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A Virtual Ropes Course: Creating Online Community

I. INTRODUCTION

One of the over-riding factors in the academic success of adult and other non-traditional students in traditional academic settings appears to be the learner's sense of community [1]. Research in the area of success in college, for example, indicates that successful completion is closely and directly related to the student's sense of belonging and connection to the class [1]. This has not been shown to be true with distance education [2]. Yet Keegan [3] insists that in order for distance education to be successful, the experience of the face-to-face (FTF) class must be replicated in spite of the distance between teacher and learner. Recent authors argue for a more middle of the road approach emphasizing "equitable" environments for distance learners [4]. The question of whether the development of a sense of community directly or indirectly affects learner success and/or satisfaction in asynchronous learning environments is a serious one for designers and instructors of online learning environments.

Many teaching faculty in contemporary academic settings believe that the online experience cannot sustain the same quality of personal connections as those established by the physical proximity offered by conventional classrooms. In this paper, we provide anecdotal evidence that indeed, asynchronous environments can sustain, and even improve upon, the quality of learner community typical of FTF instructional environments. Many online experiences are, indeed, flat, uninteresting, and not particularly engaging either from the perspective of the content or the peer interactions. We propose that this is not a feature restricted to asynchronous classes, but is rather a feature of poorly designed (or delivered) courses regardless of delivery setting. This paper outlines the concepts of community, proposes a solution for developing learner community in asynchronous environments, and suggests a research project for testing the solution.

II. BACKGROUND

Vincent Tinto [1] has brought together prior research in the area of persistence in conventional class settings and synthesized that research into a meaningful context. Tinto finds that, "individual perceptions of social integration are most directly associated with persistence. Specifically college dropouts perceive themselves as having less social interaction than persisters... it is the individual's perceptions of this 'social fit' that are most important" [1 (p. 107)].

Yet, in a comparison between two groups of students, one meeting in a conventional classroom setting and the other meeting online, the sense of belonging was strong in the conventional setting, but course management was deemed more important to the online students [2]. The online students' access to content, explanations of course requirements, and other course management criteria outweighed their perceived need for a sense of community. Was this due to a design flaw wherein a mechanism to foster this sense of belonging was not available in the online version but was inherent in the FTF course? Might the outcome have been different if there had been an easy way to collaborate with other students in the online setting? Do distance students set lower expectations for their learner experience when in asynchronous environments?

In other research, students in a satellite-delivered asynchronous system reported that they believed real time interaction with peers was unnecessary. They also believed that those meetings would require a FTF meeting at a considerable personal expense in travel and inconvenience [5]. Might the normal kind of personal editing and value checking be going on here? If students believed the benefit was not worth the cost, why would they consider the meeting anything except unnecessary? This individualized cost-benefit analysis seems a reasonable process for the adult considering distance education as an alternative to traditional classroom delivery. Given the constraints of unique personal circumstances, which of these priorities would garner high marks in choosing between distance delivered and traditional instruction: access to content, peer collaboration, convenience, flexibility of scheduling, sense of group affiliation? It is our position that it is possible to offer learners in asynchronous environments all of these: that the choice between no sense of belonging and no course at all should not have to be made.

Given the current state of distance education in higher education, with distance delivered programs being relegated to second-class status, with questions of certification, funding, and access, and with the very validity of distance education in question, asynchronous learners (and even the faculty) are forming a sub-culture within some institutions. Such sub-cultures are bubbling up from the repeated requests of non-traditional students for alternative delivery and the recognition by some faculty that course delivery is inherently coupled with meeting student needs across a variety of constraints. This is an important concept for what Tinto has to say about sub-cultures and social deviance. "Social deviants are less likely to drop out if they are able to establish friendships with students similar to themselves" [1 (p. 107)] and "absence of such supportive groups or sub-cultures is, in turn, more often associated with voluntary withdrawal" [1 (p. 108)]. Many of the same motivational effects are evident in contemporary distance education environments, including the same tendency for students to drop out if they lack social interaction with the program [6].

