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Using a Virtual Research Environmentto support new models of collaborativeand participative research in ScottisheducationAlastair Wilson a , Sanna Rimpiläinen a , Don Skinner b , ClaireCassidy a , Donald Christie a , Norman Coutts c & Christine Sinclaira
a University of Strathclyde , UKb University of Edinburgh , UKc University of Aberdeen , UKPublished online: 25 Sep 2007.
To cite this article: Alastair Wilson , Sanna Rimpiläinen , Don Skinner , Claire Cassidy , DonaldChristie , Norman Coutts & Christine Sinclair (2007) Using a Virtual Research Environment tosupport new models of collaborative and participative research in Scottish education, Technology,Pedagogy and Education, 16:3, 289-304, DOI: 10.1080/14759390701614413
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Technology, Pedagogy and EducationVol. 16, No. 3, October 2007, pp. 289–304
ISSN 1475-939X (print)/ISSN 1747-5139 (online)/07/030289–16© 2007 Association for Information Technology in Teacher EducationDOI: 10.1080/14759390701614413
Using a Virtual Research Environment to support new models of collaborative and participative research inScottish educationAlastair Wilsona*, Sanna Rimpil inena, Don Skinnerb, Claire Cassidya, Donald Christiea, Norman Couttsc and Christine SinclairaaUniversity of Strathclyde, UK; bUniversity of Edinburgh, UK; University of Aberdeen, UKTaylor and Francis LtdRTPE_A_261292.sgm10.1080/14759390701614413Technology, Pedagogy and Education1475-939X (print)/1747-5139 (online)Original Article2007Taylor & Francis163000000October [email protected]
Drawing on research supported within the Scottish ‘Applied Educational Research Scheme’ thispaper explores the use of the Virtual Research Environment (VRE) in developing ‘communities ofenquiry’ in Scottish education and research. It focuses on the role of VREs in influencing collabo-rative working and educational research. The paper uses three vignettes to illustrate the ways inwhich VREs have the potential to transform the processes of collaborative enquiry and research ineducation, by offering new ways of conducting research and engaging various stakeholders (thepolicy, practice and research communities). The paper argues that, while initially the work concep-tualised VREs essentially as tools to support communities of enquiry, it has become clearer duringthe analysis of emerging data from the project that VREs are developing as new environments inwhich participants engage and generate new forms of knowledge. They pose ethical dilemmas andchallenge the status and analysis of data. The authors conclude that practitioner use of VREs needsto be recognised as a legitimate approach to collaborative working and that virtual dimensions tocommunities of enquiry require careful nurturing if they are to prove successful.
Introduction
In common with other areas of social research, the last few years have seen arapid rise in educational research teams using a Virtual Research Environment(VRE) to facilitate their collaborative research activities.1 The need for more effective
*Corresponding author. Department of Educational and Professional Studies, University ofStrathclyde, Glasgow G13 1PP, UK. Email: [email protected]
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collaboration has been highlighted in recent years in many quarters (Smedley, 2001;Baron, 2004; McLaughlin & Black-Hawkins, 2004; Furlong & Oancea, 2005) and isbased on views about the continuing gaps between policy, practice and research andthe difficulties of effective cumulation of research findings. In Scotland the AppliedEducational Research Scheme (AERS)2 has been funded to help build educationalresearch capacity and, crucially, to develop more effective collaboration amongresearchers, policy-makers and practitioners. In the early developmental stages ofAERS the potential of virtual environments was recognised as a possible means ofboth supporting the research infrastructure and, possibly, engaging more effectivelywith the policy and practice communities. Working in collaboration with the Centrefor Applied Research in Educational Technologies, AERS began to develop a VirtualResearch Environment in late 2004 as a platform for a diverse range of researchactivity.
The AERS structure involves three substantive research networks supported by acapacity-building network and a small management and administrative team. Initiallythe VRE was envisaged as supporting individual research teams and providing a plat-form for these teams to communicate with each other and contribute to their broadernetwork and AERS communities. The VRE then supported both individual researchteams and networks, including the capacity-building network. The initial use of theVRE in this way proved effective in the majority of cases within AERS but researcherfamiliarity with the environment resulted in the realisation of wider uses of the VREand subsequent extension of its use. The spectrum of VRE use is described below butthere are two key areas of particular interest. Firstly, the VRE was seen as havingpotential as a research tool, allowing research participants access to new forms ofparticipation in the research process and providing researchers with new forms of dataand challenges to analysis. Secondly, the environment offered a potential means ofengaging policy-makers, practitioners, pupils and higher education staff in differentforms of collaborative work in education.
