Book Review: How Google Works

Written by Eric Schimidt (former CEO and current executive chairperson) and Jonathan Rosenberg (former SVP for Products and current advisor to CEO), this book provides insights into functioning of Google. But more than describing how things work at Google, the authors have attempted to provide guidance on how to manage new-age companies that would employ "smart creatives". The advice is given for almost all aspects of business, starting from culture to strategy to decisions to innovation. As Product Head for Educational ERP SaaS, I found the guidance given in this book quite relevant and useful. A must read for every practicing and aspiring manager!

Let me note down my key takeaways from this book:

• product excellence is now paramount to business success.
• rule of seven - managers should have minimum of seven direct reports.
• exile knaves but fight for divas (great example of diva is Steve Jobs!)
• bet on technical insights, not market research
• hiring is the most important thing you do
• hire learning animals
• schedule interviews for 30 minutes
• decide with data
• every meeting needs an owner
• spend 80% of your time on 80% of your revenue
• the world's best athletes need coaches, and you don't?
• guidelines for over-communication - reinforce core themes; make it effective; make it interesting, fun or inspirational; let it be authentic; ensure right audience; use right media;tell the truth, be humble and bank goodwill for a rainy day.
• guidelines for email communication - respond quickly; be crisp; clean your inbox constantly; handle email in LIFO order; remember you are a router; use bcc feature judiciously; don't yell online; copy yourself on email for which follow-up is needed and then flag it accordingly; forward useful emails to yourself with search-friendly keywords.

There is also 8-page career advice, which I liked the most. Let me quickly note down the key points here:

• when out of college, look for right industry over company
• plan your career - think about your ideal job after five years and then assess your strengths and weaknesses
• learn how the right data, crunched the right way, will help make better decisions.
• read.
• know your elevator pitch - your current work, the driving technical insight, measurement of success and how it fits into the big picture
• travel across the globe
• combine passion with contribution

Book Review: A mind for numbers

This book helps in learning how to learn. I got to know about this book after attending a MOOC on learn how to learn. Though the subtitle of this book is “how to excel at maths and science”, the book is helpful for learning any subject. It provides conceptual understanding of how brain works and how brain power can be used effectively for learning. It also provides various useful tips and techniques for efficient way of learning. Would recommend it to all avid learners.

Ten Guidelines for taking effective interviews

Here are ten guidelines that I follow for taking interviews. You may find them useful.

1. Dress as per your company policy.
2. Introduce yourself and greet the candidate with a handshake and a friendly smile.
3. Make candidate comfortable and at ease before you begin with your questions. 
4. Show respect and treat the candidate as your customer.
5. Use a friendly tone of voice. 
6. Listen more and let the candidate do most of the talking.
7. Do not take mobile calls during the interview.
8. Do not engage in arguments with the candidate.
9. Do not offer right answers or feedback for improvement.
10. End on positive note, regardless of the outcome.

Differentiators for IT Services Providers from the perspective of Enterprise IT Buyer

As Enterprise IT Buyer, how can you differentiate IT service providers? I propose Solutions, Automation and Scale (SAS) can help here. If a IT service provider is a pure-play service provider without any solutions built based on its past experience then its service offering reduces to professional services. Nothing wrong about it. But a service provider with ready solutions can help reduce time-to-market for IT buyers. Similarly, IT service providers that use automation for delivery of its services can provide lower time-to-market for IT buyers. Last but not least is the scale parameter. While big IT service providers would bring more predictability and stability for its services, small companies would be more responsive and agile than their larger counterparts. I have seen IT buyers choosing large companies for providing IT services for core and/or mission critical components of business but choose small companies for building innovative or even experimental IT solutions.

You may wonder why I have not included cost as a differentiating factor. Yes, cost plays an important role in selection of a vendor but let it happen once you short-list few (say three) vendors based on SAS criteria. Then you can get the best value for money by choosing one of them on the basis of price that they would offer.