According to May, "increased learner interaction is not an inherently or self-evidently positive educational goal" [7 (p. 47)]. Simply requiring learner interaction in asynchronous environments is not the solution to the development of a sense of community. So if we cannot force the sense of community through the quantity of interaction, we must foster community through the nature of the interaction. As Tinto observes, "Social interaction via friendship support is directly related to persistence in college" [1 (p. 107)]. We can capitalize on a finding that students bond with each other in asynchronous environments more than in conventional settings [5] and use that propensity for bonding to foster friendships among the students.

III. DISCUSSION

What is a sense of community and what are current strategies for facilitating its development?

Intuitively we think of the phrase as meaning connected to others, or belonging to a group. It carries a sense of support, trust and obligation. In corporate America we hear of team building much in the same sense. Employees are often expected to become part of The Team - to trust and rely on each other, to become members of the community of practice.

One such exercise in developing community is the "ropes course." This is an exercise in team building where the members of a prospective team are given intense physical and mental tasks to accomplish - usually outside their area of expertise. Through the activity they learn more about each other as individuals and are placed in situations where they are forced to depend on each other as a group for help, support and even survival. Quite often this takes the form of a one- or two-day challenge to climb, tie, traverse difficult terrain and generally deal with ropes, hence the name "ropes course." Into this generic definition, these authors include programs like those offered by Outward Bound and National Outdoor Learning Schools. While these latter programs are not geared specifically to turning a selected group of people into a team, they provide the personal growth experiences necessary to make their participants good members of any team.

This concept is a problem for the design of asynchronous learning environments. The designer would not want to build a component into the class that requires the group to travel to a central location at a particular time in order to participate in such an activity. Such a requirement subverts the concept of distance education and the power of asynchronicity.

IV. OBSTACLES TO COMMUNITY

Typically, designers try to foster a sense of community by use of email lists, bulletin boards and synchronous chats. These tools may or may not foster effective communication and collaboration. The ability to connect to somebody with an e-mail message depends directly on the ability of the other person to write the message. The connection must be mutual or it has little value. How well you write, therefore, is not the deciding factor. In circumstances where the community is neophyte, insecure, or intimidated, the ability to connect is severely limited.

Time is another obstacle to community formation. Frequently, students will spend as little time as necessary to do the minimum requirement. This hit-and-run mentality makes it difficult to connect on an affective level with faculty or peers. Messages from these students tend to be short, lacking in elaborative content and devoid of personal contact. Conversely, people who spend time together-reading each others in-depth messages, responding in kind, interacting at a deeper level-these people will form a sense of connection and, over time, build community.

Businesses choose ropes courses to help reduce the time necessary to normalize a work group. The intense interaction over a short period of time-typically ranging from a day up to a week-fosters a shared experience within the group that forms the foundation for elaborative interaction and personal connections. The participants become, in effect, "comrades in arms" against the common enemy by sharing the same formative experiences. The "virtual ropes" concept attempts to replicate this experience online without having the learners (and teachers) physically relocated to a common (and often remote) location.

So the challenge is to create a virtual space that mimics the key characteristics of a "ropes course." In this virtual space, one would face personal challenges, learn about one's companions, depend on those companions for help, support and survival, and, in the process, learn much about oneself and the group. In short, one builds that sense of belonging and trust most desirable in an online community. As it happens, such an environment already exists.

V. ENTER THE MULTI-USER DOMAIN

MUDs, MUCKs, MUSHs, MUSEs, and MOOs are various kinds of multi-user domains currently available on the Internet. What the acronyms all mean is largely irrelevant. Suffice it to point out that the MU is universally "Multi-User" and the rest is just a designator for the kind of server or software used to generate this environment. Many are operated as games and run the gamut of intense role-playing virtual environments, to social clubs that are the moral equivalent of online cafés without the coffee. Volunteers run the games. They spend a great deal of time and effort building, policing, and generally trying to improve the experience for the players. MOOs tend to be more educational and social in nature. MUDs tend to be more game oriented and as such provide the best analog for a "virtual ropes course."

