This paper will explore the opportunities and strategies for encouraging student interaction in the area of online learning. It is my observation, both as a teacher and a learner, that encouraging teachers and students to see online learning as an integral part of the learning journey cannot be separated from the more specific topic of encouraging students to participate in communicating and interacting in an eLearning environment.

A Computer Moderated Conference (CMC) with Masters students undertaking a class in flexible, online and distance education, has lead me to explore a number of facets of this issue. The role of the teacher leads into issues of student motivation to interact, in many cases. The tutor also has a role to play in building confidence and ensuring that students don't suffer information overload. Underpinning the teacher's role and their own motivation to participate online, is a basic questioning about why they should use eLearning and what is driving the shift in teaching mode.

It could be argued that students are motivated primarily by their desire to learn, then by many other more complex factors. Their participation in online learning, particularly CMC can also be seen as a product of factors such as individual learning styles, gender, personality and cultural background, among other attributes. While student attributes certainly play a part in their interaction online, the role of the teacher as facilitator needs to be considered as a primary motivator for student interaction in an eLearning environment.

This paper will explore the opportunities and strategies for encouraging student interaction in the area of online learning. I have chosen to expand the topic from simply encouraging interaction in Computer Moderated Conferencing (CMC), as I believe that encouraging teachers and students to see online learning as an integral part of the learning journey cannot be separated from the more specific topic of encouraging students to participate in communicating online, in whatever form.

The CMC discussion with other students undertaking a Masters in Professional Education and Training (MPET), class has lead me to explore a number of facets of this issue. For example, the role of the teacher leads into issues of motivation in many cases. The tutor also has a role to play in building confidence and ensuring that students don't suffer information overload. Some of the other topics are more general in nature. For example, underpinning the teacher's role and their motivation to participate online, is a basic questioning about why they should use eLearning and what is driving the shift in teaching mode.

It could be argued that students are motivated primarily by their desire to learn, then by many other more complex factors. Their participation in online learning, particularly CMC can also be seen as a product of motivational factors, and of individual learning styles, gender, personality and cultural background among other attributes. While student attributes certainly play a part in student interaction online, the role of the teacher needs to be considered.

1      More tutor messages will result in increased student activity
2      Prompt tutor responses will result in increased student activity
3      Greater encouragement from tutors will result in increased student activity.

Surprisingly, the study concluded that the first two hypotheses were not supported while the third was supported to some extent. Tagg and Dickinson's findings lead to the conclusion that it is not the frequency of tutor responses that increase student interaction, rather the encouraging nature of the responses seems to be the motivating factor.

Some participants in the MPET subject conference disagreed with the findings and showed that the presence of the online tutor had an effect on participation for students. Their observation showed that though other students encourage interaction, individuals tend to 'trust" the tutor as a reliable source of feedback, not valuing peer input. One student explained,

Purcell and Purcell-Robertson (2000), noted that one of the major criticisms of distance education is the perception of an "inferior interaction" between teachers and students. Even though they mention that this need not be the case, student expectations vary. It is likely that students may be:

1. in transition from a traditional classroom environment to an online environment
2. taking a traditional class alongside an online class
3. taking classes totally online

For students in the first two categories, comparisons with face-to-face classroom interaction cannot help but occur. Students working online may feel disconnected from the learning environment. The problem is how do we combat these feelings of being disconnected.

Many teachers are finding the answer to this problem is also to establish a student-centred rather than a teacher centred environment. This seems fine in theory but how do we manage the transition in teacher role? Purcell and Purcell-Robertson (2000) suggest that it takes time to make the substantial mind-shift in delivery modes and in teacher role.

A focus on student-to-student interaction needs to take place for a meaningful CMC learning experience to occur. In the asynchronous environment of CMC, student-to-student interaction not only allows it, but requires it. "Social loafing" which can occur quite easily in a traditional classroom, becomes more obvious in this medium, as the student literally disappears. Purcell and Purcell-Robertson (2000) note that this makes CMC preferable to classroom environments, as it is not so easy for students simply to observe without input. Although I have noticed that many students still exhibit this behaviour.

