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Restrictions on social interaction and travel due to the COVID-19 pandemic have affected how researchers approach fieldwork and data collection. Whilst online focus groups have received attention since the 2000s as a method for qualitative data collection, relatively little of the relevant literature appears to have made use of now ubiquitous video calling software and synchronous, interactive discussion tools. Our own experiences in organising fieldwork aimed at understanding the impact of different “future-proofing” strategies for the European agri-food system during this period resulted in several methodological changes being made at short notice. We present an approach to converting in-person focus group to a virtual methodology and provide a checklist for researchers planning their own online focus groups. Our findings suggest data are comparable to in-person focus groups and factors influencing data quality during online focus groups can be safeguarded. There are several key steps, both before and during the focus groups, which can be taken to ensure the smooth running of such events. We share our reflections on this approach and provide a resource for other researchers moving to online-only data collection.

Group reporting, a form of cooperative learning, is a learning tool often employed in residential teaching to facilitate quality learning. Like other cooperative learning methods, it enhances learning in classrooms by allowing students work on activities in small groups to receive rewards based on their group’s performance. However, though group reporting is often done in face-to-face settings, few up-to-date literature has shown its application in online learning. Moreover, the question as to whether online cooperative learning through group reports yields positive or negative response from students has to be studied further. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This study focuses on the students’ response to the group reporting activity carried throughout one semester. A course offered by the University of the Philippines Open University on database management systems made use of group reporting to add to the students’ learning experience. Group meetings along with regular online lectures were carried out during the first half of the semester. The output group reports were then presented during the second half and served as the main resource for those weeks’ study modules. An online survey with Likert scales drawing out the student reactions on the learning activity impact was administered to volunteer respondents at the end of classes.

In total, 71.9 percent of 32 respondents observed changes in their behavior after using peer and cooperative learning technologies. The respondents also indicated that they enjoyed the group reporting activity (14 agreeing strongly, 14 agreeing moderately). They also indicated that they were motivated to learn the course through the group reports (8 agreeing strongly, 14 agreeing moderately). However, when asked if they preferred to have all the modules in group report format 9 agreed moderately, 8 disagreed moderately, 7 disagreed strongly, 4 agreed strongly, and 4 neither agreed nor disagreed. Still, overall, online cooperative learning facilitated quality learning based on this study’s results.

This study contributes to the body of knowledge by showing how group reporting can be applied online and how students have responded to it. The study also provides recommendations on how to conduct online cooperative learning in order to enhance the quality of courses, with implications for further research to look into variations with respect to the technology used for reporting and its suitability to a given course.

The present study investigated the effect of online collaborative project-based learning on the language performance and attitudes of intermediate level students at the College of Applied Sciences in Oman. The study is a quasi-experimental study and the sample consisted of four classes (93 students in total) in Nizwa College of Applied Sciences. These participants were in their foundation year and were taking the Academic English Course during the time of the research experiment. Two classes were assigned to the experimental group (46 students) and they were directed to collaborate online in doing their research projects. The other two classes were assigned to the control group (47 students) and did their projects individually. A language test containing reading and writing questions, an attitude questionnaire, students' project scores and transcripts of focused group discussions were used to collect the data needed to answer the research questions. The study revealed that the main positive effect of online collaborative project-based learning was clear on students' writing skill in the post test (i.e. students in the experimental group outperformed students in the control group).

This study aims to discuss how an online community interacts with a local community during the entrepreneurial process. By having a contextualized view of entrepreneurship, this study acknowledges the social and spatial dynamics of the process.

The inductive approach used in this study is empirically anchored in the case “the library revolt”. This paper analysed interviews conducted in a selected region in Sweden and followed a netnographic method to capture the social interactions online. By using qualitative modes of inquiry, this study attempts to illuminate the social aspects of the entrepreneurial process.

