Discussion Forum

Social Platforms

Krish Krishnan , Shawn P. Rogers , in Social Data Analytics, 2015

Discussion Forums

Discussion forums are perhaps the earliest form of social media platform. Early adopters of Internet technology may recall news groups or special interest groups (SIGs) that were hosted on the early websites and systems connected to the Internet. These communities were rooted in technical topics but eventually expanded to cover just about any category that could attract an audience. These platforms matured and are now hosted on consumer-oriented social networking sites.

Discussion forums are especially valuable from a social analytic standpoint as they are highly focused in their content and provide a candid view of the topic being discussed. The content is often unstructured in nature but contains various social data types that can be leveraged into better enterprise decision workflows. Flyertalk.com is an excellent example of a discussion-driven community, which hosts discussions centric to the airline industry. Topics include frequent-flyer forums, travel news, luxury hotel discussions, and advice on all things airline related.

Content created within this community can be utilized to identify trends, brand awareness, and sentiment and other valuable content directly focused on the airline and travel industry. Communities like Flyertalk can create vast repositories of data; the site's "Mileage Run Deals" discussion area has 32,000+ discussion threads that contain more than 460,000 individual posts and comments. Each of these posts is written by a community member who is an avid flyer in search of deals and routes that will add to his or her frequent-flyer account, helping him or her to achieve the highest level of airline status. These types of flyers are invaluable to the airline industry, so it makes sense that understanding them better and engaging with them on a topic they find important will add value to the relationship between them and their favorite carrier.

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IT Infrastructure

David Watson , Andrew Jones , in Digital Forensics Processing and Procedures, 2013

7.4.3.4.3 Change Advisory Board

The CAB is the body that approves or rejects a change request.

The CAB is not a technical discussion forum, but is formed from stakeholders that will be affected by the proposed change who meet to ensure that the appropriate management processes have been fully addressed in planning the change. The responsibilities of the CAB include:

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approving or rejecting a change;

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assessing a change based upon a submitted request;

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assessing a change based upon risk to the business at crucial production periods;

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conducting reviews of changes that have failed;

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providing a forum for shared learning gained from particular changes and the change process overall;

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requesting further information regarding a change to assist in making a decision.

Within the Forensic Laboratory, CAB meetings should occur as required, but as the Forensic Laboratory grows, this may need to change to a regular weekly or monthly meeting. The Requestor, or their representative, must be present at these meetings to ensure that the requested change is discussed. If the Requestor or their representative is not present, the change can be automatically rejected. These meetings are intended to:

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discuss any changes taking place during the coming period;

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prepare for upcoming changes;

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review changes that have been implemented during the period.

CAB meetings are primarily used to identify all proposed changes that will impact upon live services. All issues concerning a change must be documented using the RfC process and discussed in these meetings.

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Cooperative study blog

Amanda Evelyn Waldo , in The Plugged-In Professor, 2013

Instructional purpose

Students sometimes feel that posting in online discussion forums or on blogs creates extra work without adding much value. With this activity the value is clear: each student contributes a few posts over the course of the term and receives in exchange an extensive resource in a format that lends itself to review and self-testing. By asking students to identify key course concepts beginning early in the term, this activity also encourages them to think critically about how material covered in the reading assignments and in lecture relates to larger course themes. Although it will work for strictly factual data and will be valuable to students in courses that require memorization, the format easily accommodates more analytical content (e.g., close reading analysis of a short passage). Students who may be uncertain about what is expected or nervous about applying a particular method of analysis on test day can practice with items that classmates have already identified as important. They will also benefit from seeing how other students approach the same material. This activity also creates a useful resource for the instructor, who can consult the blog to see which ideas and information students understand and which they need help with.

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Common Success Factors

Diana DeMarco Brown , in Agile User Experience Design, 2013

Online resources

Many resources are available online—blogs, discussion forums, and training. I like online options because they have so much immediacy, you can find what you need when you need it. This allows you to stay current with the newest ideas and techniques. You can access these items from anywhere in the world and supplement your locally available offerings. The list contains the sites I found most helpful and informative, presented in no particular order. Bear in mind that this is just the tip of the iceberg of what it out there.