One Day Course on Business Basics

I was recently requested to design one day course on business basics. I thought of designing it as a collection of 10 questions (with answers!). Here are these 10 questions:

1. Which are different forms of a business organization?
2. How a company is typically organized?
3. What do managers do?
4. What does accounting and finance department do in a company?
5. What is meant by operations in a company?
6. What does sales and marketing department do in a company?
7. What kind of work human resources department do in a company?
8. How information systems are built and managed in a company?
9. What is the role of Board of Directors (BoD)?
10. Question(s) that you wish to ask

Please give your feedback on choice of these questions. Will they be sufficient to know the business basics? If not then which questions should be added? Can they be discussed in one day (6 hours)? If not then which questions should be dropped?

c2b2 fifth and final module:Strategic Management

Let me share 20 questions for fifth and final module of c2b2: Strategic Management.

1. What are types of market structure?
2. How does money flow between business organizations and households?
3. Which are key economic indicators?
4. How fiscal and monetary policies affect economy?
5. How economy affects business onrganizations?
6. Which non-economic factors affect business organizations?
7. How Porter’s Five Forces model can be used for industry analysis?
8. What is SWOT analysis?
9. How Ansoff’s matrix can be used for formulating marketing strategy?
10. What is meant by vision, mission and objectives of an organization?
11. What is competitive advantage?
12. What is meant by value chain?
13. What is meant by experience curve?
14. Which are the generic business strategies?
15. How balanced scorecard can be used for business performance management?
16. How BCG matrix is used for formulating corporate strategy?
17. How GE-McKinsey matrix can be used for formulating corporate strategy?
18. What are components of a business plan for a startup venture?
19. How is strategy implemented in an organization?
20. How strategy execution can be evaluated and controlled?

c2b2 fourth module: Manager's Toolbox

Here comes 20 questions for fourth module of c2b2: Manager's Toolbox.

1. How to summarize raw data?
2. How charts can be used effectively?
3. How to prepare for a business presentation?
4. How to design a business presentation?
5. How to deliver a business presentation?
6. How to use plus-minus-interesting (PMI) technique for decision making?
7. How to use decision matrix for decision making?
8. How to use decision tree for decision making?
9. Which are principles of quality management?
10. Which are seven basic tools for quality management?
11. What is meant by SMARTER objectives?
12. How to manage time?
13. How to do active listening?
14. How to give feedback?
15. How to receive feedback?
16. How to prepare for win-win negotiation?
17. Which netiquette you must know?
18. How to use situational leadership?
19. What are the sources of power in an organization?
20. How a change can be managed in an organization?

Next post will have 20 questions for last module of c2b2.

c2b2 third module: Money Matters

Let me share 20 questions for third module of c2b2: Money Matters.

1. How accounting information is processed?
2. Which are key accounting principles?
3. What is accrual accounting?
4. What is depreciation in accounting?
5. Why profit is not equal to cash?
6. What information does profit and loss statement provide?
7. What information does balance sheet provide?
8. What information does cash flow statement provide?
9. How profitability of different companies can be compared?
10. How managerial decisions impact financial statements?
11. Which are the sources for raising finance for long-term needs?
12. Which are the sources for raising finance for short-term needs?
13. In which ways cost can be classified?
14. How cost can be managed effectively?
15. How is revenue budgeting is used in a company?
16. What is capital budgeting process?
17. Which are the prominent methods for calculating return on investment?
18. What is working capital?
19. What is cash conversion cycle?
20. How to improve working capital management?

In next post, I will share 20 questions for fourth module viz. Manager's Toolbox.

c2b2 second module: Marketing Concepts

In this post, let me share 20 questions for second module viz. Marketing Concepts:

1. What is marketing?
2. What is 4Ps and 4Cs of marketing?
3. Which are seven Ps of services marketing?
4. What is marketing research?
5. What is a marketing process?
6. How consumer market can be segmented?
7. How business market can be segmented?
8. What are different ways for targeting market segments?
9. Why positioning is important?
10. What is product life cycle?
11. How products can be differentiated?
12. What is meant by brand equity?
13. How multiple brands can be managed by a company?
14. How the price of a product can be set?
15. How the price of a product can be adapted?
16. What are different ways by which products can be distributed?
17. What is 5 Ms of advertising?
18. How sales of product can be promoted?
19. What are different kinds of sales people?
20. What are the steps in a typical sales process?

