From Internet-on-a-Disk #15, January/February 1996
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Education and training are the interactive delivery of information, where the participant has the opportunity to ask questions and carry on discussions with the instructor and other students and where the instructor has the opportunity to elicit responses form students to provoke them, in Socratic style, into the right pattern of thought and to test what they have learned. The objective is to transfer not just information, but understanding -- resulting in changes in the students' perspective, perceptions, and/or behavior.
Today the Internet is being used by educational institutions largely as a marketing tool, for disseminating information about their existing courses and as a way of distributing course materials. The Internet is a vast, searchable, interconnected library, which can be readily accessed from anywhere. So small remote schools without much money can use the Internet to provide their students with access to the best, most current information resources in the world. And professors at such small remote schools can make themselves known in a global arena.
Those are enormous capabilities and opportunities. But the next stage is even more interesting, with the Internet becoming the basis for new ways of learning and new business models for educational institutions and training companies.
When the interactive element is added to the Web through the use of collaborative tools, -- the Internet, in conjunction with other distance-learning media like television and videoconferencing, can make it less expensive and easier to deliver true education and training to global audiences.
That's the promise. But how close are we to that goal?
John Sumser recently made a provocative observation at his Internet Business Network Web site http://www.interbiznet.com/ibn/nomad.html
"We have an allergic reaction to the use of the term community in regards to the Web. Though vogue, we think that the term seriously distracts attention from the power of the medium. With lurker to poster ratios averaging greater than 9 to 1, the idea that public participation is a panacea seems far-fetched. Can you name a website that you found so compelling that you had to add your two cents to the 'dialog'?".[December 28, 1995]
So what does it take to get people to actively participate in Web-based forums and chat? This is an important question for Web sites which would like to use such tools to build their audience and even to stage for-a-fee events that provide the opportunity to interact with celebrities and experts. And it's even more important for determining the usefulness of this medium for distance education and training.
Anyone with reliable statistics on the ratio of visitors to participants using Web-based interactive software (such as forums and chat), please send us details on about your site -- what you are using, how you are using it, and what you've learned about this new medium. (Send to seltzer@samizdat.com )
In the absence of such data, we can only speculate about the key factors that might affect participation. Of course, it's important to start with topics that are compelling to the target audience. But there are some factors that could raise or lower participation regardless of the topic.
1) Registration
Public unmoderated newsgroups require no registration. Anyone can read them, and any reader, on a whim, can submit a response or create a new topic. These newsgroups are in a legal Neverneverland. They do not reside on just one server, but rather are duplicated and perpetuated on numerous machines around the world. There is no central point of control, and there is no systematic censorship. The users themselves very effectively police these newsgroups, informally enforcing rules of "netiquette" and striving to keep the discussion relevant to the topic for which a newsgroup was created. But, under what seems to be the current legal interpretation, no one except the poster is legally responsible for the content, which could conceivably be libellous or include misuse of copyrighted material.
When a Web site includes a discussion area, even if the topics under discussion resemble a newsgroup, the owner of the site could conceivably be held liable for the content. (Keep in mind that I am not a lawyer, and that there is -- to the best of my knowledge -- no case law yet relating to this new medium. I am simply speculating.) If participation were very high -- thousands or tens of thousands of messages -- and the manager of the site clearly indicated that the discussion would not be moderated, it seems probable that the site would not be held liable for material posted there, so long as they removed postings that were flagrantly libellous or copyright infringements or otherwise illegal once these were brought to their attention. If participation were low -- dozens or even hundreds of messages -- a judge might reasonably expect that the site manager could and should be aware of the content and might be expected to police the discussion, despite disclaimers about no moderation.
So, as a protection for the Web site manager, some Web-based discussion software includes a registration feature. This can include email confirmation and password access, so the manager has some level ofassurance that the person doing the posting is in fact who he/she says he/she is. Such a feature makes it easy for the manager to exclude anyone who misbehaves on-line -- membership is clearly a privilege which can be withdrawn. It also enables the site manager to make some forums/discussions open to the general public and to restrict others, which opens up the possibility of charging for special on-line events, including distance education/training programs.
But at the same time, registration cuts down on participation. In a public forum, the casual reader cannot spontaneously decide to respond to a provocative remark. Rather, you might have to fill out a form and wait for an email reply before you can have your say. And by the time the registration is in effect, you've probably lost your passion if not your idea, and you remain a lurker, rather than becoming a participant.