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LinkedIn, Agile Experience Design group. For those of you who have LinkedIn accounts, joining this group, moderated by Anders Ramsay, is a great way to participate in or listen to conversations about Agile with a specific focus on design. It also lets you see who is interested in the same issues ast you and puts a face to the broader community. Much diversity is found in the type of questions that arise in this forum. It is an easy way to hear what people are talking about and learn from the ensuing discussion.

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www.agileproductdesign.com . This is Jeff Patton's website, and it is a goldmine of information about Agile, with a focus on incorporating user-centered design into the process. On this site is his blog, an archive of some of his presentations, links to articles he wrote, descriptions of the training he provides, and a calendar of the events in which he is participating. It is incredibly comprehensive and one of the single best resources for designers and researchers interested in learning more about Agile. It is not too strong a statement to say that, if you only go to one site to learn about Agile, you should go to this site.

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Jeffgothelf.com . Jeff Gothelf and his experience at TheLadders.com constitute one of the case studies in this book. Jeff is also a thought leader in the Lean UX movement and has quite a bit of insight to share on the topic. In fact, he wrote a book, Lean UX: Applying Lean Principles to Improve User Experience (2013), on the topic. His blog, links to published articles, and many of his presentations can be found on this site. There are articles and presentations about his experience of bringing Agile to TheLadders.com and you can also find his presentation "Lean UX: Getting out of the Deliverables Business." So much valuable content and up-to-the-moment discussion on the most current issues are on the site that this should be required reading for UX person finding his or her way with Agile.

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www.balancedteam.org . The organization's description says, "Balanced Team is a group of people who are interested in furthering processes and methodologies to create great things." The site has a cross-discipline focus, but many of the discussion center around UX. The blog on this site is a great read, slides from the Balanced Team Conference are also posted, complete with audio. If you cannot attend conferences or training events, spend some time with these materials.

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www.agilemanifesto.org. This is where the Agile Manifesto, and its principles, live. There are no blogs or discussion groups, and a little history. This is the source of it all. You might see the Agile Manifesto reprinted or referenced, including in this book, but it is worth a visit just to know that you have gone to the original source and seen the original text as it was first written.

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www.scrumalliance.org . This site is focused on Scrum, specifically from a development viewpoint. Some interesting articles are to be found under the Resource Center, as well as some information about training. For a nondeveloper, the most valuable part of the site might be its "Scrum 101" page, under "Scrum Basics." In a few paragraphs, it tells you everything you need to know, at a high level, about Scrum.

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www.extremeprogramming.org . The first thing you see when you get to this site are the words "Extreme Programming: A Gentle Introduction" and that it exactly what you get on the homepage. The rest of the site is more geared toward developers, providing links to white papers, articles, and books. If you are looking for some quick information about Extreme Programming, the first page of the site is the right place to go.

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Andersramsay.com . This site is broadly focused on user experience, but Anders is also an Agile coach and has many postings that speak to Agile and UX. On this site, you can find his presentation "Learning to Play UX Rugby," which is not only entertaining but describes some interesting techniques for UX practitioners. "The UX of User Stories," Parts 1 and 2, are great blog posts about what user stories mean to the UX practitioners. It contains some practical advice, and these posts are very helpful for a UX person looking to influence his or her Agile environment.

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UIE.com . This is the site for Jared Spool's User Interface Engineering consultancy; it provides a variety of content on Agile, including training and events that the company offers on the topic. There are also several blog posts and articles on Agile. In Jared's article "Essential UX Layers for Agile and Lean Design Teams," he describes a mental model for thinking about UX and how to fit it into Agile that is quite interesting and can help a UX team define, or possibly redefine, its approach to integrating with Agile methods.

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Mountaingoatsoftware.com . I admit that part of why I like this site as much as I do is because the company makes the coolest set of planning poker cards, with goats on them. The site, which is done by Agile coach, consultant, and author Mike Cohn, has a wealth of information about Agile and Scrum. It is development focused and aimed toward educating people about the practice of Scrum specifically and Agile in general. Many training offerings are available, including some very reasonably priced "eLearning" sessions, which would be a very helpful resource for organizations where training is needed but there is not much budget to provide any.

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Agile-UX.com . This site belongs to Jean Claude Grosjean, an Agile coach and UX consultant. He has some great presentations and blog posts, but my favorite by far is "Collaborative Workshop and the Letter to Santa Claus" series of blog posts. This series is probably one of the most entertaining, adorable, and accessible examples of collaborative design.

