E-MODERATING PERSONAS

Web-based distance education has become a “real” teaching alternative which has instigated more research (The Swedish Net University Agency, 2005) particularly in the past decade (Avgerinou, Griffin, & Pettersson, 2005; Andersson, Avgerinou, Griffin, Muffoletto, & Pettersson, 2004; Pettersson & Ander-sson van Limbeek, 2002; Pettersson, Svensson, & Wærn, 2002). This research has commonly focused on four major perspectives: information-technology, course management systems (including course communication tools), information design, and online learning.

Not surprisingly, there are many, significant differences between face-to-face (f2f), and Web-based teaching. In a traditional teaching context, communication is implemented synchronously insofar as teacher and students are able to communicate instantly, and without delay. Besides the direct and instantaneous verbal exchanges, synchronous communication also transpires through visual signs and body language.

Conversely, if we accept that online teaching (e-moderating) occurs via the Internet and electronic multimedia, including the use of language (both oral and written), a common way of teaching in this context is through a dynamic interaction among participants, yet without the physical presence of the teacher or students. What happens then to the teacher’s “identity” and role when s/he is no longer physically present as in a traditional classroom? How is it established? Perhaps most importantly, how is it perceived by both the students, and the teacher him/her-self?

Rourke, Anderson, Garrison, and Archer (2001) describe a model which concerns the teaching and learning transaction via computer conferencing. The model presents three core components of importance for learning in an online instructional community, namely, (1) cognitive presence, (2) teaching presence, and (3) social presence. Teaching presence refers to “designing and managing learning sequences, providing subject matter expertise, and facilitating active learning” (Rourke et al., 2001, ¶ 2).

Similarly, four major roles of the online instructor have been identified by Bonk, Kinley, Hara, and Paz-Dennen (2001)—pedagogical, social, managerial, and technological. The pedagogical aspect is manifested through the instructors assuming the role of facilitator or moderator, such as, ask questions, probe responses, encourage student knowledge building and linking, summarize or weave dis-cussion, and support and direct interactive dis-cussion, design a variety of educational experiences, and provide feedback, referring to outside resources and experts in the field. The social aspect is manifested through the instruc-tor’s creating a friendly and nurturing environment or community feel, exhibiting a generally positive tone, fostering some humor, displaying empathy and interpersonal outreach (e.g. including welcoming statements, invitation, and apologies), and personalizing with discussion of one’s own online experiences. The managerial aspect is manifested through the instructor’s coordinating assignments (e.g. explain assignments, set plans for receipt of assignments, assign partners and groups, set due dates and extensions for assignments), managing online discussion forums (e.g. set pace, focus, agenda), and handle overall course structuring (e.g. organize meeting times and places, set office hours, clarify distributions). The technological aspect is manifested through the instructor’s assisting with user technology and system issues, diagnosing and clarifying problems encountered, notifying when a server is down, and explaining limitations.

This two-phase, comparative research study was conducted by two university instructors whose research agenda concentrates on teacher perceptions of own qualities, roles, and functions in online instructional environments.

Phase 1 of our research compared and dis-cussed the emerging instructional styles of par-ticipating online teachers (e-moderators), in Sweden, and the United States (Andersson & Avgerinou, 2006). Primary research questions concerned how teachers experience online teaching versus f2f teaching, as well as how the academic environment affects the teacher experience. The framework of this comparative research was defined by the fact that all U.S. teachers were attached to a university just beginning to experiment with online and blended delivery; whereas online and blended curricula and delivery were already well established in the Swedish teachers’ academic context.

Secondary questions included the differ-ences and similarities of online versus traditional teaching, and how participating teachers come to recognize and deal with them. What kind of teaching styles are used in Web-based learning? What information design tools may a teacher deploy toward the creation of their “identity,” and how does s/he establish their presence online? What are online teachers’ professional development needs, and to what extent are they covered by their respective institutions? Finally, what are their goals and desires toward a pedagogically sound, and effective implementation of online learning?

If e-moderating is indeed a new type of instruction (Maor, 2003), then there is a pressing need to revisit the role of the online instructor. Therefore, in light of Phase 1 research results, the second phase (Phase 2) of this study has concentrated on using the identified perceptions, behaviors, motivations, and aspirations of the participating e-moderators with the view to creating composite, albeit fictional online instruction archetypes (personas). In our attempt to do justice to the analysis and presentation of Phase 1 data, we set out to experiment with the transfer and applicability to our respective blended and online teaching contexts, of the persona research method typically deployed by usability and interaction design. Consequently, our questions have focused on whether and to what extent this methodological innovation would produce valid and reliable results from a research design perspective; as well as, whether we would gain a better, more comprehensive and more realistic insight into e-moderating, as a result of looking at our existing data through the novel lens of the persona method. An implication of the latter referred to whether our e-moderating personas could also be in some way meaningful to all those involved in the various aspects of online teaching.

