Abstract
The use of computer-mediated communication has been shown to be effective in reducing teacher isolation and supportive of substantial collaboration between teachers. In particular, online discussion forums may provide numerous opportunities for instructors within the same department to better coordinate their efforts and the flexibility in doing so at anytime and from anywhere with an Internet connection. This paper seeks to provide a rationale for the use of online discussion forums to foster departmental communication and collaboration and examines the output and perceived effectiveness of one such forum used by a faculty composed of limited-contract, English language instructors at a large, private university in Japan over the course of one academic year.
Highlights
Teaching has often been described as promoting a culture of professional isolation (Bakkenes, de Brabander, & Imants, 1999; Bodzin & Park, 1998; Sachs & Smith, 1988; Schlagal, Trathen, & Blanton, 1996)
Two measures were used in an attempt to measure the effectiveness: 1) the output created on the forum was quantified according to total number of posts per pre-determined categories and subcategories, as well as per instructor, and 2) the overall opinion of the participants involved was assessed through a questionnaire which sought to illuminate the perceived advantages and disadvantages of using an online discussion forum for intra-departmental communication and collaboration
The disparity among these individual approaches obviously had a negative impact on the effectiveness of the communication in many participants’ eyes. Putting these drawbacks aside though, all participants still viewed the use of the online discussion forum as promoting an overall improvement in the communication and collaboration among department members. Both the quantitative and qualitative measures employed in this study indicate that the use of an online discussion forum was successful in improving intra-departmental communication and collaboration among colleagues over the course of one year
Summary
Teaching has often been described as promoting a culture of professional isolation (Bakkenes, de Brabander, & Imants, 1999; Bodzin & Park, 1998; Sachs & Smith, 1988; Schlagal, Trathen, & Blanton, 1996). Due to the very nature of the profession and the time constraints associated with it, it seems that all too often instructors do not have sufficient opportunities to exchange ideas or seek out support amongst peers, not to mention the barriers teachers face in adequately pursuing professional development (Bodzin & Park, 1998) Perhaps nowhere are these isolating aspects of teaching more apparent than at the university setting in Japan where teachers experience the typical demands of the profession, but may have to endure constant teacher turnover due to the high percentage of limited-contract teaching positions (McCrostie, 2007). These limitations have been shown to be that e-mail does not allow for users to follow protracted dialogues between numerous participants, it is not easy to identify if users have received or read particular messages, there is little to no control over who can submit material, messages can become intermingled, there is often no centralized transcript of the communications, and it can often be difficult to
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