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UXMatters.com . If you have not been to this site before, it is essentially an online magazine of really good articles about UX. As a whole, it is not Agile specific, but the subject comes up in a handful of articles, authored by experts. "Clash of the Titans: Agile and UCD" by Richard Cecil definitely wins the award for best title but is also a very thoughtful look at what Agile means for user-centered design. "Developing UX Agility: Letting Go of Perfection" is an interesting case study from the UX team at ProQuest about their adoption of Agile. I also found that the panel Q&A in "Integrating UX into an Agile Environment" to provide a nice summary of common concerns with great perspectives from a variety of contributors.

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Johnnyholland.com , As the site says, "Johnny Holland is an open collective exploring interaction design. Oh. and Johnny loves you." How can you not love a site that loves you back? That aside, it is a really cool site with a broad focus on interaction design and frequent contributors who bring the discussion around to Agile and Lean UX. Greg Laugero's article, "Lean UX Is Dead. Long Live Lean UX," is a thought provoking take on Lean UX as a strategic, rather than tactical, tool. A lot of content on this site will make you think differently about Agile specifically and design in general, so explore it at your leisure.

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Nomad8.com , Sandy Mamoli, whose title is "director of all things Agile" at Nomad8, has an Agile blog on this site that contains some of the most practical advice on Agile I have seen. Sometimes, the common discourse about Agile can get a little abstract or too philosophical for everyday use, but her posts on things, like "Should We Choose Agile or Iterative Development?" are accessible without being simplistic and her checklists for seemingly everything are a great resource for teams in the early stages of Agile adoption. Her "10 Ways to Fail with Agile" presentation is well worth viewing, and not just because it is a presentation that does not use PowerPoint.

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leansoftwareengineering.com . This site is full of essays from Corey Ladas and Bernie Thompson and their thoughts on a variety of Agile topics, including Scrumban, on which Corey actually wrote the book. While the content is a few years old, it is still relevant and interesting and worth a read for their practical take on Agile processes, especially if your team is interested in exploring the use of Kanban (or Scrumban).

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Slideshare.com . This slide deck repository has everything, if you are willing to do a little digging or have time to get lost in the related links. Not every deck stands on its own very well, but so many presentations are there that you can easily move along to one that does. It also turns up more specific content than your average search engine, so it can make a great jumping off point for your Agile research.

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Google Search Basics

Johnny Long , ... Justin Brown , in Google Hacking for Penetration Testers (Third Edition), 2016

Google Groups

Due to the surge in popularity of Web-based discussion forums, blogs, mailing lists, and instant messaging technologies, the oldest of public discussion forums, USENET newsgroups, has become an overlooked form of online public discussion. Thousands of users still post to USENET on a daily basis. (A thorough discussion about what USENET encompasses can be found at www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/what-is/part1/.) DejaNews (www.deja.com) was once considered the authoritative collection point for all past and present newsgroup messages until Google acquired www.deja.com in February 2001 (see www.google.com/press/pressrel/pressrelease48.html). This acquisition gave users the ability to search the entire archive of USENET messages posted since 1995 via the simple and straightforward Google search interface. Google now refers to USENET groups as Google Groups.

Today, Internet users around the globe turn to Google Groups for general discussion and problem solving. It is very common for Information Technology (IT) practitioners to turn to Google's Groups section for answers to all sorts of technology-related issues. The old USENET community still thrives and flourishes behind the sleek interface of the Google Groups search engine.

The Google Groups search can be accessed by clicking the Groups tab of the main Google Web page, or by surfing to http://groups.google.com. The search interface (shown in Figure 1.3) looks quite different from other Google search pages, yet the search capabilities operate in much the same way. The major difference between the Groups search page and the Web search page lies in the newsgroup browsing links.

Figure 1.3.

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Plan your trip

Urs E. Gattiker , in Social Media Audits, 2014

3.3.3 Usability is king – not engagement

If a company decides to engage online, whether in discussion forums or through a corporate blog, some careful choices must be made. Not only do employees need the time to do this properly but just as importantly, engagement should be limited to a few platforms to make it feasible.

But when do customers want to engage? In most cases I want to find the information, checklist and suggestions from the company's website that help me save time or make a better decision. In other words, I do not want to be Facebook friends with my butter producer or Hermes. Yes, some people will want the invites to special events that are only available to Facebook fans, participate in a sweepstake to win something (see Avira anti-virus software, http://www.flickr.com/photos/measure-for-impact/8035171224 ), or compete for 30 seconds of fame (see National Theatre London insurer Arriva, http://www.flickr.com/photos/measure-for-impact/6194092499 ), but most of us want to be left alone or get something for free while getting on with our offline lives.