In next post, I will share 20 questions for next module.

c2b2 First Module: Business Organization

In last post, I mentioned that I will be redesigning Crash Course in Business Basics (c2b2) to contain following five modules:

1. Business Organization
2. Marketing
3. Money Matters
4. Manager's Toolbox
5. Strategic Management

Each of these modules will contain 20 questions, answers of which will be recorded as slideshow with voice-over. In this post, let me share 20 questions for first module: Business Organization:

1.    Which are different forms of a business organization?

2.    Which are key business functions?

1.    What does finance department do?

2.    What does accounting department do?

3.    What is meant by operations in a company?

4.    What do sales people do?

5.    How does marketing differ from sales?

6.    What is the role of human resources department?

7.    Which are key support functions?

8.    What do managers do?

9.    How do functions and skills differ with levels of management?

10. What is the role of Board of Directors (BoD)?

11. Is management an art or science?

12. In how many different ways a company can be structured?

13. What could be the rationale for choosing an organization structure over another?

14. What is an organizational culture?

15. Can organizational culture be managed?

16. How employees are recruited in an organization?

17. Which are the ways in which employees can be trained and developed?

18. Which are different ways by which employees can motivated?

19. Which are different types of information systems that are used by a company?

20. How information systems are built and managed?

  
I will share 20 questions for next module in next post.

Crash Course in Business Basics (c2b2)

Few years back, I designed a four-days training program, then called Micro-MBA for delivering it to my colleagues at L&T Infotech, Mumbai. My colleague, Sharvari, helped in designing this program and also delivered some sessions. We received encouraging feedback that time. I repeated this course last time at Chennai and again received good feedback from participants.

I always wanted to conduct this program more number of times. But its length of four days not only discourages participation by busy working professionals but also it makes difficult for me to find these many free days consecutively. This constraint prompted me to think whether this program can be conducted online.

For last several months, I am reading about online learning and I have got convinced that blended learning is a way to go. Yes, some learning content can be delivered online but some learning methods such as case study discussion or group discussion requires classroom sessions. So I have now started redesigning this program.

As a first step, I am redesigning this course to be delivered in 24 hours. Out of 24 hours, classroom sessions will run for 14 hours as seven sessions of two hours each. Rest 10 hours will be delivered as videos (slideshow with voice over). I have divided the course curriculum in five parts - Business Organization, Marketing, Money Matters, Manager's Toolbox and Strategic Management. Each part will have 20 clips, thus online component of this course will have 100 clips of around 6 minutes each. Each clip will answer one question. So one can get answers to 100 questions by watching these clips. Each part also has two discussion points that will be covered during five classroom sessions of two hours each. Final two classroom sessions of two hours each will be used for case study discussion.

As I will work on preparing 100 questions, I will share them on this blog. Once I start recording clips for these questions, I will start uploading them on YouTube. I plan to eventually host the list of questions with videos on single public web page. I hope to receive feedback on my work so that it can be refined further.

I am thinking of naming this course as Crash Course in Business Basics (c2b2). I hope nobody is holding trademark on this name. I plan to release my this work under appropriate Creative Commons License.

Key Takeaways from CSI Convention - IT2020

On 28^th February 2014, I attended second day of two-day CSI Convention called as IT2020 . I am sharing below my key takeaways which could be of use to some of you:

• Senior IT executives from Essar Group, KPIT and M&M presented cloud success stories. Incidentally, all of them use hybrid cloud approach; all of them have got SAP ERP implementation on private cloud and other non-critical applications on Microsoft Azure.
• The legal framework for offering and using cloud services is very much in place in India.  
• Cloud would be most suitable for startups and SMEs but may not be fully adoptable by established large companies.

Book Review: Enhancing Adult Motivation to Learn: A Comprehensive Guide for Teaching All Adults

Few weeks back, I had a chat with my colleague, Dr. Sanjyot Pethe and the topic turned to motivation of adult learners. At that point of time, she recommended this book and also got it issued from our library in her name. After reading this book, I must say a big thank to her as this is one of the best books that I have read.

