facilitator; learner as participant, learning leader, information source

The practice of teaching and learning How to work together, online, at a distance, via

computer media New communication patterns, group management,

community development practices Managing multi-party conversations; managing

boundaries on asynchronous, 7 x 24 environments The practice of distributed knowledge

Oh, … and course content! Remediation (ftf to online); changing mode, not just

medium The science and practice of our discipline or profession

Class/Course Level

+What are we learning with e-learning?

How to staff, support, market and gain legitimacy in online education New faculty roles, e.g., distant instructors, digital

libraries, e-learning librarians New technology staff, e.g., E-learning support staff

as a separate idea from technology support staff Marketing to remote regions for ‘stay remote’

programs Legitimation with accreditating committees at

subject and university levels Legitimation with employers of graduates with an e-

degree

Institutional Level

+Why is the picture so muddy?

Variety of technologies beyond LMS, and beyond institutions

Stage of e-learning innovation adoption differ widely across regions, institutions, individuals

State of knowledge about e-learning practice is emerging, not stable

E-learning as course management is at odds with e-learning as an emerging pedagogy (more than just how to teach) Collaborative learning as a start

E-learning as a fixed practice belies the reality of emergent “e-practice” in society and academia Technology: social networking, twitter, collaboratories Knowledge: e-science, e-research, digital humanities, e-social

science

+

Social informatics of e-learningLearning from IT History

Analyzing and Designing for E-learning Future

+Observations from early computing and parallels in e-learning

Automated collection of transaction data creates an information trail Increased observability and

ease of monitoring work processes

Information stream creates a need (desire) for computerized analysis Attention is given to what

can be captured, counted, analyzed

Creates a desire for further automated data collection

Conversations, discussions, lectures persist in digital form Available for reviewing,

grading, analysis

Reorientation of evaluation based on available data Student participation

countable by number, size, and timing of postings

Instructors activities recorded

Computers automate and informate (Zuboff, 1998)

E-learning automates and informates

+Case: Grading Online

Social Technical

http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/ATC/Collaboratory/Idea/gradingdiscussions.html

+Invisible work

Since 2001, the first author has used a method for grading online discussions with three criteria: (1) frequency of postings, (2) the extent to which students' postings reflect comprehension of the required readings, and (3) students' comments on other students' postings (see Table 1).

Over the past 5 years, specific aspects of the grading method had been changed each year as indicated by students' responses to the use of the grading method. These three criteria are used to set the expectations for weekly participation in course work, which constitutes 25% of course grades.

Discussion questions based on the required readings are provided for each week…. At the end of each week's discussion, each student is required to send an e-mail message to the instructor with his/her self-evaluations, giving three grades, one for each of the three scoring criteria.

The faculty member's grades are returned to the students as soon as possible after this, with the instructor's grades being the same, higher, or lower than the students' grades. When the instructor's grades differ from the student's grades, the reasons are explained using the grading criteria as the basis for explanation. ... For students whose grades differ from the instructors, however, sometimes it takes 2 to 5 weeks before the two grades are the same; that is, the students accept the standards set by the instructor and meet the standards at the desired level.

Margaret lunney & Angela sammarco (2009). Scoring Rubric for Grading Students' Participation in Online Discussions. CIN: Computers, Informatics, Nursing, January/February 2009, Volume 27 Number 1, Pages 26 – 31. http://www.nursingcenter.com/library/JournalArticle.asp?Article_ID=830886

+Observations and parallels

Formerly social activities become computer-based activities, isolating workers at computer stations (Zuboff, 1998)

Teleworkers are isolated from co-workers and managers

Computers are felt to create asocial environments for users (e.g., gamers, computer addicts)

E-learning depicted as isolating Anonymous individual

working alone at their computer as in a correspondence model of distance education

But, the so-called isolated student may just as likely to be carrying on online conversations with many others

Computers isolate workers Computers isolate e-learners

+Example: Confronting Anonymity in an Online Class

Public or private posting

Independent contributions or in dialogue with others

Discussion is assessed for class credit, and if so on what criteria

Group or individual projects

Local considerations, e.g., are real-time technologies available for synchronous sessions

Local social norms, such as how much of a final grade can be based on participation

Disclosure of personal information Personal pages, introduction

when first posting, or discussion area for introductions

Being there with others

Model desired behaviors Use informal language Have students comment or

adding to others’ work Use real names, pictures

rather than email addresses, network ids, icons

Instructor Choices Enhancing Presence

+Observations and parallels

Formerly observable behaviors become invisible, e.g., being at one’s desk Managers feel a lack of

control over workers; teleworkers are passed over for promotion

‘Reduced cues’ of CMC

Invisible work (Star & Strauss) Learning computer skills Buying, maintaining,

operating computer equipment and applications

Invisibility of attendance, attention and continuity of identity Is the student who is ‘signed-

in’ actually there? Who is taking the exam?