This paper draws on the work of a research project based within the Learners,Learning and Teaching Network (LLTN), one of the substantive AERS networks.This project had a dual purpose in terms of identifying and nurturing collaborativegroups and, also, researching their ongoing development. In the initial phase of theirwork the research team within the LLTN undertook a review of the concept of‘community of enquiry’ and of a wide range of related literature (see Cassidy et al., inpress). The review demonstrated the existence of a diverse and rapidly growingmulti-disciplinary literature on the subject and suggested the value of adopting aneclectic approach to research on communities of enquiry, including electroniccommunities and those making use of virtual environments alongside other forms ofcommunication. The paper explores the ways in which the concept of communitiesof enquiry has emerged as a useful organisational and potential theoretical constructin developing and sustaining collaborative working. Using three vignettes it exploresthe ways in which different communities of enquiry have been developed and howtheir use of a VRE has influenced their collaborative working and the researchprocess in particular.
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A Virtual Research Environment for educational research in Scotland 291
Towards communities of enquiry?
There have been many calls for more effective collaboration in educational develop-ment between researchers, policy-makers and practitioners. Yet it is evident that thereare significant differences in outlook between these three stakeholders. Writers likeEraut (1994) have drawn attention to differences in values, norms and emphasis onparticular kinds of knowledge. Thus, traditionally, positivist educational research hasemphasised generalisable, empirical findings while policy-makers and practitionersstress the tacit, contextualised knowledge they see as important for developing andimplementing educational ideas (Raffe & Spours, 2007). Ponte et al. (2004), notinga distinction between empirical, ideological and technological knowledge, suggestthat, left to themselves, teachers tend to develop only technological knowledge. Foreach group, collaboration challenges these traditional assumptions, values and prac-tices about knowledge creation and use. In addition to the issue of knowledgeperspectives, there are issues at a practical level. The three stakeholders each havetheir own discourses, and there are differences in time availability, access to resourcesand power and status.
In Scotland, central leadership by researchers, closely tied to policy initiatives andinvolving practising teachers, has led to promising developments in classroom peda-gogy for formative assessment (Hayward et al., 2004). It remains to be seen, however,to what extent less hierarchical collaborative approaches involving greater initiativeson the part of practising teachers can be successfully developed (see also Ardichviliet al., 2003). These matters also need to be considered in the context of the widerpolicy debate on practitioner research and professional development. Brown (2007)has recently argued that it is not evident that the now longstanding movement forteacher action research and practitioner research (see Burton & Bartlett, 2005) hasled to significant cumulation of research-based knowledge about educational action,whatever benefits it has had in terms of teachers’ understanding of research andpersonal professional development.
The idea of the ‘community of practice’ has been widely employed by educationalwriters (for example Johnson, 2001; in the case of online networks, Maynard, 2001;Hammersley, 2005). The concept, as developed by Lave and Wenger (1991; see alsoWenger, 1998) is a somewhat elusive one which generally refers to informal groupswhich develop around an established work activity. The community of practiceengenders a communal spirit, norms and mutual support to sustain the practice andinitiate novices. Examples would be a group of insurance claims processors, a like-minded group of educational researchers, a school staff or a classroom. The mecha-nism of support is through informal socialisation into the culture, norms and ways ofworking of the community. Analyses using the concept of communities of practiceare based on social constructivist ideas about cognition as situated and learning asparticipation and emphasis on knowing as a social act as opposed to knowledge as acommodity.
Another more recent idea, increasingly discussed in relation to electronic networks,is that of ‘innovative knowledge communities’ (Hakkarainen et al., 2004). Innovative
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knowledge communities appear very closely related to the developing AERS concep-tualisation of community of enquiry. In contrast to communities of practice, innova-tive knowledge communities are more focused on knowledge creation as opposed tosocialisation and maintenance (Hakkarainen et al., 2004). In AERS the emphasis isalso increasingly on knowledge creation rather than transfer (Christie et al., in press).Paavola et al. (2004) have shown how these issues relate to wider discussion of theo-ries of learning and knowledge construction in the knowledge society.
Emerging studies are beginning to expose the complexities of the ways in whichcommunities make use of electronic communication. For example, Henri andPudelko (2003) describe four types of virtual community, distinguished according totheir degree of cohesion and intentionality, as communities of interest, goals, learnersor practice. Other studies report that fear of criticism, of misleading the communityor lack of trust are barriers to participation in knowledge-building and sharing activ-ities. Other studies confirm accounts of low participation in computer-mediatedcommunication learning environments. In addition Adrianson and Hjelmquist(1991) report that online groups often find it difficult to reach closure or consensus.These difficulties are exacerbated when overlaid with cultural considerations andunresponsive technologies. However the prospect of harnessing online tools forresearch, building distributed understandings, exploring multiple perspectives andnetworked scholarship in service of collaborative research and knowledge-buildingnetworks continues to hold promise and stimulate further investigation.
