Establishment of online communities in distance education has been linked to improved engagement, retention, and learning outcomes. This study investigates how online community building was fostered in the text-based Discussion Board (DB) and multimodal VoiceThread (VT) in one of the postgraduate units offered by Open Universities Australia.…

This qualitative study investigates learners' experiences in online international collaborative environments using both asynchronous and synchronous communication methods. Specifically, it focuses on the rewards, shortcomings, and difficulties learners encountered through posing critical questions about the nature of collaboration forms. Eight…

Building a sense of community (SoC) is an important process in the success of distance education and students' retention. However, developing a community in online learning environments is not an easy task. The purpose of this research study is to explore perceptions of graduate students on SoC and learning after using different collaborative…

As the world has witnessed an unprecedented pandemic in the living memory, the year 2020 defied all human wisdom in every walk of life. As the scientific community scrambled to search for answers, in the meantime, the world came to a standstill. Physical activity stalled and virtual became the new reality. Education had to embrace virtual classes…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to argue that an e-collaboration environment, driven by awareness of social presence, may provide the just-in-time learning support needed by postgraduate students. The academic challenges faced by students may be alleviated if a correct electronic platform is provided for them to be able to consult with each…