The primary focus has to be ensuring that the client either wants to pick up the phone or look online for help, depending on the situation (e.g., malfunctioning product: coffee machine, time: Sunday, location: restaurant). If your hotel's coffee machine does not work properly when you test it early on Sunday morning, what will this mean for your guests? Will the service agent bring a replacement within the hour? Will the agent call within 30 minutes of you submitting the online form and help you fix the problem?

This indicates the likelihood that your customers will only want to engage with your brand in certain situations (e.g., purchase cycle – see Table 3.2). The above example seems extreme, but nicely illustrates when engagement matters: in cases where fast and competent help is needed by Company A's client (hotel) to keep its clients happy (hotel guests getting their morning coffee).

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Thread networks: Mapping message boards and email lists

Derek L. Hansen , ... Itai Himelboim , in Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL (Second Edition), 2020

Abstract

Many online communities use threaded conversations in the form of email lists, discussion forums, Facebook groups, and sites like Reddit, Quora, and Stack Overflow. Threaded conversations are composed of single-authored messages organized into threads (i.e., top-level message with a chain of replies). Threads are often found within topics or groups. These conversations lend themselves to the creation of several networks including the directed, weighted Reply network and Top-Level Reply network; the undirected, weighted affiliation network connecting threads (or forums) to the individuals that posted to them; and the undirected, weighted networks derived from the affiliation network including the user-to-user network and thread-to-thread network. An analysis of the CSS-D technical support community shows how to identify important social roles and individuals who fill those roles including answer people, discussion starters, and questioners. The analysis of the bimodal Ravelry network shows how to identify important people and integrate non-discussion network metrics.

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Thread Networks

Derek L. Hansen , ... Marc A. Smith , in Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL, 2011

9.8 Practitioner's Summary

Many online communities use threaded conversations in the form of email lists, discussion forums, and Usenet. Although they make use of a wide range of technologies that differ in their delivery infrastructure, all threaded conversations share similar characteristics: they are composed of single-authored messages organized into threads (i.e., a top-level message, replies to that message, and possibly replies to those replies), threads are often found within topics or groups, messages are often permanent, and users often have a shared view of the conversation. These conversations lend themselves to the creation of several networks including the directed, weighted Reply network and Top-Level Reply network; the undirected, weighted affiliation network connecting threads (or forums) to the individuals that posted to them; and the undirected, weighted networks derived from the affiliation network including the user-to-user network and thread-to-thread network. The analysis of the CSS-D technical support community showed how to identify important social roles and individuals who fill those roles including answer people, discussion starters, and questioners. The analysis of ABC-D discussion-based email list showed how to identify good candidates to replace a community administrator based on network metrics such as betweenness and eigenvector centrality. And the analysis of Ravelry showed how to use a bimodal affiliation network to understand how forum-based groups are connected, identify important boundary spanners, and relate nondiscussion network metrics (e.g., blog activity, project activity) to group discussion activity.

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Affect in Online Discourse

Scott J. Warren , Jenny S. Wakefield , in Emotions, Technology, and Learning, 2016

Method

Participants

Fifty-six undergraduate students from four course sections participated in the CMS forum discussions. They self-selected to include 28 students engaged in discussing the millennial topic HIV/AIDS and 28 discussing the topic environmental sustainability. Students were undergraduates at a southwestern university ranging from freshmen to seniors. Each studied basic computer applications and Internet tools. A gender balance was sought for the groups, but was not possible, due to self-selection. Prior to analysis, students were given pseudonyms to protect their identity.

The 2015 Assignment

The discussion component in The 2015 Project required students to visit its associated CMS website every week for 6 weeks (weeks 4-10 of a 16-week course) and read weekly, real-life, emergent stories related to either environmental sustainability or HIV/AIDS. After reading the news stories, students were asked to post to the CMS a critique (providing an argument for, against, or both). They were also asked to find two peer posts of interest and argue these posts.

To aid them in understanding what an argument is, the following definition was given.