The theoretical perspective the LLTN has employed to investigate the work ofcollaborative research groups has centred on the idea of ‘communities of enquiry’.The term had become current in the educational literature through ideas like‘community of philosophical inquiry’ (Pardales & Girod, 2006)—single-disciplinecommunities (philosophy, chemistry, history, etc.) based on a strong sense of commu-nity and a structured enquiry process, stemming from the philosophies of C. S. Pierceand John Dewey. Communities of enquiry also have a tradition in adult education(Bray et al., 2000) using a reflective enquiry process but again with little emphasis onempirical enquiry. In the AERS context ‘community of enquiry’ seems an appropriatechoice of concept given the emphasis on building collaboration and a sense ofcommunity between groups engaged in pursuing an ongoing enquiry into an issue ofmutual concern. This term is used to describe the nature and activity of collaborativegroups which are essentially composed of individuals from varying backgrounds andperspectives, committed to working together to explore agreed issues or questions.Their aim is to create a deeper, more rounded understanding, new knowledge andpractical solutions to the issues being considered (Cassidy et al., in press). In additiona community of enquiry is seen as a potentially powerful organising concept for devel-oping collaboration between the policy, practice and research communities in aneducational context (Christie et al., in press). The challenge to the LLTN has beento find ways in which to realise some of this potential. The availability of the VRE toresearchers with the LLTN provided a platform for them to engage with and supportcollaborative working. This has effectively demanded an action research approach,the initial phase of which is described below.
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A Virtual Research Environment for educational research in Scotland 293
Realising communities of enquiry
In addition to developing theoretical understanding, the developmental role of theLLTN research team required them to provide developing communities of enquirywith guidance in their early development. From a process of progressive filtering andinterpretation of the literature seven factors were identified by the research team(Cassidy et al., in press) as important considerations for anyone seeking to establisha collaborative community of enquiry in the context of educational research:
● dialogue and participation—a community depends on its members’ opportunities toengage in dialogue and other modes of participation;
● relationships—participation in a community is sustained through the quality of itsrelationships;
● perspectives and assumptions—perspectives and assumptions underpin the relation-ships of a community and may offer insights into its dynamics and operation;
● structure and context—how a community operates is governed by its structure andcontext, including the extent to which its structure is imposed or constrained eitherinternally or externally;
● climate—as a community develops, a climate for its operation also emerges, involv-ing aspects such as tone, environment and potential conflict;
● purpose—the purpose of an enquiry will influence this climate and there may be aneed to accommodate or harmonise a multiplicity of purposes arising from thecomplex interrelationships, perspectives and assumptions involved; and
● control—a key issue for all communities is control, in relation to who has access tothe community, to resources, constraints and power within it.
These factors encapsulate basic tensions: between reflection and action, theoryand practice, tightness and looseness of structure, freedom and control. Barab andDuffy (2000) argue that it is not appropriate to seek some general resolution of suchcore system tensions. Rather they require situational resolutions in particularcontexts and at particular times. The LLTN research team used these factors as aframework for initial analysis of the LLTN emerging communities of enquiry. Thefindings of this analysis indicated the need for developing communities to have genu-ine ‘relevance of the purpose of the enquiry to the interests of participants andmutual potential benefit in terms of the outcomes of the shared activity’. In additionthe research indicated the demands of such collaborative working in terms of timeand resources and the need, where possible, to build on existing collaborative work-ing (Christie et al., in press). These factors and questions remain in the backgroundof current investigations of the operation of collaborative groups which make use of aVRE.
As the developmental work of the LLTN has progressed, a wide variety of groupsor communities of enquiry have been provided with access to a VRE in order tosupport their work. A condition accepted by each group or community adopting aVRE was that they agree to be researched as their work develops. Individuals weremade aware of this by information circulated within their groups and by notices when
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they initially logged on to use the VRE. For the purposes of this paper the spectrumof these groups can be summarised as follows:
● Small, often dispersed higher education (HE) research teams working collabora-tively on funded research projects have made most effective use of the VRE. TheVRE has enabled these teams to collate, store and share data, communicate andmanage research administration more effectively. In addition some of these teamshave used the VRE as a means of engaging practitioners and policy-makers in theresearch process (e.g. a team focusing on research into school management andgovernance).
● A small number of HE research teams have used the environment to engageresearch participants, generating new opportunities for data collection and analysisin the process.