Student concerns about being recognized, and known online, of ‘being there’ ; effort to ‘be present'

Lack of instructor animation, such as gestures, voice tone

Invisible work of attention management, home office /learning times and spaces

Computer-based work makes people and task invisible

Computer-based learning makes people and tasks invisible

+Example: Setting boundaries in an invisible world

Workplace and work hour conventions are gone online 7 x 24 accessibility many:1 contact

Make visible the new conventions Set expectations for

response time Direct use of particular

media for questions and Use synchronous office

hours to bound contact Use public Q&A forums

Boundaries for learning Creating study andclass

space at home, and home study habits into communal time and spaces

New conventions for being at work at home

Boundaries from learning Time for the people in their

lives (Kazmer, 2000).

Instructor Boundaries Student Boundaries

+Observations and parallels

Senior managers first gain email, but secretaries read and print their email

‘Ownership’ and control by IT departments

Organizations learn to be IT-enabled companies Distributed companies

(Orlikowski)

Meaning and symbolic significance of IT Owning the latest gadgets

Senior faculty, non-technology faculty late to adopt CMC, e-learning

Decision making re CMS by central administration; Control by central computing centers

Employers question value of online degree; virtual universities considered to be of inferior quality

Bricks and mortar universities learn to be IT-enabled campuses

Cultural differences in adoption of ICTs

Cultural differences in adoption of e-learning

+Example: Work Culture

“Metadata may be described as having the potential to transform (‘redeem’) higher education, but such descriptions are problematic. They form part of a wider struggle to legitimate the role of educational metadata, a struggle that pits its potential against educational diversity and complexity. …

Metadata has located itself as part of a wider discourse in which higher education is re-conceived as a market economy. As part of this discuourse, it contributes to a politicised process of re-defining the role of academics, marginalising them in the learning and teaching process.”

(Oliver, 2005. p.84)

+Example: Culture and Sharing

Assumptions: attention structures for research and teaching In an academic setting, research and collaboration works along lines

of specialization, whereas teaching works along departmental lines

Teaching is primarily individual – teacher and the class. Re sharing teaching materials: “Many academics treat learning

objects as aide memoires and rarely have the time to fully decontextualize their material and make it of general use. Additionally, there is no career incentive to do this, and in particular to make the material fit for use.” (Lee, 2008)

How does this affect resource sharing, co-construction of knowledge, co-construction of teaching materials? Research attention and sharing is to colleagues at other institutions Teaching attention is to sharing with colleagues at same department

in same institution, but specialties differ, and departments rarely accept team teaching because you can’t easily ‘count’ a faculty member’s teaching unit fulfillment

+Case: Resistance and Change

Requiring laptops

Requiring Internet access

Banning laptops in class

Banning Internet access in class

Requiring digital resources

Banning Wikipedia

Technology Information

Failure of “Global Campus”“While it made economic sense to take course content from top-flight professors and hire outsiders to deliver it for less than half the price, it did not make pedagogical sense in the eyes of the faculty, Burbules said. “Teaching is not a delivery system, and I think most faculty were just not interested in giving up their course content to be ‘delivered’ by adjuncts with whom they might have little to no contact,” he said. “...You can’t divorce the syllabus from the delivery.”” Inside Higher Education, Sept. 3, 2009.

+Observations and parallels

Global differences in Infrastructure Readiness Attitudes to IT (Vishwanath

& Chen, 2008)

Cross-cultural teams

Cultural differences Individual vs communal

orientation

Virtual, globally distributed teams

Global differences in Infrastructure Readiness Attitudes to e-learning

Cross-cultural e-learning teams

Cultural, personal, age, lifestage, disciplinary and political differences Purpose of education Individual vs communal

orientation

Global differences in adoption of computers

Global differences in adoption of e-learning

+Examples

Western views of individual, book learning taken to cultures where learning is more oral and collective, e.g., for indigenous South Africans, Maori (Ess, 2009)

“cultural belonging” is a result of “self portrayal .. actively produced and performed situationally, in order to create differences between one group and others or to differentiate oneself” (Ess, p. 23, quoting Koch)

On any given day, among those with access, more men, whites, higher income earners, more educated and more experienced users were likely to be online (Howard et al, 2002)

UK children (Livingstone & Bober, 2005) boys spend more time online than girls, have been online longer, have more online skills, and higher levels of self-efficacy

Women judge their online skills lower than do men, which may affect what they choose to do online (Hargittai & Shafer, (2006)

Assumptions Use and Attitudes to Use

+Observations and parallels

System design by programmers/companies separate from users Design to fit all cases

Systems control through data processing / IT dept

Failed developments, implementations not used, lack of fit with practice

Design by programmers / companies separate from users Design to fit standard case,

based on ‘learning management’ not learning theory

Systems control through IT dept, central telecomm. control

Large scale failures of e-learning implementations

Management information systems implementation

Learning management systemsimplementation

+Example: Structures imposed by non-user technology developers “Technically, the clearest example of the

closing down of education lies in the commercial learning management system. The underlying model used by these systems causes concern. First, the user is usually defined as falling into one of three roles – (system) administrator, tutor, or student (or similar nomenclature – with the limitations of what one can do in the system defined by this role. These are rigidly observed: Once a student, always a student, and never a tutor be.” (Lee, 2008, p. 48).