In this book, the author,  Raymond J. Wlodkowski has provided 60 motivational strategies for four motivational conditions viz. establishing inclusion, developing attitude, enhancing meaning and engendering competence. It also describes five characteristics and skills of a motivating teacher viz. expertise, empathy, enthusiasm, clarity and cultural responsiveness.

Firmly supported by theory, this book provides useful and practical advice. A must read for everyone who is engaged in designing and delivering educational programs for adults.

Paper Review: Learning styles and online education

Zapalska, A., & Brozik, D. (2007). Learning styles and online education. Campus-Wide Information Systems, 24(1), 6–16. doi:10.1108/10650740710726455   Summary
This paper describes an assessment instrument that can be used to identify students’ learning styles. This instrument identifies four distinct learning styles: visual (V); aural (A); reading/writing (R); and kinesthetic (K). It was used to determine learning styles of students who participated in two online courses. It was found that there were only two students in each class who indicated preference for auditory learning, giving these two a multi-modal learning style. This finding may indicate that it is possible that students with prevailing auditory learning preferences may not be selecting online education as an option.

Assessment
The paper argues that learning style of online students must be identified so that the instructor can plan appropriate teaching strategies to accommodate individual strengths and needs. The paper has has provided one questionnaire that can be sued to identify the learning style. This seems to be an important contribution of this paper. The paper’s conclusion that students with prevailing auditory learning preferences may not be selecting online education as an option, needs further validation with larger and more representative sample.

Reflection
Catering to different learning style seems to be an important factor for success of online education.

Paper Review: ONLINE LEARNING: A Comparison of Web-Based and Land-Based Courses

Brown, J. L. M. (2012). ONLINE LEARNING: A Comparison of Web-Based and Land-Based Courses. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 13(1), 39–42,49.

Summary
The purpose of this study was to explore the differences in student performance in web-based versus land-based courses. There were three sub-problems:

1. Why do students choose web-based courses over land-based course?
2. Is there a difference in the grades of web-based versus land-based courses?
3. Is there a difference in the retention rate of web-based versus land-based courses?

The study was based on an ex post facto design. The researcher pulled data in year 2010 from past classes (2007-2010) to explore the differences in student performance. Following were the findings:

1. The average grades were similar.
2. The web-based was the more popular format.
3. Land-based courses had a higher retention rate for students.

Assessment
Using ex post facto design, the researcher has confirmed two commonly known notions: web-based courses are more popular but have more drop-out rate than land-based course. But the student performance doesn’t differ due to different course delivery format, is something that is interesting to note. Perhaps similar study in other contexts would help to confirm findings of this paper.

Reflection
This paper highlights the need to focus on finding ways to improve retention rate for web-based courses.

Paper Review: Teaching Accounting Courses Online: One Instructor’s Experience

Dusing, G. M., Hosler, J. C., & Ragan, J. M. (2012). Teaching Accounting Courses Online: One Instructor’s Experience. American Journal of Business Education (AJBE), 5(3), 359-368.

Summary
This paper reports experience of delivering accounting courses online at a small liberal arts school. One noteworthy feature of the course design is utilization of STAR scholars for assistance in classroom delivery and for maintaining helpdesk for students. The author has shared following best practices and lessons learned:

• When preparing an online course, thorough planning becomes the critical first step.
• Each online course should have a standard look and feel.
• Synchronous student interaction on a weekly basis was critical.
• The pace of delivery within an online course must be controlled.
• Multiple course assessment opportunities are critical in an online environment.
• Listen to your students throughout the course and respond quickly to questions and problems that may arise.

Assessment
This paper shares experience (lessons learned and best practices) of delivering an online accounting course. Strictly speaking, it is not a research paper but it is still valuable as it shares field experience, which is useful in building understanding about online education.

Reflection
The approach described in this paper is very similar to what is being used in MOOC. It is interesting to note that technological tools can be effectively used to create a useful learning experience for students.

Paper Review: Online Delivery of Accounting Courses: Student Perceptions

Watters, M. P., & “Jep” Robertson, P. J. (2009). Online Delivery of Accounting Courses: Student Perceptions. Academy of Educational Leadership Journal, 13(3), 51–57.

