USABILITY OF OPEN CONTENT INITIATIVES IN COMPUTER

SUPPORT COLLABORATIVE LEARNING (CSCL)

ACTIVITIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION

Siti Rosni Binti Mohamad Yusoff

Technical Teachers Training Institute (IPGM Kampus Teknik), Kuala Lumpur

Abstract

This article is a report of the usability of open content initiatives elements in teaching
and learning blogs. This study attempts to investigate the usability of open content in
teaching and learning blog, the effect of social influence and collaboration activities
in developing blog content and to group topics and media used in teaching and
learning blog. A number of 35 undergraduates of Bachelor of Education in Teaching
English as Second Language (TESL) programme participated in the study. The
participants were required to create a teaching and learning blog based on Computer
Support Collaborative Learning (CSCL) definition. A survey, content analysis and
SWOT analysis were design to collect data. The findings revealed that open content
initiatives elements are moderately used in blogs, the most popular topic posted is
grammar, multi media are highly used in blogs, social influence has impact on
content development and collaborative activities need to be guided. (148 words)

Introduction

Validity of content in websites is questionable unless origin of sources used is correctly cited. In web
based learning, content development and internet pedagogical elements are crucial to ensure self
access learning are reliable for our end users. Information Communication and Technology (ICT) has
compounded a strong structure in the educational sector. Gone were the days where the focus was
only on exploiting the ability of Information Technology in making lesson more visually engaging or
making materials more entertaining. Information Technology is now seen as an essential tool in
bringing about new elements of teaching and learning as well as communication between users (Goh,
Chin, & Ong , 2010).
Challenges also faced by educators to abreast new technological skill. Currently web 2.0
applications brings new paradigm as an educational teaching and learning media. Social networking
applications such as blog, wiki, podcast and twitter to name a few are user friendly application conned
to be the next teaching aids of the 21st century. Many benefit of blogging for educational purposes
found by researchers such as blog which act as intermediary tool to improve literacy level, access to
experience creative and free expression through writing ( Zanariah, 2008), effective and interesting
way for students of English as Second Language (ESL) to practice and publish their writing (Nadzrah,
& Kemboja, 2008), easy, fun and personal (Ebner, & Schiefner, 2008) and blog is normally free and
has the ability to gather feedback ( Khirulnizam, & Syahrul, 2009).
Collaborative tool featured in these application enable users to share ideas and dialogues in a
fast and possible manner. Online collaborative learning in wider domain is studied in the framework
called Computer Support Collaborative Learning (CSCL). CSCL is a field of study centrally
concerned with meaning and the practices of meaning making in the context of joint activity, and the
ways in which these practices are mediated through designed artifact (Koschmann, 2002).
Collaborative learning tool as featured in much web 2.0 application could add on as the latest phase in
the assisting Computer Aided Language Learning (CALL) framework. Warschaur, 1996 (in Ashinida,
Afendi, & Mohd Habri, 2004) described chronologically three phases of (CALL) as behaviorist
CALL, communicative CALL and integrative CALL.
Open content initiatives and cyber law

Open content initiatives was first published by David Wiley in 1998 and UNESCO established a new
term as Open Educational Resource (OER) referring to online shareable material for educational
purposes. The primary permissions or usage rights of open content are expressed in the "4Rs
Framework:"
• Reuse - the right to reuse the content in its unaltered / verbatim form (e.g., make a backup
copy of the content)
• Revise - the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g., translate the content
into another language)
• Remix - the right to combine the original or revised content with other content to create
something new (e.g., incorporate the content into a mashup)
• Redistribute - the right to share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes
with others (e.g., give a copy of the content to a friend.

Proper form for incorporation by reference is as follows: Copyright (c) <year> by <author's name or
designee>. This material may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the
Open Publication License. (http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/, 2010)

In Malaysia, the copyright (Amendment) Act 1997 serves to protect the expression of
thoughts and ideas from unauthorized copying and/or alteration. With the convergence of Information
and Communication Technologies (ICT), creative expression is now being captured and
communicated in new forms (example: multimedia products, broadcast of movies over the internet
and cable TV). Thus the protection covers multimedia works and transmission of copyright work over
internet. (NITA, 2010). In pursue of web publication of educational product, owner or user of
websites must oblige to any law or copyright act made by the government of own country and online
service providers. Current development of info structure or content development as an educational
product is of great value in Malaysia National Information Technology Agenda (NITA) in achieving
Vision 2020.

Product development is no longer only about implementing features and testing their
usability, but about designing product that are enjoyable and support fundamental human needs and
values. Thus experience should be a key concern of product development. (Vainio-Matitila, Roto, &
Hassenzahl, 2008). As to develop product for educational purposes, a study of usability on the
proposed product is usually done to predict the acceptance of an ICT product. Thus every initiative for
educational tools such as web 2.0 application must be designed accordingly to meet educational
purposes.

Design of the study

The study was conducted as a project under the evaluation of teaching and learning tool in the subject
of Computer and Technology in Education. Both learning platform of face to face and online
discussion were used during the study to assign task, solve problem, build content and teaching
media, and experience the process of developing a learning blog, developing learning content and
collaborating online with fellow students and teachers. The objectives of the study are:
• to investigate the usability of open content initiatives elements in teaching and learning
blog,
• To study the effect of social influence and collaborative activities in developing blog
content.
• To group topics and media used in teaching and learning blog.

The blog focuses on building educational content. No specific topic was required but limited to
language learning and interest of students. This is to encourage creativity and research skill among
students. It would be unwise to develop rigid guidelines for blogging. Guidelines are unlikely to give
students opportunity to explore blogging and to appropriate it to support their individual requirement.
(Kerawalla, Minocha, Kirkup, & Conole, 2009).