A predominantly qualitative design was adopted for this research which employed dif-ferent data collection techniques including sur-veys, semistructured individual interviews conducted f2f, and focus groups interviews conducted online. Both researchers were involved in data collection and analysis. Although we looked to address specific questions during the individual and focus group interviews, there was still opportunity for par-ticipants’ personal input which could be diverting from the original set of questions. The respondents (N = 10) were teachers currently teaching or having recently taught through Web-based environments in blended/ hybrid (U.S.) and completely online (Sweden) formats in our respective universities/countries. Analysis of the data employed the content analysis technique for all aforementioned instruments.

The use of multiple data sources, multiple subjects, and two researchers was necessary towards acquiring a fuller, and richer under-standing of our data. From a methodological standpoint, we concur with Bogdan and Biklen-Knopp (2007) when they write: “describe what you did rather than using the imprecise and abstract term triangulation” (p. 116).

Data analysis based on within and across group comparisons (Andersson & Avgerinou, 2006) have indicated some common threads which are completely aligned with the four major roles of the online instructor as identified by Bonk et al. (2001).

All participating teachers exhibit engagement with online teaching in all four identified roles. What is more impressive, regardless of their academic background and current instructional context, they not only view emoderating as a new type of instruction; but they also perceive themselves as constructivist pedagogues whose purpose is to design and provide the type of nurturing and friendly learning environments that are mostly conducive to student creating their own interpretations of reality, and thus becoming responsible for their own lifelong learning. Some of our teachers share similar views on the Socratic philosophy and its online applications. These notions, combined with the online teacher training all of them received prior to their involvement in online teaching, may perhaps explain their self-perception of their online teaching performance from a multitude of perspectives—the most significant one being those teachers’ constant and fearless quest to serve their students’ needs in the best possible way while updating and adapting their own practice to the rapidly changing demands of our times. As Good (2001) states, “the e-learning pedagogue is a hybrid creature with multiple skills and a passion for learning!” (p. 173).

From a qualitative research methodological standpoint, typically it has been challenging to present qualitative data so that it truly reflects meanings, behaviors, and intentions of research participants. In our case, it was speculated that qualitative data could be more realistically and comprehensively reflected via personas, a composite, albeit fictional archetype deployed by information architects and interaction designers (Kuniavsky, 2003). Therefore, in our attempt to do justice to the analysis but also the presentation of Phase 1 data, we set out to introduce the persona research method to a new territory, namely our respective blended and online learning contexts, and experiment with the mechanics of its transfer and overall applicability.

Taking into consideration Phase 1 results, Phase 2 of our research has focused on the development of e-moderating personas repre-senting identified behaviors, motivations, and aspirations of real participants with the addi-tional goal to better understand online teaching styles, thus assisting the professional develop-ment of aspiring and existing online teachers. An extension of this goal is to give aspiring e-moderators a realistic insight into the online instructor’s role(s), but also to assist existing e-moderators better understand and further develop their online teaching style. Finally, the results of this study could benefit all those involved in supporting online teaching initiatives—such as instructional designers, course management system designers, technical staff, professional development units, administrators, and so forth—trying to effectively match and align teaching and learning needs with corresponding services and resources.

Consequently, our questions have focused on whether and to what extent this method-ological innovation would produce valid and reliable results from a research design perspec-tive; as well as, whether we would gain a better, more comprehensive and more realistic insight into e-moderating, as a result of looking at our existing data through the novel lens of the persona method. An implication of the latter referred to whether our e-moderating personas could also be in some way meaningful to all those involved in the various aspects of online teaching.

User representations are not new to product design, marketing and branding. Over the years, information architects, interaction and product identity designers have developed various models of user representation in order to base their product development on well informed decisions. Pruit and Adlin indicate (2006) that in marketing and branding models have been developed by Sissors (1966), Upshaw (1995), Weinstein (1998), Mello (2002), and Moore (2002).