● Some groups have engaged with the VRE explicitly as a means of supportingcollaborative enquiry between policy-makers, practitioners and researchers.
● Groups have also made use of the VRE as a purely administrative tool (e.g. onegroup uses the VRE as a means of reducing the frequency of meetings in order toreduce their carbon footprint).
The small HE-based research teams were closely aligned with the seven factors iden-tified above. As these were composed of HE staff working on externally fundedresearch projects participants were almost always established collaborators with clearlydefined and shared research purposes. Crucial factors identified above to be consid-ered by communities of enquiry such as perspectives, relationships and dialogue hadlargely already been addressed. However, access to a VRE has clearly offered oppor-tunities for wider and more varied forms of participation in the research process.Engaging research participants and supporting new collaborative working betweenpolicy-makers and practitioners posed challenges to the LLTN. The ‘communities ofenquiry’ construct was used to help develop these new forms of collaboration. In thefollowing section this paper presents three vignettes of specific communities of enquirynurtured within the LLTN and making use, in different ways, of a VRE. The devel-opment of each of these communities of enquiry was led by a researcher within theLLTN and informed by the seven considerations identified above. The analysis ofthese vignettes in the discussion that follows is structured by three key questions:
● What can the use of VREs contribute to the processes of collaborative research andeducational enquiry?
● What opportunities can VREs create for research methodology?● What are the challenges to developing virtual dimensions to communities of enquiry?
Vignette 1: Engaging practitioners, policy-makers and researchers in collaborative enquiry
Working in collaboration with a local council, the AERS Learners, Learning andTeaching Network developed a virtual space (based on the Sakai Virtual Collaboration
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Environment—see Laterza et al. in this issue for a more complete description) forprimary and secondary school teachers with responsibility for developing Assessmentis for Learning (AifL) within their schools. The education department was attractedto the community of enquiry concept and engaged with the LLTN in exploring waysin which this could be developed. Approximately 90 teachers were contacted by theirlocal council education department and informed about the virtual space. Those whoemailed a positive indication of interest were provided with usernames and passwordsto access it. The primary aim of the site, determined by the education department,was to facilitate teachers in sharing their practice in formative assessment and personallearning planning with others. Teachers were encouraged to present examples offormative assessment and personal learning planning strategies tried in their class-rooms, to read of the practices in other schools and to make comments in a discussionforum. The VRE was seen as a potentially useful resource allowing teachers locatedin different schools to communicate with one another, which under normal circum-stances would have been problematic. To support this the space contained a varietyof Sakai tools such as discussion and chat areas as well as a list of helpful web sites,notices of conferences, seminars and professional development events. The localcouncil allocated funding towards the project in terms of offering five teachers oneday’s salary per month to each take responsibility for one of five key discussion areas.In addition the LLTN encouraged a small number of academics to join the virtualspace and make contributions to the work of the group as appropriate. In its earlystages of development the site attracted a significant number of teachers who registeredtheir interest by email, received usernames and passwords and were informed of howto find and access the site. Initial activity on the site has been limited to a small numberof contributions from 11 participants.
A number of key issues were identified from the early stages of the project’s devel-opment. Firstly, some teachers expressed concern that they needed training in howto access and use the virtual space effectively. While the general expectation was thatthe site demanded low levels of information technology (IT) skills, the LLTN and thelocal education department responded to this concern by agreeing to provide andfund training of the five teachers leading the different discussion areas. However,others had to rely on the use of the software manual and their own intuition.Secondly, early conversations with potential participants indicated that while theywere interested in the potential of such virtual collaboration their engagement in itremained very much peripheral to their everyday practice (see also Carmichael &Procter, 2006). A small group of participants expressed concern that they felt vulner-able being invited to present their practice for discussion to a group of peers andacademics (in excess of 90) whom they did not know. This group requested that thesite be more differentiated with a smaller membership including perhaps a small clus-ter of schools. For these teachers the attraction of the virtual space was for more inti-mate exchange with known colleagues. Some even saw the potential of the virtualspace to address difficulties of communication within their school in which there wasno longer a staff room. At the time of writing the local education department was keento differentiate the AifL VRE in response to this demand.
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Staff within HE who initially registered interest in the virtual space and the oppor-tunity to communicate with teachers were slow to devote time engaging with thevirtual space. Researchers within the LLTN devoted considerable time to the settingup of the virtual space and managing its membership, tasks which, though essential,were not recognised or funded as part of a researcher’s role. Establishing the virtualspace as a ‘normal’ means of communication, of learning and of collaborative work-ing remains very much an aspiration.