Arguments are not fights or debates. They do not contain anger. The definition for "argument" according to Ramage, Bean, and Johnson (2010) was used and explained as follows: An argument: (1) requires the writer or speaker to justify their claims; (2) is both a product and a process; and (3) contains elements of truth-seeking and persuasion. Since the assignment was about student discovery and knowledge creation, the four-course section instructors participated only to spur additional thinking (i.e., encouraged students to think deeply about the topics by further posting story-related and relevant materials to the CMS).

An example of a discussion thread where the instructor interjected included the instructor posting the video The Story of Bottled Water 2 within the environmental sustainability goal thread in order to challenge thinking by exposing students to alternative information on concepts about which they had already formed opinions. In this case, students were first asked to watch a short video about bottled water, plastic water bottle waste, and bottle waste maintenance. They then reflected upon the video, which sparked an in-depth discussion. Their emotional responses resulted in discussion of proposing a campus-wide awareness campaign to battle water bottle waste.

In other instances, students were asked to respond to truth claims made in media postings (the posted newspaper stories) and engage in critique using the social media and productivity tools to support their efforts. For example, after reading and discussing progress toward safe drinking water around the world, given the UNMD goals target year 2015, students were asked to use UN reports to learn about progress in three countries of their choice, extract data from the reports, and manipulate the data in Excel to generate visual progress (i.e., tables and graphs). The focus of the tool usage was on cognitive support instead of skills development; we sought to help students understand how they could use the technology to support a learning process involving analysis and synthesis of concepts, rather than as a means of simple delivery of content for memorization and later assessment.

Data Analysis

In reviewing and analyzing the discussion postings, we turned to Herring (2004) and her method of using computer-mediated discourse analysis (CMDA). Herring noted that text-based communication can take many forms, and proposed discussion groups are one such form. CMDA may be used as a methodology for analysis of either qualitative or quantitative analysis of text-based language.

In our study, we used quantitative means to analyze the discussions that students had on the CMS forum, but also included a qualitative component where we analyzed the posts for expressed emotions. With such a high number of posts, we chose to analyze only discussion threads that held a minimum of four interactions to call it a meaningful discussion. The final number of discussion threads included in the analysis was 14 HIV/AIDS threads (84 discussion posts) and 18 environmental sustainability threads (114 discussion posts).

In CMDA, initially, text instances are coded and counted; thereafter, frequency summaries are calculated (Herring, 2004). Meaning is then extracted from frequency counts and correspondence with student utterances in the corpus. Our threads were sorted and organized into two Excel spreadsheets with one for each of the UN goals discussed. The researchers developed a system for analyzing the posts using codes and tally marks. Working through a number of posts generated the initial codes. The two researchers then reviewed students' reflective posts individually and marked them with tally marks in the spreadsheets. New codes were discussed and added as deemed appropriate throughout the coding process. The researchers later sat together to review and discuss the completed coding to reach unanimous agreement, and identify categories and shared emotional meaning from the data.

Posts could be sorted into more than one code, depending upon content. From the codes, the researchers discarded those with codes that held five or fewer tally marks. Final tallied codes from the two UN goal discussions were then counted and placed into14 broad categories (number of tally marks in parentheses): article support (45), broad claim (42), affective expression (93), initiator call for action (19), acceptance of claims with added call for action (34), acceptance of claim with weak call for action (82), acceptance of claim without call for action (38), reply-agreement with support (75), reply-agreement surface level (64), questions (34), fills assignment only (6), instructor-facilitated discourse (24), expressed awareness (43), and initiator returns to discourse (6).

Analytical Focus

This study had two purposes. First, it was to capture students' informed critiques of culpable social systems involved in the presented UN problems. These were expected to result from their reading of news articles, researching the topics, and thinking about how different societies approach and try reach the UN goals by 2015. The second purpose was to capture the emotions that may have been expressed in the posts when they learned about these real-world issues and became conscious of the world as it stands before them. The following themes emerged from their underlying categories:

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Theme 1: Affect, emotions, and awareness expressions

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Three categories: affective (including emotions); expressed awareness; and initiator call for action

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Theme 2: Acceptance

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Three categories: acceptance of claim with call for action; acceptance of claim with weak call for action; acceptance of claim without call for action

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Theme 3: Agreement and questioning

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Five categories: article support; agreement with support; agreement surface-level; questions statements/asks; initiator returns to discourse

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Social media: the new tool in business education

Susan Bandias , Anthony Gilding , in Public Interest and Private Rights in Social Media, 2012

Social media in business education

The most common forms of social media used in business education include wikis, discussion forums, blogs, Twitter and synchronous collaborative learning environments. Each of these social media tools differ in their intent, their level of interaction and their pedagogical application. However, they all assist in the development of work-readiness skills, technological competence, communication skills, online literacy skills and collaboration skills, as well as the skills necessary for managing information and communications technology.