In the area of usability and interaction design, scenarios have been deployed toward the organization, justification, and communication of ideas. More recently, the use of scenarios has been extended to assist in system design, product development, as well as research in human/computer interaction. Nonetheless, Carroll (1995) argues that scenarios instead of focusing on users and their actual opinions, they tend to provide assumptions about them. This is apparently the reason why user-focused models such as user profiles (Hackos & Redish, 1998), user roles (Constantine & Lockwood, 2001), as well as user archetypes (Mikkelson & Lee, 2000) have been adopted by most usability specialists.

In The Inmates are Running the Asylum, Alan Cooper (1999) asserts that a focus on technology is fostered in whatever we do, when we should instead be focusing on people. Therefore he offers a user model (personas) in order to address this problem, and refocus product design and development on people and their needs. Originally surfacing in 1995, Cooper’s personas were used in a collaborative fashion by design teams to communicate different user perspectives regarding complex design solutions for consulting projects.

According to Cooper (1999, p. 24), “personas are not real people ... they are hypothetical archetypes of actual users . defined with significant rigor and precision.” Personas can be conceptualized as imaginary people that we create as stand-ins for concrete target users of design products. When working with personas it is important to be aware of the distinction between stereotypes and archetypes. Each of these concepts stems from a specific theoretical context. Used mostly in social psychology, stereotypes can be defined as a simplified, often generalized form of idea (National Encyklopedin, 2006a). It may be a pre-conceived idea of the characteristics typifying a person or a situation. A stereotype may be con-sidered as an attitude based on such a precon-ception (Oxford English Dictionary, 2006a). The concept of archetype is based on Jung’s theories. Archetypes represent uniformity and regularity in our apprehensions (Oxford English Dictionary, 2006b). Personas are the official mask, the face we show. In other words, a persona conveys the connection between the ego and the environment (National Encyklopedin, 2006b).

The term “hypothetical archetype” denotes Cooper’s belief that there is no way to prove that the personas truly are representative of actual users until after the product is released and used. Thus, personas are better understood as representing real people throughout the design process. Cooper’s point on defining personas “with significant rigor and precision” implies that the value of personas lies in their ability to provide specific details about users. A very important element in Cooper’s personal model is that the representation emanates from distinct user goals, in addition to behaviors, tasks, demographic information. Personas are not “made-up.” They are discovered as a byproduct of the research process, and are defined by their goals. To make personas more realistic, names and personal details are constructed.

Personas are a sine qua non in product and interaction design, for various reasons. First, designers do not always design with the user in mind. Rather, they tend to focus more on them-selves and their own perspectives. Second, users are complicated and varied. It takes an enormous amount of effort and time to under-stand their perspectives, behaviors, needs, and goals. Finally, those who perform the user and market research usually are not the designers. As a result, user profiles may not be as reflective of the actual user beliefs, needs, and goals.

Grudin (2006) provides psychological evi-dence as to the reason why personas work. He explains that when a designer tries to anticipate how others will behave in a new situation, in essence he exercises a very rudimentary skill that all of us apply daily in our attempt to anticipate how others may react to what we may say or do. Grudin’s argument (2006, pp. 643-644) is based on three assertions:

Like other user representations, personas have been used in various disciplines to infuse user data into other processes. Pruitt and Adlin (2006, pp. 36-37) assert

Towards this end, Pruitt and Adlin (2006, p. 37) propose that persona practitioners must (a) embrace the challenge of communicating information about users through narrative and storytelling; (b) maintain a lifecycle perspective when educating colleagues about personas; (c) allow the people using the personas to extrapolate from and extend them.

At first, a persona hypothesis is developed. Based on likely behavioral differences, while also taking into consideration identified target markets and demographics, the persona hypothesis attempts to address such questions as what different sorts of people might use a product; how might their behaviors vary; and, what ranges of behavior and types of environ-ments need to be explored. Once potential roles, behavioral, demographic, and environmental variables have been identified for the persona hypothesis, qualitative data collection begins. This data is collected through ethnographic interviews, namely a combination of immersive observation and directed interview techniques (Cooper & Reimann, 2001). The researcher observes users in-situ and asks pertinent questions that primarily focus on what motivates user behaviors, and how they hope to accomplish their goals. Other sources of data collection may include: user interviews outside of their use contexts; information about users supplied by subject experts; focus groups and surveys; literature reviews of previous studies.

Once data collection and analysis are com-pleted, the process of persona construction begins with a short, precise narrative description for each persona. The description includes specific details about workflow and daily behavioral patterns, professional and personal needs and goals, technical skills, as well as a few personal details in order to make each persona unique and memorable. To ensure development of a believable archetype a real name and a photo is also included. Depending on the quantity and quality of research data, usually one to two primary personas are developed; whereas secondary personas may also emerge.