My guess is that such a procedure probably cuts down participation in public forums by an order of magitude or more. (Please send me real stats so we can check this wild speculation of mine.) In other words, in a newsgroup you might expect that about 10 out of a hundred readers would actively participate, contributing postings. And in a Web-based discussion involving registration, you might expect 10 out of hundred readers would register, and one out of those 10 would actually participate.
That could be a major drawback, because it is the content posted by active participants that makes such a discussion area interesting and attractive. So while readership (visitors) rather than participation might be your criterion of success,low participation -- due in part to the registration process -- would lead to low readership.
2) Priming the pump
In any case, regardless of whether registration is enabled, content draws visitors. Ideally, the visitors themselves provide the content that draws other visitors, and your discussion area grows like crazy, with very little need for intervention on the part of the Web site manager. But a Web-based forum, even on a very hot topic can resemble a junior high school dance -- with lots of people lined up on the sidelines and no one willing to be the first one to go out onto the dance floor.
So how do you get the discussion started? How do you prime the pump?
Once again, we need data and anecdotal accounts from sites that have tried to start discussions. How much material do you have to provide yourself to begin with in order to attract an audience and get them talking to one another? How many people do you have to handpick and request or even pay to participate to get some interesting, informative, and provocative dialogue going?
3) Moderators
Popular newsgroups typically have thousands of readers and hundreds of participants. If someone grossly misbehaves, polluting the newsgroup environment or even threatening the viability the newsgroup, the reaction of the loyal participants is swift and pointed.
Web-based discussion areas, particularly those with registration, are not likely to have that many participants, hence it is less likely that self-policing will work. And hence the manager of the Web site would probably be well-advised to assign one or more moderators, to keep an eye on the postings, to encourage the participants to keep the discussion on topic, to periodically rearrange postings and threads putting like material together and making it easier for readers to find what they are interested in, to remove postings that might create legal problems, and to exclude participants who flagrantly misbehave and disrupt the discussion environment.
Once again, we need data. What is the typical time-investment needed by a moderator to keep tabs on a Web-based discussion with X new postings per day?
4) Facilitators
In some applications -- especially distance education/training -- the percentage of participation rather than the raw numbers of readers and participants could be a key factor in determining success, (like school fund-raising campaigns that state their goals in terms of percent of participation).
In these cases, perhaps a facilitator would be of value. Just as a trained professional can make a brainstorming meeting more effective, by structuring the discussion and drawing everyone in, someone with the right on-line skills might be able to raise participation from 10% of the registrants to 80, 90 or even 100%. Such a person could/should be able to diagnose factors which could dampen participation -- including cultural, social, and language barriers -- and then take action to overcome them.
You couldn't expect the teacher of a course -- the content expert -- to have these special on-line interpersonal skills. Rather this could be a whole new role/career.
5) Incentives to promote familiarity with the new medium
Part of the problem faced today by pioneering Web sites is probably due to the fact that would-be participants are unfamiliar with the medium. It took a while for notes and newsgroups to take off. Even folks familiar with those other on-line forms of discussion may be reluctant to try this new mode. Some incentive might be necessary to get people to try it and get used to it.
PCs come with games like solitaire, which help new users get accustomed to the mouse and other characteristics of the machine and its software. Perhaps Web-based discussion software should come with such an icebreaker.
Or perhaps Web site managers could and should include incentives when they open new discussion areas -- perhaps offering prizes for the most postings or the best postings or the postings that generate the most replies or longest threads.
What have you tried? What were the results?
6) Capabilities and limitations of the software
How difficult is the software to learn and to use? Do you need to provide on-line instructions? Or an interactive sample discussion for simple on-line training? Or a test area where people can test out the mechanism for posting and replying, without the risk of making fools of themselves, which they might fear in the main discussion area?
Is the application integrated with email, so people can participate in this new medium by means of an old familiar application?
In other words, is there a tie-in to LISTSERV (automated mailing list) software? And can participants elect to get email tickler messages when someone responds to a posting of theirs?
Keep in mind that this kind of software is still in its infancy. The characteristics I'm mentioning here are a wish list, not a product description. (My personal favorite is Workgroup Web Forum from Digital Equipment, which you can try out at http://webforum.research.digital.com/ or at http://www.fosters.com/ )
If you have tried Web-based discussion as a user or as a site manager, please send us email to share your experiences and insights into what works and what doesn't and what more is needed in the next round of software development.
Let's share with one another what we've learned and work together to help point the developers in the right direction. Please send all this mail to me at seltzer@samizdat.com
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