Fostering interaction means that the instructor must also recognise the student's need to socialise. For an online environment, this means that the teacher needs to make a way of socialising available. A chat-room or conference especially for socialising is one way to accommodate this need. This would take out the "academic" content from the interaction and perhaps familiarise students with the medium, without them worrying about the quality of the posting.

Student-to-student interaction is key to a successful virtual classroom. Learning from peers via discussion is the primary function of CMC, as it is a student-centred rather then teacher-led environment. It would be logical to expect that in a post-graduate conference, peer learning would make a valuable contribution to motivation and the student experience. Even at this level however, there is a need for 'bonding' between the facilitator and students. This relationship building can have positive and negative consequences for independent study and online student collaboration.

While it is important to bond with the facilitator, there is a danger that students may tend to interact only with the tutor, and not collaborate with other students. Some of the anxiety associated with "trusting" the tutor rather than fellow students may come from traditional teaching methods, which require the one right answer to a question or problem. The "right" answer problem is especially prevalent with students from cultures where traditional teaching methods, rather than more constructivist styles of learning prevails. The expectation is that the teacher is seen as "the sage on the stage" rather than a facilitator.

Experience with teaching statistics at an undergraduate level has shown that students become anxious when teachers don't jump in with help. This is an excellent example of a subject where the "distrust" of other students' levels of ability is high. The tutor must monitor the discussion closely to determine whether students are heading in the wrong direction whilst not interfering too much, as student interaction is to be encouraged. Observations of this class have shown that "mature-aged" students, who tend to be the most anxious, tend to give advice online but seek advice directly from the tutor by phone, email or in person, where possible.

The change in teacher role is not only a significant mind-shift for students but for teachers too. While building rapport or "bonding" with students is important, teachers must resist the urge to answer every question, in favour of guiding the class to discovering the answer for themselves. (Purcell and Purcell-Robertson, 2000).

Setting out clear roles and expectations at the beginning of the course may overcome some of these difficulties, however the transition to this style of learning, coupled with becoming familiar with the technology or new software, needs to be taken into account when designing activities to encourage online interaction.

In one scenario, students would be able to meet the instructor, face-to-face before the course begins. In this way, a relationship could develop which may overcome the problem of the "facelessness" of online interaction. Other ways of introducing the "human element" may be to simply post photographs of the tutor and the other students to an accessible web page.

Another model to facilitate online interaction, would be to organise time for a synchronous discussion. This time could be set each week, much like a timetabled on-campus class. Students and tutors could meet, preferably in small, easy to moderate groups, to allow for the spontaneous nature of a "real" (face-to-face) discussion to be achieved.

The best possible scenario would be for the technology to become reliable enough to have video-conference discussions available to students. Again this would only work for small groups but would encourage students to participate by overcoming the "flat" element of a text only discussion. Working with the current level of technology brings challenges to both students and tutors.

A subject where discussion is integral but not assessable may encourage students to take the plunge into an online conference. Students who feel their every word is being monitored and assessed may be unlikely to offer their opinions. Another model used at undergraduate level in media subjects at the Swinburne, Lilydale campus, encourages students to post discussions, then to determine their best three discussions for the semester to be offered for assessment. In this way the student knows the discussions are monitored, still feels free to discuss any issues raised but has control over the quality of work offered for formal assessment. (Vigo and Arnold, 1997)

This model works well for students but requires intensive monitoring, as the groups are large (over 300 students). Students who do not participate are flagged by specially designed software and sent a gentle reminder email. Monitoring of such large groups is still a problem however.

