SURVEY

Surveys, such as the one found here, can be a useful tool to gauge the sense of community felt by students in an online learning environment. By administering a series of surveys, at the beginning, throughout, and at the end of the online course, educators and administrators can discover the effects of the online learning environment on the sense of community felt by participants in the course. This information can be used to help create, build and maintain a sense of community in the online learning environment.

A year-long study by Haythornthwaite, Kazmer, Robins, and Shoemaker (2000) focused on how participants defined and maintained a sense of "community" in a distance education program. The researchers suggest that in any online learning environment, several questions must be addressed:

• Do members recognize their environment as a "community"?
• Do they feel they belong to it?
• What does "community" mean for members of this environment?
• What is its membership and boundaries?
• What are members' common goals?
• What history do they share?
• What rules of behavior have they evolved?
• How can we promote community in this context and gain its benefits for individual members?

Resources that may be useful in helping to create, build, and maintain a community in an online learning environment can be found in the Examples, Blogs, and Course Management Systems sections.