One-Question Interview

Dear Prof. Morten Paulsen

My name is Isabel Manteigas and I am a master student in “Pedagogy of E-Learning” at Universidade Aberta. I would like to ask you one question about transparency in cooperative education. I will wait for your answer and hope that you allow me publish it on my blog.

Your article "Cooperative Online Education", on Seminar.net, states that “Transparency is important for cooperative online education. People can cooperate more easily if they know something about each other and have access to some common information and services.” Although I agree, I believe that people are different and react differently to various situations. What for some may be considered a casual sharing of information, for others it may be an exhibition of their private lives, for instance, the publication of a group photo on a blog. What is the role of the teacher in this situation? How can the teacher manage these two perspectives? In an environment of cooperative learning, who decides what can be public?

Thank you.

Best regards,

Isabel Manteigas

Dear Isabel,

Your question is important, interesting and challenging - and I have struggled much with it lately. Here are some reflections which you have my permission to publish in the class forum and in your blog:

I do argue that transparency promotes quality and cooperation, but that individual students (and tutors) should have control over and be comfortable with the transparency level. In my opinion there are many factors that influence the transparency level. In addition to the tutors, which you focus on in your question, I believe the LMS system, the institutional policy and the other students have influence on the transparency level.

In my opinion, the tutors should inform and guide the students about the benefits and risks related to transparency. I will argue that the tutors should allow students to choose a level of transparency that they feel comfortable with. It is for example possible to accept course work via private e-mail, in limited course fora or public blog entries. The students' maturity and competence are probably also important factor - adult master students in e-learning are likely much more conscious about transparency than other students.

LMS systems should allow students to choose their personal transparency level. The LMS we have developed at NKI Nettstudier allows each student to choose whether their personal presentation should be Closed (not available for any students), Limited (only available for student in the same course), Open (available for all NKI students) or Global (available for everyone on the internet). The Elgg system, which I'm testing at the moment, make the users choose whether each information element (for example a blog entry or a personal presentation) should be private or shared with friends, logged in users or the public.

Institutional policy defines the framework we work in. I was for example told that all students in PPEL should have their own blogs in this course. In a new Scandinavian project I'm heading, we have started to develop three courses (web-, audi-, and video journalism) were students must publish their work in the program's multimedia portal www.webjournalisten.com which is under development.

Students may influence transparency through examples and peer pressure. We should all be aware that in PPEL, there is a danger that some feel obliged to publish more in their blogs than they are comfortable with. I will also remind you that it is polite and necessary to ask for permission if you want to quote or review non-published material in your blogs.

I hope this was helpful - but I must admit that there are many challenging issues related to transparency - and that I appreciate further input from you.

All the best from Morten