While the facilitative nature of the role of the tutor may be agreed upon, the timing and frequency of tutor input is not easy to gauge. Depending on the level of study, the nature of the subject matter and the design of a course, teacher input will vary. It is to be expected that any group formation and development must go through the stages of forming, norming, storming and performing, whether face-to-face or online. (Hackett and Martin, cited in Bryant, 2000) Online groups may just take longer to attain the forming stage and tutors need to be aware of this. A student from the online MPET commented in the online discussion that,

The concept of shared responsibility and accountability is an outcome of the facilitative nature of the teacher role in this medium, but must be stated and agreed upon by teachers and students at the outset.

Motivation is a complex issue and many models for motivating learning have been tested. Although research has been published on motivation for students to interact online, there are some key issues involved in the motivation of interacting in CMC. McCombs (2002) suggests learners of all ages are naturally adept at being self-motivated and at directing and managing their own learning on tasks that they believe to be interesting, fun and personally meaningful in some way.

The challenge then is to design online activities that meet these criteria when we know little about the motivations of individual students, especially at a distance. How can we structure CMC to meet these criteria for all the diverse students involved?

Some of the ideas presented in this section have already been raised under the heading of the teacher role. It is difficult to separate these issues as changing teacher roles impact on course design, which then impacts on student motivation.

Horton (2000), suggests that offering rewards can encourage learners to interact online. However as this is a text primarily for workplace training purposes, the motivations used tended to be extrinsic in nature. That is, offering external rewards such as chances for promotion and other staff development opportunities such as travel. The challenges for teachers in other educational institutions are to offer intrinsic rewards to motivate and encourage interaction.

As well as demonstrating ideas for incentives to motivation, Horton (2000)also presents the case that students miss "the human element" when taking courses online, and suggested that this can be helped by posting biographies and pictures of the instructor and fellow students or by arranging a real-time chat session or video-conference, periodic chat sessions, communicating with each learner every week.

Weekly chat sessions may promote interaction, and help students who are more tutor-dependent, also enabling them to mark out their week. The lack of timetabled classes means that study becomes inconsistent and weekly chat reminds students where they should be in the course and motivates them to work, at least for that one night per week! Using synchronous chat is very dependent on the interface and the geographic location of the group.

Of all the issues that arise during discussions on encouraging interaction in the MPET class, the issue of the missing "human element" is the most pervasive. The question was asked: "What makes the human element so attractive to some students?"

We need to discover what makes the human element comforting to some students. Once we have done this perhaps we can then attempt to design these characteristics into the CMC course. The MPET students sugeested that the comfort of the human element is perhaps related to structure, goal setting, interaction and reinforcement. If we can place these elements into our CMC program we may be able to replicate the positive learning environment.

Motivation is important to engage students in this form of learning, however motivation is hindered by lack of confidence in using the technology, or a more general lack of confidence in the student's own abilities. Encouraging interaction can be further hampered by information overload.

These issues were also difficult to separate, as confidence is affected by feelings of being overwhelmed both by the technology itself and of the amount of information students are expected to read and absorb. Adding an online communication element to the mix of text-based materials, audio- tapes, Internet resources and CD rom material can result in getting "lost" in the course.

The problem of "too many pieces" can be confusing to distance students and even more so to on-campus students. The push by most Australian Universities to "go online" sees many on-campus students presented with a multi-modal array of delivery methods and styles. Many older students long for the day when a course outline accompanied a text-book and a series of lectures. Assessment consisted of exams and an essay for each subject. Students are now finding that multiple methods of delivery, assessment and resources make their learning journey unnecessarily complicated.

Teachers also need to cope with the multiple role of motivating of group discussions, creating of materials, assessment, coordinating or organizing contributors enabling students or teachers to enlarge their ideas, even provide individual counselling for students with problems.

Some of the participants in the MPET discussion commented that the style of learning experienced in CMC would not suit all students. One teacher who had a predominant number of young males in her class suggested some strategies to engage her particular students in eLearning, which included:

• Challenging them with puzzles to solve. Each part of the puzzle would require building knowledge and skills related to the aims and outcomes of the course.