For our Phase 2 research design, we used the data already collected and analyzed during Phase 1. Each of us was responsible for the set of data that she had originally collected. Con-sequently, we were aiming at creating two pri-mary personas, one for the US, and one for the Swedish participants respectively. We did not anticipate being able to construct secondary personas due to the limited number of research participants.

We followed the persona construction steps as described above with the exception of insitu participant observation (study limitation). Taking into consideration emerging themes and patterns in participants responses as those related to various aspects of online teaching, our narrative description of each persona was based on the following categories: Name and portrait (photo); personal description; technological skills; roles; tasks; current problems; professional development needs; desires and goals; values.

As anticipated, two primary e-moderating personas emerged on the basis of participant responses. “Linda Jeffries” represents the five U.S.-based teachers operating in blended for-mats, while “Henrik Johansson” represents the five Sweden-based teachers responsible for totally online courses. Both personas are presented in Tables 1 and 2.

Due to the investigational nature of this study, the lack of previous studies in this area, the limited number of participants, as well as the lack of in situ observations, it is best to consider these personas as assumption, or ten-tative personas. Let us also be reminded of Cooper’s point (1999) that it is almost impossible to know how representative our personas are until we see them in action. As explained earlier in this document, a major concern of the current study referred to the transfer and applicability to a new context—namely, our respective blended and online teaching environments—of a research method (persona) typically deployed by usability and interaction design. Upon recognizing that analysis and presentation of qualitative data typically runs into the challenge of finding a manner that truly reflects meanings and intentions of research participants, we searched for methods employed by other disciplines to overcome this problem. Thus we opted for persona modeling in an attempt to present and organize our qualitative data in brief, yet succinct and comprehensive tables.

From a methodological perspective, and despite the aforementioned study limitations, we were particularly excited to gain insight into the potential of the persona method toward a more realistic understanding of the online teacher’s roles and needs. In general, when designing personas for interactive web solutions one finds representative variables and/or categories, and constructs personas that are goal-directed, and defined by goals, tasks or skills levels (Cooper & Reimann, 2003). In this study, Linda and Henrik were developed as models that represent online teachers’ perceptions, behaviors, needs and goals in relation to their teaching roles and perceived styles. Defining our categories was a rather uncomplicated task due to the fact that we had already identified emerging themes and patterns from our Phase 1 research. Another consideration related to selecting only those categories that while reducing our data they would still represent it effectively. This challenge was however counteracted by the very process of persona creation. We discovered that persona modeling truly allows for data presentation in a narrative form so that the researcher is able to gain a holistic view of the data. A narrative form implies a beginning, middle, and end of a story. It presents characters and plots. We came to realize that presenting our qualitative data in narrative form has not only assisted us in distinguishing the most critical variables/ categories, but also provided structure, depth, and meaning to the verbal information we had collected. We were able to see connections in our data that were not readily visible earlier. It is also noteworthy that while persona modeling was in progress, more than once we run the risk of treating the data in an oversimplified or generalized manner. However, returning to the theoretical premise that personas are archetypes and not stereotypes helped us avoid that risk. After all, generalizations are out of the question when working with qualitative data at such a high level of specificity as in the process of personal modeling. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, persona modeling forced us to stay consistently aware of, and thus concentrate more on our teachers’ perspectives, and less on our own viewpoints.

Linda and Henrik represent in some sense all four e-moderating roles identified by Bonk et al. (2001). Although both are particularly concerned with the pedagogical aspect of their role, they assign different weight to the other three. For Henrik, the high importance ascribed to his managerial and technical roles, leaves the social role last in the group. Linda’s second major focus is her technical role, fol-lowed by the managerial, and lastly by the social role. There is also variation in their manifestation of those roles. Both feel that to be effective online pedagogues they need to be able to set up well-considered online activities, provide quality resources, quick responses, frequent group and individualized feedback, guidance, support and motivation. Anticipating student needs, as well as prompting reflective practices though crucial for Linda, they do not feature in Henrik’s list.

The social aspect of their role is mostly manifested through the online tasks that they perform which are similar in that they both introduce problem-based activities, and asynchronous discussions. However, for Henrik synchronous online conferences are important, when for Linda they are not even part of her report. Instead, she includes cooperative learning, reflective activities.

