Build it - and they will come: the challenges of building relevant online [student] spaces

Build it and they will come. Really? Will they really?

We have built a new website for students at our University – the Study Hub – it has sections on Studying at University; FAQs; Cool Stuff [yes I know – it was a working title and just stuck]; Courses, workshops & drop-ins; and Study Worries: http://www.facebook.com/StudyWorries .   

Study Worries is a Face Book page that we are trying to run as a crowd sourced supportive space for students. We have the hope that students will go in there to post advice, ask and answer each other’s questions… and generally start organically to build a supportive online community.

But, how do we get students – or anybody – to start to engage in these online spaces?

I suppose I first noticed that there might be issues with this during our student conference – Get Ahead 2012. This Conference is for students, organized by students – and with some sessions run by students. We wanted the participants to tweet about the sessions they were going to, to share their thoughts, to get a bit of interest going … Well – I think there were about three student tweets – and the rest were posted by a friend and me tweeting away furiously - and mainly to ourselves.

It was useful though, for it offered us that insight; just calling something a community does not mean that it will be owned by the people you would want to own it.

Of course the traditional thing in HE these days is to assess what you want students to do… If it ain’t assessed – they have no incentive to do it. But I wanted students to engage without using the leverage of assessment – I wanted engagement seeded by the meaningfulness or usefulness or quirkiness of the thing itself.

So – we built the Hub – with its Study Worries space and over the summer I started populating it with small academic stories that I found interesting, so that when students returned to us in September/October – there would not just be an empty space to join.

Here are some of the most recent posts that I put up:

Study Worries shared a link.

32 minutes ago

How do we promote active learning - including from tutorials? Join in the online debate today, Friday: http://www.guardian.co.uk/higher-education-network/blog/2012/nov/02/university-tutorials-students-independent-learning?CMP=twt_gu

University tutorials: using contact time to boost independent learning

www.guardian.co.uk

It's a chance for students to engage with, and learn from, their tutors, but how do you ensure both sides benefit? Join our live chat on Friday, 2 November from 12pm BST

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Wednesday

We've been talking about memory with a lot of different people today: even if you are on a course without exams - you will still want to remember stuff that you are learning - you want to take it away with you at the end of your degree. This Psyblog post makes some really useful points about memory - check it out: http://www.spring.org.uk/2012/10/how-memory-works-10-things-most-people-get-wrong.php

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Wednesday

If you think you would learn more if you were more CREATIVE - check out this site: http://k12onlineconference.org/ Good luck, Study worries.

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Study Worries I REALLY liked the presentation: How technology helped me paint with mud: http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=1131

Teaser – How Technology Helped Me Paint With Mud | K12 Online Conference

k12onlineconference.org

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Talking about DISSERTATIONS - have you noticed that our Master Classes this week are all about getting your dissertation started? Mondays 1-2.30, LCM-19. Weds 1-2.30 at Calcutta House, CM213 and Weds evening back in the Learning Centre, in LCM19, 6-7.30.

Study Worries shared a link.

For those of you *finishing off* your Dissertation - or even that PhD... http://thesiswhisperer.com/2012/10/24/screw-you-thesis/Some good 'transition' advice. Good luck from Study Worries!

Study Worries shared a link.

23 October

Academic writing month? A blog post from the 'Thesis Whisperer' on getting that Dissertation written. What do you think?http://thesiswhisperer.com/2012/10/23/why-i-changed-my-mind-about-acwrimo/

Why I changed my mind about #acwrimo

thesiswhisperer.com

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We built it… Where are they?

As you can see, the page consists of a mix of the hopefully interesting alongside basic but useful information about the classes that we are running. Engagement is tentative – and whilst I do get heartened when I see that perhaps twenty people have seen a post after only half an hour or so, there are very, very few posts initiated by students themselves.

Build bigger?

I was talking about this recently with Eloise Sentito from Plymouth University: she too is interested in getting students talking with each other about studying and learning – including at a meta level. We thought it would be great if students could engage in a site of their own the way that many learning developers do in the LDHEN list: see www.jiscmail.ac.uk/ldhen - the discussion space for Learning Development in Higher Education.

In a burst of hope, she is launching a jiscmail site for students: www.jiscmail.ac.uk/ldtalk - it is built – we want them to come. If you are also interested in promoting student discussion about study and learning issues – please get them to look at - and get them to join.

What have you done?

If you have your own success stories – of how you have got students to engage with each other online – and to build online communities – even communities of practice – I’d be really interested in hearing your stories…

The writing habit: from blog to PhD to eBook @thesiswhisperer strikes again!

I know that people are often interested in academic writing - and how to do it. I loved this 'Shameless plug' from @thesiswhisperer who wrote about crafting an eBook from her own blogs.