Summary
The authors taught introductory undergraduate, upper-division undergraduate and graduate accounting courses online using Tegrity Campus 2.0 integrated with a learning management system (WebCT, Angel) to prerecord and publish all course lectures and provide all other course-related content to students in the three accounting courses. Students in the three courses could access the archived video presentations over the Internet or burn the presentations to a CD or a flash memory drive thus allowing students to view the digital videos at any time and as many times as desired. Following were the findings of the survey conducted to understand student perceptions:

• Students in the undergraduate courses were slightly less enthusiastic about online delivery.
• Student perception of the effectiveness of online delivery is in some way correlated with factors that lead to higher student success and performance, such as motivation, maturity, intellectual ability, etc.
• Student perceptions regarding effectiveness are not inconsistent with their performance on course exams.
• The percentage of students indicating that they believed that they had accepted more responsibility for their own learning was 37% in the introductory course, 21% in the upper-level course, and only 17% in the graduate course.
• Student responses to the question "What did you like best about the online course" had two main themes: (1) convenience and (2) flexibility and effectiveness.
• Student responses to the question "What did you like least about the online course" were almost all related to two themes; inability to interact with the professor and fellow students in real-time and technical problems with computer, network, and/or software.
• All of the graduate students indicated that they would prefer an online course compared with a traditional course. Only 52% of students in the upper-division course and 41% of students in the introductory course indicated that they would definitely select an online course using Tegrity over a traditional course.

The authors have concluded the paper by mentioning that the differences in student "satisfaction" (perceived course effectiveness) noted in the undergraduate and graduate courses may be a function of several factors including educational attainment, age and maturity, motivation, learning experience, learning style, and prior exposure to online teaching. The overall conclusion is that the graduate students were more mature, confident, and motivated with significant prior educational attainment compared with the other students in the study and therefore were better suited for the online delivery of the course.

Assessment
Though this paper seems to be weak in statistical analysis of data, the authors have shared their wisdom based on experience in this paper. The conclusion drawn in the paper needs more investigation to validate for its general applicability.

Reflection
Though not supported by rigorous empirical research, authors have identified following determinants for student satisfaction for online learning as educational attainment, age and maturity, motivation, learning experience, learning style, and prior exposure to online teaching. There is research opportunity to test these hypotheses on larger student base.

Paper Review: The making of an exemplary online educator

Edwards, M., Perry, B., & Janzen, K. (2011). The making of an exemplary online educator. Distance Education, 32(1), 101–118.  

Summary
This paper reports a descriptive qualitative research study of students' perspectives regarding qualities of exceptional online educators. Twenty three participants in this study provided their descriptive response.They described interactions they had with online teachers they considered exemplary. Modified narrative analysis was used for data analysis. The major themes identified in the study are exemplary online educators as challengers, affirmers and influencers. This paper also compares findings on excellence in online teaching with findings from an earlier study focused on exemplary face-to-face educators. Findings reveal that many strategies used by exemplary educators who teach face to face can be transposed to online teaching environment with similar positive results.

Assessment
This paper makes use of modified narrative analysis to identify what makes an online educator exemplary. Then it compares its results with results of similar study done for classroom educators. It is not very clear whether such comparison could be valid. Nevertheless the identification of qualities of exemplary online educators is an important contribution that this paper makes.  

Reflection
Given that online courses are challenged with respect to connect between faculty and students, one would expect that it takes something more on part of online educator to be an exemplary. It seems more investigation would be needed in this area.

Paper Review: College Student Effort Expenditure in Online Versus Face-to-Face Courses: The Role of Gender, Team Learning Orientation, and Sense of Classroom Community

Yang, Y., Cho, Y., Mathew, S., & Worth, S. (2011). College Student Effort Expenditure in Online Versus Face-to-Face Courses: The Role of Gender, Team Learning Orientation, and Sense of Classroom Community. Journal of Advanced Academics, 22(4), 619–638.  

Summary This paper examines following research questions:

1. Are there gender differences in student effort expenditure in online versus face-to-face courses?
2. To what extent does team learning orientation predict student effort in online versus face-to-face courses, controlling for a potential gender effect?
3. To what extent does student SOCC predict effort expenditure in an online versus face-to-face class, controlling for the potential effects of gender and team learning orientation?