Vignette 2: Engaging vulnerable participants in research
In working with students in higher education who were experiencing mental healthproblems, a small team of researchers faced significant methodological challenges.The project was funded to examine student experiences of HE and illuminate chal-lenges to a range of HE and NHS (National Health Service) services. The researchteam needed to be able to engage effectively with people that were often but irregu-larly ill as well as vulnerable, possibly depressed and cautious about revealing andentering into discussion about their difficulties. Issues such as how to make contactwith these students, gain their trust as researchers and engage with them over a periodof time were particularly crucial factors. In the initial phase of the research a numberof students (within one HE institution) were contacted electronically and invited tobe interviewed. Approximately one in four of those responding to the initial invitationagreed and were subsequently interviewed. However, the resulting interviews wereskewed towards students suffering from milder forms of mental health difficultiessuch as anxiety and those who considered themselves recovered from, as opposed tocurrently enduring, mental health difficulties. At this point the research teamcommunicated with all the students who had initially contacted them and askedabout their willingness to participate in a Virtual Research Environment in which theycould engage with other students and a researcher. Although the term ‘community ofenquiry’ was not used explicitly, the intention of the research team was to engagestudents in discussion and debate about their experiences of ill health and theresponse of HE institutions in particular. Students responded positively to this invi-tation but were insistent that the site be limited to students who, like themselves, hadindicated they were suffering from some form of mental health difficulty and hadpreviously registered their interest in the research project.
In seeking their participation in the virtual environment researchers also askedstudents whether they would prefer that the space were anonymous. This provedparticularly important to students and there was unanimous agreement thatstudents should choose their own pseudonyms. A number reported that they wouldnot participate in the research and the virtual space in particular if their identitieswere to be made public. At this point the research team worked with universitycounselling and medical services to ensure that the virtual space had some forms ofmonitoring and support. It was clear that the University had concerns that someoneusing the site may display significant distress, be aggressive or threatening to othersand that this would need to be addressed. Working with university counselling
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services the research team agreed to put in place a procedure of identification andcontacting of individual students should this occur. Students using the site wereadvised that, while anonymous to each other, the researcher could identify them andcontact university support services if they had concerns about individual studentbehaviour. Students signing in to use the site did so on the basis of this understand-ing. With these procedures in place the research team used the Sakai software tocreate a Virtual Research Environment inhabited by 22 students and a researcher.Usernames were selected by students and only one lead researcher could, if neces-sary, link these to individuals. No email addresses were used and the VRE had noemail address or archive.
The virtual space contained a number of tools to support the processes of exchangeand dialogue between participants. Discussion and chat areas were created along withan announcements area (for researchers to contact students). In addition the sitecontained direct web links to university support services as well as a number of web-based resources identified by university services as appropriate to those experiencinga range of mental health difficulties. To initiate the engagement of students theresearcher invited them to introduce themselves to each other in the discussion area.Within a short time of the site going live a number of students had contributed to thediscussion area both with their own introductions and responses to others. Contactsmade within the discussion space were developed less formally in the chat area. Thesite was available to students for six months (limited by need for researcher time) andduring this period created a vast amount of data. The discussion area grew with littleresearch intervention (one topic area only was introduced after the initial introduc-tions area, to ask direct questions of participants) as students introduced their ownideas for discussion. In addition the chat area was used profusely, often with one ortwo students engaging in prolonged dialogue (over several days at times) with othersinterrupting at different times. The data generated for the research team provided anumber of themes for analysis not covered by the series of formal interviews withstudents. For example the research team gained understanding of the fluctuatingnature of mental health difficulties, its isolating impact and the ways in which study-ing could provide a source of stability and focus for students. In addition the natureof parental involvement and parental understanding of their difficulties were criticalfactors to a number of the students.
The virtual space provided students with an environment in which they could iden-tify with others experiencing similar difficulties or distress. The emergent tone of thesite appeared one of respect and support to each other.
Vignette 3: Engaging sixth-form pupils in collaborative enquiry
One further community of enquiry supported within the LLTN consisted of sixth-form pupils (ages 16–18) from a local secondary school who volunteered to participatein an extra-curricular citizenship project based within their school. The project ideawas initiated, created and led by two of the school’s teachers in 2004–05 and receivedfurther development funding from the Scottish Executive Education Department.3
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The project aimed to develop critical thinking skills for young people and increase theirunderstanding of citizenship issues using a collaborative learning pedagogy. Followingnegotiation between the school and the LLTN the project was provided with a VREto enhance collaboration between participants. It was agreed that an LLTN researchteam would monitor how the community evolved and the influence that the VRE hadon this process.