• Challenge or direct students to create products which, display the content they are required to research and learn eg: web pages, games, and PowerPoint presentations.

• Use a 'treasure' hunt through the resource websites to answer questions or to complete a crossword, solve a puzzle or win a prize.

Using incentives such as described, whether intrinsic (solving puzzles) or extrinsic (winning prizes), show that teachers need to be innovative when considering how to encourage engagement in online learning. This can lead to other positive and unintended consequences for teachers. My own research shows that teachers become excited by such challenges and opportunities for creativity in teaching, which inevitably lead to creativity in classroom teaching.

The fact that many adult learners are not IT literate or confident creates an added challenge for teachers and students. This group of students would benefit from some kind of face-to-face tutorials to get them started and to build their confidence with the technology.

As with any other student group, the process of transition to online learning needs to be taken slowly. To engage students online who are not IT literate or confident, a gradual process of IT skill development would be crucial. The online socializing process via online postings may be successful once the lack of IT skills was addressed.

At this stage, the format of the postings and whether or not they conform to a set of rules, would not be of great importance. Getting the students to interact at all would be the primary priority, with other more formal process gradually being brought into place as students become familiar with the instructor, their peers, the technology and its capabilities.

One of the problems that arises when teaching in Australian Higher Education or Secondary schools is one of straddling two modes of delivery. As some institutions are in transition and evaluation stages, there is a problem with encouraging on-campus students to engage in online activity. This is even more problematic than encouraging interaction when students are totally online. If students get everything they need without participating online then why would they bother? Again the problem of "too many pieces" crops up.

Teachers that have taken and independent decision to utilise new learning technologies tend to devise ways of encouraging interaction. These are the individuals that are excited by the challenge and opportunities for creativity mentioned earlier. These innovations may include CD-rom material incorporating web links which provide course material but encourage students to "go outside" their own class to find alternative resources. Students become eager then to share their discoveries with others and tend to do this via their online discussions. In my own online teaching experience, these teachers design courses that make the online interaction integral to the subject, rather than an "add-on".

Adrian (2000), suggests a model for the transition to online learning which includes, as with any other teaching method, designing course objectives, as the first step. The author goes on to state that while the primary objective will always be student learning, teachers should want to create a sense of "enjoyment", so that students are encouraged to become lifelong learners. Adrian (2000) states that the next step, designing course structure, is an even more important consideration in an online environment than in face-to-face teaching as there is a need to focus on the asynchronous nature of the delivery mode.

Some ways in which interaction is encouraged have already been addressed but there needs to be a more holistic view, that courses need to be designed from the outset, for an online environment. This takes a significant mind-shift for academics who may not have changed their courses or re-evaluated their objectives for years. When "going online" is forced upon teachers, they are more likely to use the "add-on" approach, find that students do not interact, then blame the delivery mode.

A variety of learning styles must be taken into account when developing any course, whether online or face-to-face. Some criticisms were raised in the MPET discussion as to why students take an online course when they have a choice of delivery methods. The convenience and flexible nature of online delivery is enticing for very practical reasons. (Honey, 2001) found students like eLearning for some of the following reasons:

• it allows students to work at their own pace
• they can choose when and for how long they learn
• they can timetable to suit themselves
• they can get on without waiting for others
• they are in the driving seat/in control of their own learning
• they can fit it around the rest of their lives

However this mode of learning does not suit every learner. Learners who are more suited to a passive style of learning often find the self-actualised style of CMC difficult to cope with. Those who prefer a more structured environment find the lack external markers, such as set class times, difficult as the student-centred style of learning is dependent on the self-discipline needed to log-on at regular intervals.

Set times for synchronous (chat room) discussions may help to overcome some of the problems of lack of timing and structure.