This study shows how social media works as a contextual element in entrepreneurship. By presenting interactions between an online community and a rural community, it is shown how entrepreneurial processes in rural areas can be shaped not only through local community relations but also by online interaction. It illustrates how an online context, where actors are located with their own unique set of resources, contributes to rural development. By being a part of an ongoing process of structuration, we can view the actors are gaining access to the resources online, which contributes to the change happening in a local community.

This study adds to the conversation of the role of context in entrepreneurship studies. Rural entrepreneurship largely discusses the local social bonds and actions, while this study includes the online social bonds as a part of the reality in which entrepreneurship is developed.

The purpose of this paper is to report the change in students' STEM perceptions in two different informal learning environments: an online STEM camp and a face-to-face (FTF) STEM camp.

For this quasi-experimental study, 26 students participated in an online STEM summer camp and another 26 students participated in the FTF STEM camp. Students from each group took the same pre- and post-STEM Semantics Survey documenting their perceptions of the individual STEM fields and of STEM careers. Wilcoxon Signed-Rank tests, Mann–Whitney U tests and corresponding effect sizes were used to compare the pre- and post-scores within and between the camps.

Results indicate that both camps produce similar outcomes regarding STEM field and career perceptions. However, analysis of all statistical values indicates that the online STEM camp can produce a larger positive influence on STEM field perceptions and the FTF camp can produce a larger positive influence on STEM career perceptions.

This suggests that STEM camps, both online and in-person, can improve students' perceptions of the STEM fields and of STEM careers. Implications from this study indicate that modifications of informal learning environments should be based on the type of learning environment.

This manuscript discusses the development and impact of an online STEM camp to accommodate for the sudden onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the inability to hold an in-person STEM camp. These results may influence the curriculum and organization of future online and FTF STEM camps.

Higher education institutions (HEIs) frequently overlook the importance of encouraging creative thinking in students. A review of the prevailing practices in a fully online tertiary distance education (DE) institution revealed a lack of learning activities that foster creativity. The study aims to find out whether the creative collaborative group project is a feasible, effective and acceptable learning activity for fostering creativity in students of a fully online graduate-level DE course.

Seven groups of five to six graduate students each had five weeks to conceptualize, prepare and deliver a creative collaborative group project on lifelong learning using key concepts learned from the course.

All groups submitted well-crafted creative projects within the given time frame. Reflections on their experience positively correlated with known outcomes associated with creative skills. Students valued the experience and had a better understanding of the concepts. These support the feasibility, effectiveness and acceptability of the project for fostering creativity in a fully online DE institution.

The feasibility, effectiveness and acceptability may vary in different contexts; future iterations in the same and/or other courses are recommended.

The creative collaborative group project is a feasible, effective and acceptable strategy for fostering creativity in online distance education.

Creativity can be enhanced through appropriate online collaborative learning activities.

The study adds to the body of literature on the use of creative collaborative group projects to foster creativity in HEIs.

This study aims to explore the complexities of methodological, ethical and emotional challenges of studying sensitive and vulnerable communities online from the perspective of simultaneously being a researcher and a research subject. The point of departure for these explorations consists of the author’s past and ongoing studies of the role and use of a closed grief support group on Facebook for bereaved parents – a community of which the author is a member. The aim is not to provide ready solutions for “how to do ethics,” but rather to contribute to the collective and ongoing work initiated by the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR), among others, and to recognize the necessity of ethical pluralism, cross-cultural awareness and an interdisciplinary approach.

This is an explorative study, drawing on an (auto)ethnographic case study. The case serves as a point of departure for discussing the complexities of methodological, ethical and emotional challenges of studying sensitive and vulnerable communities online from the perspective of simultaneously being a researcher and a research subject.

