Building Bridges - E-Infrastructures and Technologies for Lifelong Learning - page 251

not possible to determine whether the effects
we observed may have stemmed from particular
aspects of this system or aspects of the class that
we did not anticipate. More research is needed to
further test and validate the claims that we have
made as regards their applicability to a broader
range of contexts.

had opportunities to interact, but also expressed
some trepidation and discomfort about doing so.
Instructors appreciated being able to see the non-
local students and interact with them, but said the
system sometimes made it difficult to maintain
a sense of awareness of who was there, if there
were questions, and if students were understanding
the material. This suggests that designers should
consider issues of awareness and interaction when
making educational materials available to life-
long learners via distance learning technologies.
The capacity to interact was related to student
performance, and instructors relied on aware-
ness of remote participants in assessing student
understanding of the material.
We presented five design principles suggest-
ing that designers of future systems focus on: (1)
developing novel displays and visualizations for
presenting information about students, (2) reduc-
ing inequalities between modes of participation
by making it clearer when, say, questions are
asked by text or who is speaking when there are
multiple videos, and (3) accommodate a range of
student preferences and capabilities by supporting
multiple modes of presentation.

FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

Our experience in offering this course also opens
up many directions for future research on the
best ways to foster interpersonal awareness and
interaction in ways that improve student experi-
ence and performance in lifelong learning con-
texts. Students in these contexts frequently have
significant demands on their time, may not be
technologically savvy, and may have extremely
varied preferences.
As such, research in the area of presentation
delivery systems should focus on flexibility in
configurations, and allowing for the blending of
what have historically been separate modes of
presentation (i.e., separating webcasting from
conferencing). One key issue to explore in build-
ing these bridges is how to simultaneously and
effectively facilitate speaker awareness of remote
participants who are not actively speaking, as well
as those who are. Our design ideas discussed above
provide some initial observations about how this
might be implemented, but substantial additional
research is needed to further test these principles
and better understand the problems at hand.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This research was supported in part by the Natu-
ral Sciences and Engineering Research Council
of Canada (NSERC) via the NECTAR Strategic
Research Network for Funding. We also thank
Alison Weir for her assistance with data analysis.

CONCLUSION REFERENCES

Allen, I. E., & Seaman, J. (2007). Online nation:
Five years of growth in online learning . Needham,
MA: Sloan Foundation.

Our results from this case study of a modified ver-
sion of ePresence suggest that the experience of
students who participated remotely and from the
satellite campus was generally positive, though not
equivalent to the experience of those at the local
campus. Students felt they could participate and