+Observations and Parallels

Prescriptive systems are supplemented with permissive ones (Galegher, Kraut & Egido,1990) Comment and memo fields

in data forms carry chat Email becomes the ‘killer

app’ -- and now Twitter? Computers for work are used

for socializing Computers for work support

learning and computer knowledge and access for those at home (“proxy use”) (US Census; Pew; etc.)

Email, social bulletin boards, whispering in chat become interpersonal connectors for online students

Computers at school provide computer knowledge and access for those at home

E-learners bring their family online

Communities benefit from embedded e-learners

Social communication finds a way

Chat in oline environments

+Community-Embedded Learners Kazmer (2007)

Leaky, permeable boundaries to ICT information

In a study of e-learners, Kazmer identified 5 major types of transfer Knowledge from the community to the learning world

of classmates and online learning in general Knowledge from the course to the learner’s

workplace Knowledge from the course to the learner’s home

community Community to community connection through e-

learning world contacts Institution to institution: institutions of higher learning

to distant communities and institutions

+More parallels …

Distraction and control Managers believe employees chatting online, surfing the

web, playing games is distraction from work, institute controls

Teachers believe that students chatting, doing email, surfing the web, etc. during class, institute controls (e.g., no laptops in class)

Interconnection affords data sharing and leads to standards Automated data exchange standards, Learning object

standards

Routinization of innovations Online registration, email between faculty and students,

LMS, online resources – all become routine

Interconnection; Distraction and Control; Routinizations

+From task-technology fit to reagents in a dynamic process

+What fields are now moving forward in parallel that provide information on e-learning processes and vice-versa?

Collaborative knowledge-building: research teams in academia and business

Community informatics: participatory action research, indigenous knowledge, GIS

Metadata and data exchange standards: email, international trade settlements, library catalogues, archives, learning objects

Informatics and information sciences: MIS, LIS, CS, CSCW

Human-computer interaction: participatory design, rapid prototyping, mash-ups

Educational technology, CSCL, situated perspectives

Internet research: online communities, virtual worlds, multiplayer online games

Social studies of science, and of technology: social construction, study of multi- and inter-disciplinary practices

Cultural studies: cross-cultural studies

Participatory culture, citizen journalism, new media

+Summary: Applying an SI approach

Alignment of social practices and technoloy in the service of learning outcomes

Awareness of the embedding context, not just the online learning environment, not just pedagogy

Attention to emergent, developmental processes attendant with current rapid changes in ICTs

Development of e-learning science along with e-learning practice

Attention to intersecting and co-evolving domains and participants: Learning practices

In and outside HE Institutions Communities

Local to HE and remote Technologies

In HE and beyond

+References

Haythornthwaite, C. (Sept. 2006). The social informatics of elearning. Information, Communication and Society 10th anniversary conference, York, UK. [http://hdl.handle.net/2142/8959]

Andrews, R. & Haythornthwaite, C. (2007). Introduction to e-learning research. In R. Andrews & C. Haythornthwaite (Eds.) (pp. 1-52). Handbook of E-Learning Research. London: Sage.

Sawyer, S. & Tapia, A.(2007). From findings to theories: Institutionalizing social informatics. The Information Society, 23, 263–275.

Kling, R., Rosenbaum, H. & Sawyer, S. (2005). Understanding and Communicating Social Informatics. Medford, NJ: Information Today.

Haythornthwaite, C. & Kazmer, M. M. (Eds.) (2004). Learning, Culture and Community in Online Education: Research and Practice. NY: Peter Lang.

Dutton, W.H., Cheong, P.H. & Park, N. (2004). An ecology of constraints on e-learning in higher education: The case of a virtual learning environment, Prometheus, 22(2), 131-149.

Goodfellow, R. & Lamy, M-N.(Eds.)(2009). Learning Cultures in Online Education. London: Continuum.

Levy, P., Ford, N., Foster, J., Madden, A., Miller, D., Nunes, M. B., McPherson, M. & Webber, S. (2003). Educational informatics: An emerging research agenda. Journal of Information Science, 29 (4), 298-310. AND/OR Ford (2008). Web-based learning through educational informatics. Hershey, NY: Information Science Publishing

Iiyoshi, T. & Kumar, M.S.V. (Eds.). Opening up education. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Land, R. & Bayne, S. (Eds.)(2005). Education in Cyberspace. Milton Park, UK: RoutledgeFalmer