Being a researcher and a research subject rolled into one, as it were, presents both opportunities and challenges. To conduct responsible research from both these perspectives pose high demands on the researchers’ ethical as well as emotional capacities and responsibilities. Hopes and expectancies of the community under study might put the researcher into a dilemma, ethical aspects of anonymity and informed consent might have to be reconsidered as well as emotional challenges of engaging in and with sensitive research, all of which makes for a complex balancing act. Ethics and methods are inextricably intertwined, so are the emotional challenges of conducting sensitive research intermingled. Studying vulnerable individuals and closed communities online highlights the necessity for case and context sensitive research and for flexibility, adaptivity and mindfulness of the researcher. It also highlights the importance of discussing and questioning theoretical, methodological and ethical developments for studying everyday life practices online.

The challenges encountered in this case study contribute to the experientially grounded approach to research ethics emphasized in AoIR’s ethics guidelines. This case offers an opportunity to explore and discuss complex issues arising from the researcher’s insider position in a closed group devoted to the sensitive topic of supporting bereaved parents. Further, it highlights the necessity for research to be case and context sensitive as well as for the researcher and the research design to be flexible and adaptive. Research on vulnerable communities also heightens the demands of ethical responsibility of the researcher and the research process.

The growth of online communities and social media has led to a growing need for methods, concepts, and tools for researching online cultures. Particular attention should be paid to polarizing online discussion cultures and dynamics that increase inequality in online environments. Social media has enormous potential to create good, but in order to unlock its full potential, we also need to examine the mechanisms keeping these spaces monotonous, homogenous, and even hostile toward some groups. With this need in mind, I have developed the concept and theory of othering online discourse (OOD).

This chapter introduces and defines the concept of OOD and explains the key characteristics and different attributes of OOD in relation to other concepts that deal with disruptive and discriminatory behavior in online spaces. The attributes of OOD are demonstrated drawing on examples gathered from the Finnish Suomi24 (Finland24) forum.

Although knowledge sharing in online communities has been studied for many years, little is known about the determinants for individuals' knowledge sharing in online health communities (OHCs) surrounding smoking cessation. Examining the determinants of knowledge sharing in such OHCs from the social capital perspective may prove particularly enlightening.

A questionnaire-based online user survey of two smoking cessation OHCs, one based in Finland and one based in China, was performed. Performing data analysis with partial least squares (SmartPLS 3.0), the authors developed a model conceptualizing the structural, cognitive and relational dimensions of social capital as drivers for knowledge sharing in smoking cessation OHCs, with users' stage in giving up smoking as a moderator.

The results show that structural capital (social ties) and relational capital (reciprocity) are important motivators behind knowledge sharing in smoking cessation OHCs, and the authors found a moderating effect of the stage in quitting on the antecedents' relationship with knowledge sharing in these OHCs.

The study enriches understanding of knowledge sharing in smoking cessation OHCs, contributing to theory and identifying practical implications for such groups' administration.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how university academics from three different cultural and linguistic backgrounds perceived their own cultural context and how it influences on online learning.

The views of 30 faculty members from Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Mauritius who engaged in a six-week professional development online course were gathered through a self-reflection questionnaire, posts on an asynchronous discussion forum and personal self-reflections in journal entries. Content analysis of three asynchronous discussion forums indicated the emergence of categories and themes related to traditional culture and the impact of culture on online learning that were triangulated with questionnaire data and journal entries.

Cultural perceptions of Sri Lankans and Pakistanis showed similar patterns in their recognition that their cultures exhibit characteristics of high power distance, collectivism and feminine values, while there were no definite dimensional perspectives from the Mauritians. The inability to define their own cultural context using bi-polar dimensions may reflect the sociocultural context of Mauritius. While these frameworks may explain more traditional cultures like those in Sri Lanka and Pakistan, they are unlikely to be useful to define cultural characteristics when the society is diverse, multiethnic, multicultural and multilingual like Mauritius.

This study was based on a small sample of participants from three ethnic origins and cannot be generalized. It has generated questions for further research.

The findings have implications for accounting for culture in designing and delivering online courses.

This study will benefit instructional designers/curriculum designers/teachers to design culturally sensitive and culturally adaptive online courses.