Joining or starting a new conversation?

When speaking about how to get published in high-impact journals, I have often suggested that authors ought to see researching and writing as joining or starting a conversation about something. If they are joining a conversation, then the focus needs to be on what their unique contribution is to what is already known. Do they have something new and unique to say on the subject, and if so, then how is it considered new, unique and worthy of attention? And if they are starting a new conversation, why is there a need to do so, and who is likely to be interested in joining that new conversation?

Regardless of whether we are joining or starting a new conversation, the first step in the process has to be to carefully study what is already known about the subject. Generally, this comprises a review of the literature and a careful interrogation of what is known and not known on the subject in order to be able to identify what is worth knowing more about, and only then, coming up with researchable questions. It is not uncommon to see so many submissions coming across for publication consideration that fail to meet this basic of all tests, and I have raised this point in an earlier editorial (see Naidu, 2015). Yet it seems inconceivable that authors would spend exorbitant amounts of time, energy and resources into researching and writing about something without adequate study and consideration of what has already been done on the subject of their interest. But it is not so much the loss of anyone’s time, energy and resources that I am lamenting, rather the impacts that a misinformed group of people, article, or report, and especially that from influential sources, can have on plans and policy directions of others in relation to critical questions and issues that confront our field, a concern that is shared by many.

In drawing our attention to the implications of some of the typical pitfalls of many such initiatives, Jon Baggaley, in his reflection in this issue of the journal titled ‘Sandcastle Competitions’, examines the derivatives of three recent reports from very influential sources in the United States. These are the reports of the Global Learning Council (2016), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Willcox, Sarma, & Lippel, 2016), and the Gates Foundation (Siemens, Gasevic, & Dawson, 2015). Without taking anything away from the work of these initiatives or the leadership of people driving their agenda, Jon points out that a cursory look at the first two of these reports will reveal the noticeable absence of any significant representation in their composition and membership by experienced practitioners in the fields of open, flexible and distance learning, let alone educational technology or education more broadly. Jon argues in this critique, with his trademark penchant for incisive commentary, that it behoves members of these academies to not only interrogate these reports for the paucity of their review of existing conversations on the subject, but also to set the record right about many of their assumptions and exhortations for policy development and practice in field.

I believe that nurturing and promoting conversations around issues that are consistent with their scope and coverage is a critical role of academic journals such as this one. And in this regard, the current crop of articles in this issue of the journal is no different from the many that it has published over its 37 years. The first article in this issue, ‘Mapping Research Trends from 35 years of Publications in Distance Education’ by Olaf Zawacki-Richter and Som Naidu, in a rare attempt along these lines, reports the results of a study which used the text mining tool Leximancer^™ to map out trends in the scope and coverage of the conversation that has been taking place in the journal Distance Education for over the 35 of its 37 years of publications in the field. Results of the analysis of key concepts from abstracts of 515 full-feature articles published in the journal over the 35 years reveal a close relationship between the conversation raging on in the journal, and the emergence and development of the field of open, flexible and distance learning.

To what extent this happened to be a symbiotic relationship is obviously mitigated by other factors such as editorial influences and the quality of submissions for publication consideration received by the journal at the time. Unlike what might be revealed in a similar study of such a conversation in more-established fields of practice, such as the arts or any of the sciences, the outcomes of this study reveal the existence of a very close relationship between what was published in the journal and the focus of researchers, writers and thinkers in the field at the time. It highlights the critical role this journal has played in the development and nurturing of research and scholarship and the conversation in the field. Extension of this kind of studies to other areas would reveal if scholarly journals and their fields of practice reveal similar impacts on research and scholarship in those disciplines.

A close relationship between what is published in a journal and what is happening in the field is to be expected. A scholarly journal such as this one is an outlet for research and scholarship in the field and as such it should reflect the conversation among practitioners in the field at the time. A classic case of this kind of influence is demonstrated in the emergence of developments such as massive, open, online courses (MOOCs) in the field of open and online distance education. This is an idea that emerged from the efforts of a few individuals who were seeking to optimize the power of networks, and in this case the Internet, in affording access to learning opportunities for a much larger audience than those within the confines of a traditional class (Cormier, 2008). The idea was immediately attractive and drew the attention of scholars in the field. However, despite its attractiveness, contemporary MOOCs have faced many of the same problems of large, self-regulated and conventional forms of distance education. The article ‘Understanding the Dynamics of MOOC Discussion Forums with Simulation Investigation for Empirical Network Analysis (SIENA)’ by Jingjing Zhang, Maxim Skryabin, and Xiongwei Song is an attempt to understand the dynamics of such self-managed learning environments.

