September 07, 2006

Fall Dissertation Fest begins next week

CPsquare has begun an occasional series that we're calling our "Dissertation Fests" where members who have recently completed their dissertations present their work for synchronous and asynchronous discussion. At this point it looks like we could have two or three sessions every three or four months. The first to present in this series are Janet Salmons and Chris Johnson.

  • Janet Salmons, Ph.D. Dissertation title: "Taxonomy of Collaborative E-Learning." A qualitative study using in-depth interviews that were conducted online with twelve research participants from five countries. Her Ph.D is in Interdisciplinary Studies with a concentration in Educational Leadership/ Systems and a specialization in Collaborative E-Learning, from Union Institute and University.
  • Christopher M. Johnson, Ph.D. Dissertation title: "Establishing an Online Community of Practice for Instructors of English as a Foreign Language." This case study examined an online group's degree and presence of CoP characteristics, as gleaned from CoP theory. The study analyzed the group's synchronous and asynchronous communication to determine what areas received the most and least "airplay", and how they changed over time. One topic for discussion is how this type of analysis can be used (e.g., comparison to another type of online group, maturity stage of a CoP, "health" of a CoP, etc.). His Ph.D. is Computing Technology in Education from Nova Southeastern University.