The use of online discussion forums is one of the 'older' applications of educational technology. 'Bulletin boards', as they were called in the early 1990s when first used in education, have become a popular and widely applied learning tool. As a mature technology their use 'has informed online learning and development practice across many levels from school pupils to postgraduate research students, and especially in online and blended learning in higher and professional education' (Salmon et al., 2010:170). Over time, bulletin boards have evolved to incorporate the use of graphics, audio, images and video. They have also become a forum to promote discussion, debate, the exchange of ideas and collaboration. Research indicates that the use of online discussion forums can have a positive impact on student motivation, student socialisation, information exchange, the construction of knowledge, and access to lectures and peers (Salmon et al., 2010).

The term 'wiki', derived from the Hawaiian word wiki, meaning fast or quick, provides a simple system for collaboration. Essentially, a wiki is a database for creating, browsing and searching through information. A wiki allows for non-linear, evolving, complex and networked discussion and interaction. The most well-known example of a wiki is Wikipedia, with this being an online encyclopaedia written and maintained by the collective contributors.

It is widely acknowledged that wikis embody the social constructivist principles of learning (Caverly and Ward, 2008; Moskaliuk et al., 2009; Su and Beaumont, 2010). In the development of a wiki, a group of users jointly create a digital artefact and, in the process, become active participants in the construction of their own knowledge. From an epistemological perspective, the use of wikis assists in the acquisition of digital literacy, the formation of complex concepts, as well as collaboration and research skills (Caverly and Ward, 2008; Karasavvidis, 2010; Su and Beaumont, 2010).

Blogs are broadly defined as online public journals or diaries (Tien-Chi et al., 2011). So wikis, discussion forums and blogs are forms of social media that are asynchronous. Although interaction in an asynchronous environment does not occur in real time, most good-quality blogs allow visitors to leave comments, and even message each other via widgets on the blogs. This interactivity distinguishes blogs from other static websites. In an educational context, blogs facilitate the publication of knowledge, offer opportunities for subsequent reflection and analysis, and assist learners to understand the relational and contextual basis of knowledge construction and meaning making. According to research conducted by Saeed et al. (2009:105), students also use blogging for community building, resource consolidation, the sharing of ideas or as a personal journal.

Micro-blogging is a relatively recent extension of blogging, and works in similar ways to text messaging. As a form of expression, micro-blogging has gained considerable momentum over the past few years. The high uptake of mobile Internet technologies and smartphones has provided much of the impetus for that growth. Twitter is the most popular version of micro-blogging, and is an effective communication tool for concise messages and news items. University libraries have been very quick to realise the potential of applications, such as Twitter. Its reported use, in this context, has been one of information dissemination. As indicated by Weaver (2010), Twitter is used successfully by library staff as a news service to inform students of events, catalogue additions and library loans. Micro-blogging is also evolving to be a very powerful networking tool for educators. The immediacy of information, and the capacity to access a vast range of resources through micro-blogs, has inherent appeal for academics. However, as a relatively new technology, its application in education is still evolving and, to date, there has been limited research on its use in the curriculum.

In recent years, the use of web conferencing technology to facilitate online learning in a synchronous classroom has become part of the mainstream curricula of many higher education disciplines. Such synchronous classrooms are a 'virtual' room where participants meet online, and in real time. Virtual classrooms are becoming a common and popular method of educational delivery, particularly in distance education. As McBrien and Jones (2009) have noted, virtual classrooms have also proven to be popular among students for reasons that include convenience and equal opportunity.

There are a number of software applications that support synchronous learning. Commercial learning products such as Wimba, Skype, Collaborate and Elluminate share several interactive characteristics. These applications can incorporate the use of audio, video, text, graphics and file sharing to enable students to participate in a learning experience that is aimed to replicate the face-to-face environment. The reported benefits of synchronous learning include enhanced communication, greater social interaction, improved group cohesion and higher levels of course satisfaction (McBrien and Jones, 2009).

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