I hope this shares information on developing an approach to eBooks - and also on developing that writing habit.

Dr Inger Newburn's Blog post starts here:
"'A shameless plug'
by DrIngermewburn

So... I wrote an ebook. Or, more precisely, I compiled one out of blog posts and put it up on Amazon for $3.99 AUD - a price point carefully calibrated to match the cost of a cup of coffee in my home town, Melbourne. I thought I would write a quick post to give it a shameless plug let you all know it's out there and what's in it, so you can decide if you want to buy it or not.

For some time now, readers have started asking me to write posts on topics which I dealt with much earlier. Owning a blog is like having a large and very untidy attic; posts become submerged as the blog rolls on. I have to rummage through the boxes to find the precise thing the reader is looking for. I have trouble remembering what month a particular post was written or what it was called. I am a sloppy tagger, so the wordpress search tools are not that much help. I often resort to googling my name and random words to find what I am looking for.

A book provides a structured reading experience that a blog just can't because it's not sequential. I write on topics which interest me or which are prompted by reader requests and things which happen at work. So the posts tend to address different parts of the thesis writing endeavour. Compiling these posts into a book was a way of ordering what I have written in such a way that echoes the process of writing a thesis: start, middle and end.

I chose some of my favourite posts for this book. Others I chose because, at the time, they seemed to resonate with you, the readers. Putting it into a book has taken 10 months because I was doing it in what little spare time I had and, on returning to these posts, I found the itch to EDIT had to be scratched. I fiddled with some posts, extensively rewrote others and occasionally pushed to unrelated ones together. I then wrote an introduction and conclusion. The whole time I nagged my overworked and wonderful sister, @anitranot, to design me a cover (which I think is great).

I believe in the advice in this book - because I followed it myself. I don't make much of a big deal about this normally, but I did do my thesis in 3 years while working two days a week for most of it. I believe I turned out high quality work: I won my faculty award at the end, as well as best paper and my examiner's reports were glowing. On those two days I wasn't doing my thesis I taught PhD students. This experience deeply informed my teaching style. I believe that a thesis can be written in 3 years and that it doesn't have to kill you.

This doesn't mean writing a thesis is easy. Although I was well versed on all the 'tricks of the trade' and had professional colleagues, such as Dr Robyn Barnacle (thanks Robyn!), to get me through, I still experienced all the emotional ups and downs I write about with relish. While I was doing my PhD I often felt like I was in a helicopter, watching myself toil away on the ground making, literally, every mistake in the book. I used to tell my sister I was like a medical doctor: I could diagnose each disease I was suffering with ease, but was completely unable to cure myself.

The only way I could deal with this strange, contradictory experience was stubbornly put into practice everything I learned in the books that I used to prepare my workshops at RMIT. PhD students in these workshops helped me refine these techniques and would suggest others. I still listen closely when colleagues and students talk about how they work and what technology they use. I am an avid believer in the power of 'kitchen talk' to solve practical problems (Twitter enables this now on a much bigger scale of course) and many of the things I learned are in the book.

Finally, running a blog is not a cost neutral enterprise. I have funded the expenses of Thesis Whisperer out of my own pocket. Although in the past RMIT has been supportive, allowing me some work time to do the blog, I recently removed this time from my workplan. This is a story for another time, but suffice to say I now do the blog in the evenings and on weekends - that's why posts have slowed to one a week.

I do this work because I love it and think it's valuable, not because I want a promotion or money to support my lifestyle. Due to the vagaries of the international banking system I will only get a cheque after I have sold more than 300 copies. I am trying to guilt you into buying the book, you can, if you wish, read a lot of this content for free if you can be bothered to trawl through the blog to find it. I do hope, however, that enough of you will find the book to be a worthwhile alternative to your next coffee so that Thesiswhisperer.com can pay for it's own domain registration next year!

... I have put the book on Amazon without digital rights management (DRM). I would prefer people not to pirate it, but I suppose they can if they want to. I hope you wont. I chose no DRM so that you can buy it and read it on any e-reader which can load .mobi files. You don't have to own a Kindle or any ereader to access the contents of this book; you can use the free Kindle app to read it on your computer, phone or tablet.

I'm looking forward to hearing what you think :-)

DrIngermewburn
September 27, 2012 at 7:33 pm
Tags: book review, ebook
Categories: Book Reviews
URL: http://wp.me/pX3kK-17j - ENDS

Do let @thesiswhisperer know what you think of the book - and also - take the time to think how her experiences can inform your practice - as a student - as a PhD student - and as a potential eBook author.

Best,
@Danceswithcloud
#studyhub