The first cohort to join the project and make use of the VRE consisted of 29 pupilswith boys outnumbering girls by two to one. The group was described by the teach-ers as consisting of ‘the academically more interested’ pupils. The course was run outof school hours, in the pupils’ own time and consisted of face-to-face meetings withthe teachers once a fortnight and group work tasks in between the meetings. TheVRE was used as a collaboration and communication tool between meetings. Theface-to-face meetings consisted of workshops, decision-making scenarios anddebates. The work was carried out in small groups which had to agree a commontopic to investigate, a strategy of how they would complete their task and what thedivision of labour should be. The teachers acted as ‘facilitators, observers and medi-ators’. Topics tackled in the course included, among others, a debate of the existenceof Human Soul, Renaissance Art and Science, and the Ethical Right for HumanSurvival in the World. The question of the existence of the soul sparked off a veryanimated and intensive debate in the VRE discussion area. The pupils who wereinterviewed were both very proud of the debate but also felt disappointed that theyhad had to leave the debate ‘unfinished’ because the discussion area became‘blocked’ due to a technical problem. For both pupils and teachers the discussionarea provided an interesting and ongoing record of the development of their dialogueand debate.
Interviews with pupils indicated that collaboration and communication fluctu-ated over time and from group to group. A number of small groups workedtogether intensively but some interviewees felt that certain fellow pupils had not‘pulled their weight’. Pupils generally thought that the VRE was practical for keep-ing in touch with one another in their free time and for organising their work.Interestingly they also stated the VRE was useful in school hours during which theywere often unable to speak to each other due to different timetables and breaktimes. The VRE was used for organising face-to-face meetings, storing and sharingresources, and deciding on division of labour. In addition, off-topic philosophicaldiscussion and debates took place in the virtual space. Pupil use of the VREdeclined in the second half of the course when pupils were put under added pres-sure from other school work and approaching exams. In response to this the projectteachers reduced the demand for group work. Use of the VRE was varied in termsof tools. The file store was used for storing documents and presentations, oftenreferred to by announcements, or by contributions in the discussion or the chatareas. The chat area emerged as a space for less formal exchanges, where somepupils felt they could express themselves more easily. The discussion area providedboth a space for and record of a number of vigorous debates between pupils over aperiod of several months.
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Discussion
Each of the above vignettes provides a very different insight into the ways in whichthe use of a VRE can impact on emerging communities of enquiry. While their differ-ences in size, nature, purpose and constituencies make comparisons difficult, theynevertheless provide an interesting illumination of the ways in which the use of VREschallenges existing patterns of collaborative enquiry and research. The Appendixsummarises the ways in which each of the vignettes was influenced by the seven keyfactors identified above. While these factors were intended as key considerations foremerging communities of enquiry they nevertheless provided the LLTN researchwith an initial framework with which to examine emerging communities of enquiry.The following sections explore the ways in which the VRE interacted with thesefactors to influence collaborative work.
In the school-based community the VRE was offered as a tool for enhancing pupilopportunities for communication and developing active online collaboration. Thegroup met regularly in school and the VRE was seen as offering a potential means toallow the group to take work and debate forward outside of their meetings. However,it is clear that the use of the VRE provided more dynamic innovations than originallyintended or expected. Teachers and pupils recognised and drew attention to the waysin which different patterns of use of the VRE emerged between pupils. Pupilsreported that they felt they got to know other pupils better from the ways in whichthey expressed themselves in the VRE. Initial analysis showed differences in the waysin which the chat and discussion areas were used. While the discussion area providedmore confident pupils with a formal environment to build their arguments andcontribute to debate, the chat area provided less confident pupils (teacher and pupilopinion) with a space in which they could express themselves and ask questions,without feeling the need to present carefully constructed and worded arguments.This was equally revealing for teachers who were able to see some pupils expressthemselves in ways they, as teachers, had not been able to make possible in normalclass situations.
Yet just as quickly as it blossomed the use of the VRE declined. This happenedafter the ‘purpose’ for using the VRE was withdrawn, that is, the collaborative home-work activities were stopped due to the drop in pupils’ attendance on the course,which in turn was a result of other external factors in the school (exams etc.).TheVRE offered a temporary, different dimension to the project and one which, in someways, challenged existing patterns of relationships and communication within theschool.