In a MUD, the player creates a character of some fixed and finite ability. S/he then pits that character against the game, usually in concert with fellow players. Some of the more active MUDs regularly have hundreds of players logged on simultaneously. For practical reasons, adventurer groups are usually limited to no more than twelve players. Many of the MUDs have a Dark Ages flavor and a choice of character types ranging from Færies to Ogres to Humans and Elves. Some have themes from fantasy and science fiction literature that range from Tolkien's Middle Earth to Star Trek universes. Most provide for some range of employment including warriors, healers, magic wielders and thieves in addition to a system of moral alignment from blackest evil to pure, god-like good. These environments foster a sense of playful adventure someplace between Halloween and a Middle Ages Feast of Fools.

MUDs-the game environments-have an element of risk involved. If the group is poorly organized, lacking key skills or badly coordinated, some (if not all) the members might "die." This is a virtual death, of course, but is typically characterized by a significant loss of points, equipment and skills. These must all be re-earned. Further, this kind of environment is often foreign to people. Even if they are familiar with the concept, they are often ignorant of the particulars of any specific virtual world. From this perspective they closely resemble the dynamic of a ropes course.

VI. LIFE IN THE MUD

MUDs have been around since the earliest days of the Internet. They continue to be popular pastimes, particularly among boys, and tend to be somewhat violent in nature.

MUDs are complex environments, often overwhelming neophytes (called "newbies" in MUDspeak) with their detail, operation and richness of environment. This is often cited as a problem with MUDs in general. Mable Kinzie [8] reported difficulty in using these virtual environments for her Instructional Design competition. The participants needed too long a ramp-up time to become familiar and comfortable in the MUSH environment she had created. This complexity and ramp-up time needs to be scaffolded into the experience as a whole. Kinzie had not developed the supporting instructional materials and learner activities necessary to minimize ramp-up time.

Conversely, these virtual spaces are often inhabited by dozens (if not hundreds) of people around the clock. Some of the netizens are as young as 5 and 6 years old. If children as young as 5 can participate satisfactorily in the virtual environment, why can't everyone?

A project in virtual environments is examining this very issue at UtopiaMUSE. Adults supervise this virtual environment, but the majority of the online support and building is done by various elementary and middle school children around the world. There are simulated environments ranging from deserts to mountains to resort hotels and space stations. This is an ongoing project and open to participation-even by adults. The kids are very supportive.

MUSEs and MOOs lack an important element, however. Risk. They are safe, non-threatening environments. Granted, they are fun to play in but they lack the immediacy of a game environment. Interactions are all play-acting and the "acting" is the goal, not the "play." The bonding that occurs when the group solves a complex problem such as the slaying of a dragon to protect the village is completely missing in these non-game, safe environments. Bonding takes a lot longer without this "comrades at arms" mentality. This same mentality-the concept of shared mutual risk-is key to a successful ropes course and is what gives it its particular power to bond groups in short periods of time. No body of research yet exists to support this contention, but anecdotal evidence from military units during wartime and from experienced MUDders seems to support this idea.

VII. HYPOTHESIS

The authors believe that groups of people can form a sense of community relatively rapidly online by using a period of play in a MUD. "The mere fact of distance offers protection; pseudonymity strengthens this to make MUDs seem one of the safest possible social environments. This sense of safety enables MUD players to express greater intimacy toward each other than might be acceptable in everyday life" [9]. By breaking down the barriers to intimate communication, we can provide an environment that fosters trust, friendship and respect. In other words, we can create the kinds of communities of learners that are most likely to foster student success in asynchronous learning environments.

There are risks involved here as well. Unless the MUD is a controlled environment, open only to those who are members of the group, the opportunity exists for unscrupulous individuals to interact with the group. The much-publicized online predators exist in every online environment-not just chat rooms.

There is a certain level of ambiguity in this hypothesis that must be refined. How rapidly can the sense of community be formed? How strongly will it be felt? Will this sense of community transfer back into the formal asynchronous environment? Refining this hypothesis for implementation will require several research steps.

