Instructor Perception of Online Discussion Boards

Online discussion boards (ODBs) are asynchronous, text-based, online applications commonly used in online courses to support interaction among students. To improve ODB design, it is necessary to understand the beliefs, attitudes, and requirements of online instructors who use them. To this end, an exploratory study was conducted to capture experiences with and reactions to ODB use from online instructors. Participants include 91 online instructors who teach a wide variety of courses throughout three community colleges in Southern California. An online questionnaire consisting of approximately 30 items (depending upon previous experience with ODBs) was used to capture data. The data show that online instructors have found their use of ODBs to be generally positive in terms of administration and slightly negative in terms of facilitation requirements. They further show that instructors would like ODBs to be changed to include components that ease facilitation and assist students in responding more critically to topics and to exclude the strain of reading through numerous responses. Based on its findings, the study provides suggestions to improve adoptions of current-generation ODBs, as well as suggestions for the design of next-generation ODBs.