The AifL site described in Vignette 1 had similar aspirations in terms of encourag-ing communication and dialogue between teachers and academic staff within HE.However, while there was initial teacher interest and the local council-appointedcoordinators tried to seed discussion, little collaborative activity consequentlyemerged. The local education department had speculated that this form of collabora-tive working may prove useful but as is illustrated below key factors identified aboveas crucial considerations for communities of enquiry were not addressed. Teachers
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expressed concern that practical constraints such as their differing levels of IT skillsand effective access to the Internet within schools were prohibiting their participation.Some teachers expressed concern that engaging with a VRE requires dedicated timewhich they, as yet, do not have to devote in this way. In contrast the local authorityanticipated that the VRE would assist teachers in sharing practice, a task they werealready required to be undertaking. More recently teachers have expressed hesitancyat presenting their ideas and examples of their practice in such a public environment.There has been demand from some teachers for more differentiated, intimate use ofVREs involving local clusters of two to three schools rather than one large local coun-cil-based VRE. While the teachers forming the potential participants in the AifL VREhave been given a clear purpose with regard to sharing their practice it is clear thattransferring some of this to the VRE offered more substantial challenge than firstperceived. In such situations it is clear that the use of a virtual environment impliesnot just the use of an extra tool for communities of enquiry to use but a substantiallynew way of engaging with their work, one that is currently neither explicitly recogn-ised by teachers or the local council. As the site develops it offers policy-makers theopportunity to have ongoing and direct contact with practitioners. The lack of appar-ent interest by practitioners needed to be responded to and provided insight forpolicy-makers into their circumstances and working conditions that were inhibitive totheir required tasks.
The research team exploring the experiences of students with mental health diffi-culties found the process of establishing a virtual community of enquiry an excitingand challenging process. The VRE evolved a valuable source of data. The anonymityof the space allowed participation of a vulnerable group of young people unlikelyotherwise to have agreed to participate in the research or to have openly discussedtheir experiences. In addition the virtual space offered possibilities for researchers toengage directly with participants by introducing topics for discussion or following upideas from student-led discussion. However use of the virtual space also requiredsignificant and careful support. The ethics of creating and using the space werecomplicated. The research team ensured students were aware that in engaging withthe site they were generating research data that would be used by the research team.The possibility that the site would allow exchange harmful to students remained. Theapparent respectful way in which participants communicated could have been verydifferent and may have posed serious ethical difficulties for the research. Engagingwith research participants in this way seems a natural way of communicating but onefor which there is currently little exploration in relation to vulnerable groups. Datagenerated by the site also posed particular challenges for analysis. While any piece ofqualitative research may be subject to participants assuming different roles andportraying themselves differently, a virtual space surely affords this more easily.Anonymity afforded a freedom for participants to express themselves more openlywith each other. The evidence from the above research indicates that students didinteract more freely than they were able to in normal everyday life. In this sense theinteractive virtual space affords not just a glimpse into the lives of participants butalso, crucially, a new space for them to inhabit and express themselves in.
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A Virtual Research Environment for educational research in Scotland 301
Conclusion
The developing work of the LLTN has been ambitious in terms of striving torealise new forms of collaborative working, of communities of enquiry and simulta-neously supporting this process by providing VREs. Initially this work conceptual-ised VREs as tools supporting communities of enquiry. Employing the seven keyconsiderations for communities of enquiry identified above as a framework forconsidering the ways in which VREs could impact on developing communitiesprovided a starting point for this process. In particular new patterns of dialogue andrelationships have been realised and explored. However it is clear that VREs, whenused in the context of communities of enquiry, are not simply tools to supportgroup communication and enquiry. They are, rather, new environments in whichparticipants engage and generate new forms of knowledge. This early researchwithin the LLTN indicates the use of VREs as potentially transformative to theprocesses of collaborative enquiry and research in education. For researchers theyoffer the challenge of providing alternative ways of conducting research, engagingwith participants and practitioners. Equally they pose particular ethical consider-ations and challenges to the status and analysis of data. For practitioners theysignal, perhaps, new ways of working as yet not fully realised. Practitioner use ofVREs needs recognition as a legitimate, alternative and effective way of collabora-tive working. While engagement with policy-making communities is developingmore slowly this early analysis indicates the ways in which VREs can offer channelsfor communication and dialogue that provide new and immediate interfacebetween policy-makers and practitioners. This developing work within the LLTNindicates the transformative potential of VREs. Crucially, it also indicates the waysin which the use of VREs by communities of enquiry requires careful and cautiousnurturing. The action research dimension to this work permitted monitoring, colla-tion and interpretation of findings that needed to be shared with and responded toby various participants. This role need not necessarily be taken on by HE orresearchers but it is critical that it is acknowledged in the planning and resourcingof the development of VREs. Used in this context VREs offer opportunities forinnovation and pose challenges in equal measure.
Notes
1. For further details of these developments see Laterza et al. in this issue, Carmichael and Procter(2006) and Rimpiläinen and Carmichael (2006). A sector-wide context is provided bySummary of the JISC Strategy 2007–2009. Available online at: www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/publications/pub_strategy2007summary.aspx (accessed on 30 May 2007) .
