TY  - JOUR
AB  - Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present an integrated framework for designing and investigating students’ engagement patterns and learning presence in educational blogs. The framework was grounded on the ideas of self-directed and reflective learning, and was applied to analyse students’ blogging activities in the context of an undergraduate course.Design/methodology/approach The proposed research framework was organized along three dimensions: content artefacts, blogging processes and community building. With regard to the methodological tools used, this study integrates content analysis of students’ posts using the framework of community of inquiry, the representation of learning mapping and social network analysis methods.Findings The results have revealed important information about the different ways of students’ engagement and learning presence within the blogging groups, the contribution and the influence each student had, as well as the structure and the cohesion of the learning community developed around the blogging project.Research limitations/implications The findings of this study are limited by the blended course features, the specific sample and the context of implementation. Future research needs to consider and analyse students’ lurking or invisible presence in educational blogging communities.Practical implications This study has yielded promising results with regard to the design of educational blogs in higher education that aim to enhance students’ engagement, reflection, collaboration and self-directed learning.Originality/value The originality concerns the proposed conceptual framework which can guide the design, monitoring and analysis of blogging processes in order to reveal students’ learning presence within self-directed communities of blogging.
VL  - 9
IS  - 1
SN  - 2050-7003
DO  - 10.1108/JARHE-06-2015-0046
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1108/JARHE-06-2015-0046
AU  - Jimoyiannis Athanassios
AU  - Tsiotakis Panagiotis
PY  - 2017
Y1  - 2017/01/01
TI  - Beyond students’ perceptions: investigating learning presence in an educational blogging community
T2  - Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education
PB  - Emerald Publishing Limited
SP  - 129
EP  - 146
Y2  - 2024/04/20
ER  -