Sample and procedures

A number of 35 undergraduates of Bachelor of Education in Teaching English as Second Language
(TESL) programme participated in the study. Duration of five weeks was used to conduct the study.
Introduction to the topic and task were given on the first week of face to face interaction. The students
were required to create a blog, post topics and conduct collaborative activities with their classmates
(peer to peer) for the online activities. Face to face interaction with students continues weekly to
discuss problems, motivate student and content development on open content initiatives, internet
resources, audio and video editing. The final week was used to collect data.

Instruments
Three instruments were design to collect data. A survey was conducted to collect data on the level of
usability of open content initiatives in blog, the effect of social influence and collaborative activities
in blog, and self efficiency in using blog as a teaching and learning tool. A total of 23 items
questionnaires using Likert scale of 1 to 4 (strongly disagree, disagree, agree strongly agree) was
developed. Content analysis of the blogs was conducted to group topics, media and open content
initiatives used in the teaching and learning blog. Finally, a SWOT analysis was used to analyse
student personal reflections towards using blog as a collaborative teaching and learning tool.

Table 1. Composition of respondents

Demographic Categories Sub Categories Number (%) N=35
Gender Male 10 (29%)
Female 25 (71%)
Age 19 to 22 years old 28 (80%)
23 to 26 years old 6 (17.1%)
27 to 30 years old 1 (2.86%)
Cultural Group Malay 21 (60%)
Chinese 2 (5.7%)
Indian 8 (23%)
Others 4 (11%)
Blogging Experience Less than 1 year 21 (60.0%)
1 to 4 years 7 (20.0%)
More than 5 years 1 (2.86%)

Discussion on Findings
Investigation on the usability of open content shows a number of 25 students (71.4% ) understand the
open content initiatives on online publishing guidelines, a number of 23 students (65.7%) agree that
they did some research before blogging but only 17 students (48.6% ) cited accordingly internet
sources in their blogs. Figure 1 until 5 are samples of cited sources in blogs.
 Figure 1. Unified Resource Locator (URL) cited below video.

Figure 2. World Wide Web (WWW) address cited in topic posted with date of internet search.

Figure 3. Copyright and origin of internet source written on posted graphic.

Figure 4. Hypertext Markup Language (HTTP) cited below topic posted includes
date of internet search.

Findings also show that social influence and collaborative activities in blogs plays a vital role in
improving student’s blogging experience and building blog contents. In fact 97.1% of the students
read all the comments in their blog and 85.7% of them make improvements on the blog based on
online comments. A total of 91.4% agree that they observed other blogs in making improvement to
their blog. A percentage of 85.7% students could upload video and audio material to their blog. They
also provide hyperlinks in their blog, whereby 82.9% of the students agree that they provide useful
educational links in their blog. The students felt responsible to developed reliable learning materials.
A total of 91.4 % of the students agree that they check their spelling and grammar before posting an
entry. Nevertheless a moderate percentage of self efficiency in blogging experience were discovered
when only 68.6% of the students adopt formal writing style in their blog and finding difficulty in
creating the blog. Also 54.3% of them moderately agree that they could create their own video and
audio recording. The students also could not personalise their own blog when only 48.6% agree that
they personalise their blog.
Content analysis of blogs was conducted to group topic posted and media used in the
student’s blog. Students submitted printed important pages of their blog that consists language
learning, interest topics, open content initiatives, collaborative activities and media used in their blog.
The researcher later visited all of the blogs to verify the submission and further study each blog for
creativity and special features.
A weblog or blog can be described as online journal with one or many contributors. Besides
straight text and hyperlinks, many blogs incorporate other forms of media, such as images and video.
(Duffy, & Bruns, 2006). The content analysis indicated that pictures are the highest media used in
blogs (34%), followed by cartoon and illustration (24.6%), audio video (24.6%), games (4.9%),
mapping (3.3%), animation (1%), online survey (1%), flashcard (1%), online dictionary (1%) and
puzzle (1%) as shown in Figure 5.

Figure5. Media used in blog

Data of topic posted in the blogs shows that the students have the potential to create variety of topics
based on language studies, interest and other related topics. For language studies, grammar was the
most popular topic with 18 postings (25%), study skill with 9 postings (12.7%), Quotes and idioms
with 11 postings (11.3%), critical thinking with also 8 postings (11.3%), fun with English (slang,
Malaysian English, United Kingdom vs. American English, and Tongue twister) with 4 postings
(5.6%), foreign language (Japanese, Spanish, French) with 4 postings (5.6%), World history and news
with 3 postings (4.2%), literature work/ aesthetic use with 3 postings (4.2%), computer with 3
postings (4.2%), special need education with 3 postings (4.2%), vocabulary with 2 postings (2.8%),
web journal with 2 postings (2.8%), learning style with 1 posting (1.4%), mathematic with 1 posting
(1.4%), music with 1 posting (1.4%) and health education with 1 posting (1.4%). Summary of topics
are visualised in Figure 6.

Number of post

Topic Posted In Blog

Figure 6. Topics posted in blog

Conclusion

The researcher found that validity and originality of contents in teaching and learning blog are still
doubtful because correctly cited sources are moderately shown and used in these blogs. Students are
not skillful technically to produce the own media for teaching and learning purposes in blogs. Most
media used are of internet sauces. Nevertheless findings of the study show that current students in
higher education are ready to explore latest technology with minimum guidance from teacher.
Teachers need to motivate and provide well designed collaborative task guideline to ensure maximum
learning experience for students. Some ICT issues such as internet connectivity, study workload and
time management has yet to be solved in our educational environment. Future study is proposed to
investigate the level of creativity and thinking skill of students in order to develop high quality of
educational web content with genuine ideas, creative and informative.

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