2. The research reported in the present article was supported by the Applied EducationalResearch Scheme, which is a five-year programme of research funded by the Scottish ExecutiveEducation Department and the Scottish Funding Council. AERS aims to build educationalresearch capacity in Scotland and to harness that capacity to carry out high-quality researchrelevant to the Scottish National Priorities in Education (Munn et al., 2003).
3. The project is ongoing and this vignette looks at the year group of 2005–06.
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Vig
net
te 1
En
gagi
ng
pra
ctit
ion
ers,
pol
icy-
mak
ers
and
res
earc
her
s in
co
llab
orat
ive
enqu
iry
Vig
net
te 2
En
gagi
ng
vuln
erab
le
par
tici
pan
ts i
n r
esea
rch
Vig
net
te 3
En
gagi
ng
six
th-f
orm
pu
pil
s in
co
llab
orat
ive
enqu
iry
Dia
logu
e an
d
par
tici
pat
ion
Lim
ited
.T
each
er p
arti
cipa
tion
lim
ited
—no
al
loca
ted
tim
e. T
each
ers
repo
rted
no
need
to
part
icip
ate.
Hig
h.S
tude
nts
part
icip
atin
g in
ow
n ti
me.
Hig
h bu
t va
riab
le.
Pup
ils w
orki
ng in
ow
n ti
me;
oth
er fa
ctor
s su
ch a
s in
crea
sed
hom
ewor
k lim
ited
thei
r pa
rtic
ipat
ion.
Rel
atio
nsh
ips
Tea
cher
s re
serv
ed in
dis
play
ing
pers
onal
wor
k an
d m
akin
g co
mm
ents
vis
ible
to
stra
nger
s.
Ano
nym
ity
esse
ntia
l to
part
icip
atio
n. S
tude
nts
com
mun
icat
ed f
reel
y on
thi
s ba
sis.
Sch
ool-
base
d re
lati
onsh
ips c
halle
nged
by
VR
E w
hich
ena
bled
pup
ils t
o co
ntri
bute
in
less
for
mal
way
s. V
RE
use
com
bine
d w
ith
face
-to-
face
wor
k.
Per
spec
tive
s an
d
assu
mp
tion
sC
onfu
sion
as
to u
se o
f th
e V
RE
and
it
s re
lati
onsh
ip t
o ot
her
wor
k re
quir
ed o
f te
ache
rs.
Cle
ar u
nder
stan
ding
of p
urpo
ses
of
com
mun
ity
of e
nqui
ry a
nd s
hare
d ex
peri
ence
of
diff
icul
ties
.
Cle
ar f
ocus
for
the
pup
ils in
the
ir
colla
bora
tive
wor
k.
Str
uct
ure
an
d
con
tex
tS
truc
ture
impo
sed
exte
rnal
ly a
nd
resi
sted
.S
truc
ture
and
pur
pose
s ne
goti
ated
.P
upil-
led
acti
vity
in V
RE
wit
h in
itia
l st
ruct
urin
g by
tea
cher
s.
Cli
mat
eT
ensi
on b
etw
een
impo
sed
expe
ctat
ion
of e
duca
tion
dep
artm
ent
and
teac
her
reac
tion
.
Col
labo
rati
ve a
nd s
uppo
rtiv
e.C
olla
bora
tive
, sup
port
ed b
y te
ache
rs
chal
leng
ing
exis
ting
sch
ool c
limat
e.
Pu
rpos
eE
stab
lishe
d by
edu
cati
on
depa
rtm
ent
but
not
clea
rly
unde
rsto
od b
y pa
rtic
ipan
ts.
Est
ablis
hed
by r
esea
rche
rs,
unde
rsto
od a
nd o
f in
tere
st t
o pa
rtic
ipan
ts.
Est
ablis
hed
by s
choo
l but
gro
up
colla
bora
tive
wor
k de
term
ined
and
led
by
pupi
ls.
Con
trol
Not
cle
ar—
VR
E e
stab
lishe
d by
ed
ucat
ion
depa
rtm
ent
but
use
of it
no
t di
rect
ed.
Res
earc
hers
had
ult
imat
e co
ntro
l bu
t al
l act
ivit
y st
uden
t le
d.T
each
er/s
choo
l con
trol
of
site
but
use
de
term
ined
by
pupi
ls.
App
endi
x. S
umm
ary
tabl
e of
vig
nett
es b
y in
itia
l fac
tors
for
est
ablis
hing
com
mun
itie
s of
enq
uiry
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