The managerial aspect is more related to current problems that Linda experiences— those being lack of effective institutional support, time management, and her own lack of control over online group sizes. Time management is also a problem for Henrik, which is also connected to his desire for release time toward online course development. Henrik places the lack of effective institutional and technical support among his current problems, but in addition he includes the ambiguous issue of online security and its potentially negative implications for student assessment.

The latter also signifies a concern associated with Henrik’s technical role. He admits being only fairly confident in his online technical skills despite his extensive use of his university’s course management systemconcerning which, however, he warns that it may be risky for online teachers to be limited to just one of those systems as this may inhibit their pedagogical thinking about instructional design possibilities. Linda’s technical role is manifested through her high level of confidence in using the majority of Blackboard’s features, but also through her desire to be exposed to more Blackboard applications. She is concerned about the fact that some of her students do not have internet access which may affect not only their comfort level online, but also their perception of how seriously they should take online learning.

Though both of them appear confident in their online teaching skills, they still have specific professional development needs and desires. Linda needs more exposure to the technical, as well as pedagogical aspects of online teaching, while she would welcome mentoring if offered by colleagues with greater experience than her in the area of blended learning. Her wish list includes improvement of her online assessment skills, control of online group size, as well as professional development opportunities and better institu-tional support. Henrik’s needs and relevant desires focus on receiving release time toward online course development, as well as support from multidisciplinary teams of his university that would provide technical, and pedagogical expertise.

Linda and Henrik’s personal descriptions— mostly their demographic and contextual/environmental variables—in combination with their individual set of values can explain most of the similarities and differences regarding their aforementioned e-moderating profiles. The blended teaching context does not create major problems on the technical level for Linda as obviously her courses are not exclusively dependent on the course management system. However, Henrik’s courses being completely online do bring the technical aspect on centre stage for more than one reasons (e.g., access, security, online testing, synchronous communication). Reflection and cooperation online is ranked high in Linda’s teaching agenda due to their importance in teacher education aiming at the development of the reflective educator. However, this is not the case for Henrik whose subject area is health care. Linda’s time management problem stems from her juggling her teaching responsibilities between the f2f and the online environment, and yet she is very supportive of the blended approach due to the f2f interaction it affords. In Henrik’s case, the same problem can be explained by the fact that he tends to spend many hours online to not only teach, but also to get to know his students better and thus “come closer at a distance” (his words). It is due to his perception of the stronger rapport between teacher and students also fostered by the fact that students cannot hide online as they can in f2f teaching; as well as the flexibility and cre-ativity of the online environment that he is so supportive of online teaching. It is interesting to note that though Linda’s university (small, private) is only beginning to experiment with online courses, while Henrik’s institution (large, public) is well established in the online teaching area, they both—each for their own reasons—request better institutional understanding which would translate in more efficient and effective support. Finally, the social aspect of their role may appear low in their agenda, but in reality it is not. Linda tries to help build online learning communities while knowing that at the same time she has the luxury and safety net of f2f interaction. For Henrik, building rapport online is also crucial although he definitely recognizes that for this to happen, absence or elimination of technical or managerial problems should occur first.

Their online training experiences, but over and above their constructivist teaching philos-ophies can account for perceiving e-moderating as a teaching paradigm in its own right, and themselves as student-focused online facilitators, that is, far from “expert teachers,” just transmitting knowledge to students. This also explains why they strongly object to designing courses according to the notion of “one size fits all.” Their teaching is based on Socratic questioning, encouraging the students to engage in personally meaningful projects, and find their own answers and solutions.

Those interested in exploring further this methodological innovation using our study as their starting point, should appreciate the need for further validation of our persona hypothesis through surveys, interviews, as well as insitu observation of a larger population of teachers operating in both blended and online environments.

Our underlying goals were to give aspiring e-moderators a realistic insight into the online instructor’s role(s), but also to assist existing e-moderators better understand and further develop their online teaching style. We also envisaged that the results of this study would benefit all those involved in supporting online teaching initiatives—such as instructional designers, course management system designers, technical staff, professional development units, administrators, and so forth—trying to effectively match and align teaching and learning needs with corresponding services and resources. It is our sincere hope that the aforementioned groups will look carefully into the potential that persona modeling holds toward increasing the understanding of what is important to online teachers, how they implement their teaching online, as well as what particular concerns and needs they tend to have. In that case, as indeed was the case for our study, personas can be employed as a reference point and a discussion tool for design and administration teams, while at the same time assist those teams making better decisions and supporting online teaching initiatives having people, their stories and contexts—not technology—in mind.