A unique contribution of the study reported in this article is its application of an innovative research method called SIENA to examine the patterns and evolution of relationships formed in the context of open-ended and unstructured discussion forums, typically found in MOOCs. This is an important contribution and one which offers critical insights into our approach to learning analytics, which is another idea that is receiving much traction in the educational arena. And together they foreshadow a lot more enlightened view of openness and massiveness and an opportunity to rethink the future of open and online education. This is a point that is underscored in Stefan Herbrechter’s review of Jeremy Knox’s recent book, Posthumanism and the Massive Open Online Course: Contaminating the Subject of Global Education. The article by Zang and her colleagues and Knox’s book suggest that the MOOCs of today are an indication of what is possible in relation to open and online education. Contemporary iterations are likely to be soon morphing into better massive open and online learning opportunities (Naidu, 2013).

Yet despite their affordances, open and online educational opportunities pose serious challenges, and with which we are familiar. The next article in this issue by Daniel Bosmans and Stella Hurd, ‘Phonological Attainment and Foreign Language Anxiety in Distance Language Learning: A Quantitative Approach’, picks up that conversation within the context of language learning. Student anxiety is one of these challenges and teacher presence is another. The latter is covered in the article by Nicole Rehn, Dorit Maor, and Andrew McConney, ‘Investigating Teacher Presence in Courses Using Synchronous Videoconferencing’. The other perennial challenge is attrition and persistence. Student attrition and persistence with learning has always been a part of the conversation in distance education given its self-regulated, open and flexible nature.

The lack of adequate learning scaffolds, as is the case in contemporary iterations of MOOCs, is a daunting prospect for many learners. In such situations procrastination and delay pose a real threat to persistence and success. And this is the subject of the article by Janine Lim, ‘Predicting Successful Completion Using Student Delay Indicators in Undergraduate Self-Paced Online Courses’. Teacher preparation is important in this regard, and especially so, in this new technology-enhanced learning and teaching space. The article ‘Learning to Teach Online: A Systematic Review of the Literature on K-12 Teacher Preparation For Teaching Online’ by Brianne Moore-Adams, Monty Jones, and Jonathan Cohen reviewed the literature and practice in the preparation of K-12 educators to find that current efforts are deficient in many ways and that a more concerted effort in relation to teacher preparation for this learning space is required. The article by Susan Sun, ‘Learntime and Learning Place-focused Forward-oriented Design for Learning in Technology-enhanced Classrooms’, offers a useful framework for approaching this deficit. Sun’s article offers critical insights on how this is possible, especially for many educators who are already in the workplace and confronting the challenges posed by technology, and online and open educational practices.

While much is changing around the nature and composition of the conversations in open, flexible and distance learning in relation to the tools and technologies, as well as modes of teaching and learning, we are reminded by Darling-Hammond (2016) that a lot we already know about best practices remains very relevant for the new learning space. These are that teachers who succeed at developing deep understanding of challenging subjects for an array of students are those who develop engaging and meaningful tasks for their students; design tasks that allow their students choices; develop pedagogies to find out what students are thinking; constantly evaluate their students to identify their strengths and learning approaches as well as their needs; scaffold a process of successive conversations, steps, and learning experiences; and help develop student confidence with strategies for supporting learning that extend beyond technical teaching techniques (Darling-Hammond, 2016, pp. 83–91). These are fundamental principles for effective, efficient and engaging learning and teaching, and they are suitable for all kinds of learning contexts, including the rapidly emerging modes of learning and teaching.

So, whether you are joining any such conversation or starting a new one, let’s be sure that we are contributing something new to it in order to advance our understanding of what we know already. Meanwhile enjoy these. And look out for the next special issue of this journal on the theme Social Presence and Identity in Online Learning (volume 38/2, 2017), guest edited by Patrick Lowenthal of Boise State University, and Vanessa Dennen of Florida State University, USA.

Som Naidu
Executive Editor
[email protected]