First, the obstacles for implementing any experiment must be overcome. The most obvious of these is helping people master the new environment without a lot of trial-and-error and frustration. Learners must come into the environment prepared to deal with the technology. Luckily, operating instructions for MUDs are relatively straightforward and could be codified into a web-based electronic performance support system (EPSS) to help the users get oriented to the environment. Establishing and testing such a hypothetical EPSS will be a significant effort, however, because it must function smoothly and reliably for a variety of learners who are involved in the MUD. Conceptually, this EPSS needs to be an extended help system for the game represented by the MUD. This exercise might serve an additional purpose by giving the student something "low trauma" to study using the same techniques they will be called on to use in class.

Second, experiments must be devised to measure the strength of attachment across several groups over various periods of time. The obvious design would be to collect volunteers, run the volunteers through the program with a pretest and posttest instrument for measuring the affective components, and plot the average strength of attachment within the group against time spent.

Third, assuming the earlier experiments are successful in establishing that the experience has fostered a sense of community within the group, the experiments should be replicated with various distance education classes to see if the sense of community transfers back into other class interactions. Subsets of selected class groups should be provided with the opportunity to participate in the MUD experience and their class interactions compared to those who were not involved.

Last, assuming the previous step generated positive results, permutations of the experiment must be tested to determine an economical mechanism for allowing the entire class to interact with each other. In exceptionally large groups it might not be possible to have every member interact with every other member. Some additional experimentation might determine the quantity of interaction required in the MUD for a generally better sense of community within the class. For example, if the class is so large that time is insufficient for everybody to spend some MUD time with all the cohort, would spending three hours with each of two different groups of MUDders make a difference in the in-class participation? Perhaps some other configuration of time and group might result in the desired outcome. The parameters for these questions need to be established experimentally.

VIII. CONCLUSION

While many researchers have found online and asynchronous learning experiences to be isolating and restricting by comparison to traditional classroom learning, these authors believe that the research focused narrowly on poorly designed activities, or activities which were intended to be individual in nature to begin with. Some research has been done on the educational use of MU-environments but none of it has focused on the ability of MUDs to create a sense of community among its participants. As a result, MU-environments are not yet sufficiently understood but may represent a low cost method for developing communities of learners in asynchronous learning environments.

IX. REFERENCES

1. Tinto, V., Dropout from Higher Education: A Theoretical Synthesis of Recent Research, Review of Educational Research, Vol. 45, No. 1, pp. 89-129, 1975.
2. Sorensen, C. K., Attitudes of Community College Students Toward Interactive Television Instruction. In: Sorensen, C., Schlosser, S., Naderson, M., and Simonson, M., (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Distance Education Research in Iowa, Ames, IA, Teacher Education Alliance, 131-148, 1995.
3. Keegan, D., Foundations of Distance Education, London, Routledge, 1996.
4. Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M. and Zvacek, S., Teaching and Learning at a Distance: Foundations of Distance Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ, Merrill, 2000.
5. Souder, W. E. The Effectiveness of Traditional Vs. Satellite Delivery in Three Management of Technology Master's Degree Programs, The American Journal of Distance Education, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 37-53, 1993.
6. Moore, M. G. and Kearsley, G., Distance Education: A System's View. New York, Wadsworth, 1996.
7. May, S., Collaborative Learning: More is Not Necessarily Better, The American Journal of Distance Education, Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 39-50, 1993.
8. Kinzie, M. B., Hrabe, M. E. and Larsen, V. A., An Instructional Design Case Event: Exploring Issues in Professional Practice, Educational Technology Research and Development, Vol. 46, No. 1, pp. 53, 1998.
9. Reid, E. M. Cultural Formations in Text-Based Virtual Realities, Unpublished master's thesis, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia, 1994. Available: http://people.we.mediaone.net/elizrs/cult-form.html

X. ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Nathan Lowell is a doctoral student in Educational Technology at the University of Northern Colorado. The emphasis area of his studies is distance education. Due in large part to the online development efforts in which he is currently engaged, he is investigating the facilitation of online learner community.

Kay Persichitte is an Associate Professor and Department Chair of Educational Technology at the University of Northern Colorado. She teaches graduate courses in foundations of the field and distance education. Her research interests are in the areas of distance learning, technology integration for the improvement of teaching and learning, and diffusion of innovations.