Many criticisms are raised by teachers and others about the perceived cost- efficient nature of eLearning. Some teachers are reluctant to be involved and hesitate to interact online as they see this as a "cheap" method of delivery. Not just cheap in cost but in quality. As far as cost is concerned, the development of online materials and systems is no "easy" option and certainly not cheaper. Whether it is "cheaper" in the sense of poorer quality teaching is still debated amongst teachers.

The resentment felt towards the forced nature on eLearning by some institutions is illustrated by a comment in the MPET online discussion,

"Unfortunately, all universities in Australia have to struggle between maintaining the quality of their core business (teaching and or research), and economic survival. Our current government thinks that what's good for business (competition and business survival) is equally good for education, health, transportation and public utilities etc. They are slowing finding out that this is a flawed concept..."

While teachers hold this position about the forced nature of online learning, the enthusiasm or lack of it, for interacting online will inevitably leak to students, thus discouraging their interest in interacting online and seeing it as inferior to traditional classroom interaction.

When introducing eLearning we must ask ourselves; What are our expected outcomes? Does it actually matter whether online learning is interactive enough, or a failure or not value for money at this historical moment in time?  

Do we have to decide whether the focus of the course is to encourage students to use the technology or on learning the content? Perhaps at this stage of transition, it is too difficult to do both successfully. Current studies evaluating the success of learning technology tend to rely on traditional assessments and measures of success.

If a higher level of online interaction is one of our goals then the first step is to determine the level of interaction required. This will be dependent on individual courses, subjects, structure and assessment of a particular program. It has become patently obvious that a student-centred style of teaching is required for this type of interaction to occur successfully. Where teachers still expect teacher-centred control, encouraging interaction in CMC, is doomed to failure. Teachers must be clear about their new role as facilitator rather than instructor. Students must have the expectations about their own and the teacher's role in the learning process, clearly explained at the outset of the course.

Successful interaction in CMC and eLearning in general, requires creativity and enthusiasm on the part of the teacher, which will hopefully transfer to the students. Although this will not always be the case as illustrated by a teacher's comment in the MPET discussion.

"...............what is that they say about horses and water?? With some students no matter if it's f2f or online, they just won't do the depth of study or interaction that we would like."

Interaction and engagement of students with any course, whether online or in the classroom is problematic. It is debateable whether encouraging interaction is easier online (social loafing being harder to hide) or more difficult (because of the missing human element).

What is certain is that to encourage interaction, the teacher must be seen to be enthusiastic and "present" in the class. The change in role and learning method from teacher-centred to student-centred means the "presence" of the teacher no longer needs to be the "sage on the stage" role, rather the tutor becomes the guide on the tour where students are allowed to make discoveries for themselves.

Adrian, C.M., "Developing a Learning Environment: Applying Technology and TQM to Distance Learning" in Lau, L. (Ed.), Distance Learning Technologies: Issues, Trends and Opportunities (2000), Idea Group Publishing, Hershey, USA.

Hackett, D and Martin, C.L., (1993), "Facillitation Skills for Team Learners" in Bryant, J. (2000), "Readings for Learning and Communication Behaviour", Swinburne University of Technology.

EXC709 Computer Moderated Conference, Issue: Encouraging Interaction, Masters in Professional Education and Training, Deakin University, Semester One, 2002.

Honey, P., (2001), "Learning styles - the key to personalised e-learning?", http://www.peterhoney.com/articl/66

Horton, W. (2000), "Designing Web-Based Training", John Wiley and Sons.,

Purcell D.F. and Purcell-Robertson, R.M., "Interactive Distance Education", in Lau, L. (Ed.), Distance Learning Technologies: Issues, Trends and Opportunities (2000), Idea Group Publishing, Hershey, USA.

Vigo, K. and Arnold, J., (1997), Paper to the National Council of Distance Education: 'Teaching with the CDRom and Websites'.

Tagg, Allan C. & Dickinson, Julie A. (1994), "Tutor Messaging and Its Effectiveness in Encouraging Student Participation on Computer Conferences", Journal of Distance Education/Revue de l'enseignement à distance: 10, 2