In the survey, the participants were 799 college students (64.1% female), with 177 surveyed about their online courses and 619 about traditional face-to-face courses. The survey consisted of measures on students’ sense of classroom community (SOCC), team learning orientation, and the amount of effort contributed toward any specific course of the participants’ choosing. Following were key findings:

• Male students reported more effort than female students in online courses, whereas females reported more effort in face-to-face courses than males.
• Students who valued working with others and held a strong belief in benefiting rom teamwork reported having spent more time and energy in their courses regardless of gender and course delivery format.
• Students who perceived more course value and interest as one of the indicators of their SOCC reported more effort expenditure regardless of the course delivery format.

Assessment
This paper focused on team learning orientation, gender differences and SOCC but there could be other variables that could affect/predict student effort expenditure in online vs. face-to-face courses. Nevertheless, its findings are worth noting and may need to be examined in another settings to assess their generalizability.

Reflection
This paper argues that team learning orientation and SOCC make students work hard in their courses regardless of course delivery format. That means course design should incorporate mechanisms to boost team learning orientation and SOCC. This paper’s findings about gender differences are worth noting.

Paper Review: A Comparison of Faculty and Undergraduate Students’ Perceptions of Online Courses and Degree Programs

Wilkes, R. B., Simon, J. C., & Brooks, L. D. (2006). A Comparison of Faculty and Undergraduate Students’ Perceptions of Online Courses and Degree Programs. Journal of Information Systems Education, 17(2), 131–140.  

Summary This paper investigates the perceptions of current undergraduate students and college business professors toward online courses and degree programs. To do so, the researchers developed two survey instruments, one for students and other one for faculty. A survey among students received 178 usable response. Following were the key findings:

• Gender-wise difference in perception has been found and researchers have noted that this aspect warrants further study.
• Top five issues considered important in making course environment decisions were: timely feedback to questions, accreditation of the institutes offering the courses, access to information (resource materials), organized and systematic presentation of materials, schedule flexibility to accommodate work responsibilities.
• Issues that are much more characteristic of an on-campus course were identified to be opportunity for live interaction/discussion between faculty and students, opportunity for live interaction/discussion among students and on-campus exams.
• Issues that are more characteristics of on-campus course were identified to be higher travel costs, accreditation of the institute offering the courses and more commuting time to and from classes.
• Issues that are more characteristics of online courses were identified to be submitting assignments electronically, schedule flexibility to accommodate work responsibilities and schedule flexibility to accommodate social activities.
• Overall response indicated that students perceive that they will experience the things that matter most to them in an on-campus course rather than in an online course.

Survey instrument designed for faculty was distributed to 80 business college faculty members at a large urban university with a response rate of 67.5%. Following were the key findings:

• Issues that are much more characteristic of an on-campus course were identified to be on-campus exams, opportunity for live interaction/discussion between faculty and students, more commuting time to and from classes and opportunity for live interaction/discussion among students.
• Issues that are much more characteristics of online courses were identified to be schedule flexibility to accommodate work responsibilities and schedule flexibility to accommodate social activities.

A key finding from this paper is that perceptions of college professors toward these programs are significantly less favorable than are the perceptions of college students.

Assessment
This paper has made a significant contribution by observing relatively negative faculty attitude towards online courses. Besides quantitative data, the paper has also reported narrative response by faculty to the questions, which are consistent with statistic data. Such negative attitude could hamper efforts to successfully deliver quality programs online. More research would be needed to confirm this finding and also to identify causes for this perception.

Reflection
Are negative perceptions of faculty towards online courses because of personal bias or because of lack of skills or because of inherent limitations of online courses? This seems to be an area that needs further exploration.

Paper Review: Students’ Perceptions of Online Courses: The Effect of Online Course Experience

Dobbs, R. R., Waid, C. A., & del Carmen, A. (2009). Students’ Perceptions of Online Courses: The Effect of Online Course Experience. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 10(1), 9–26,89,91.
 
Summary:
This paper has provided an extensive literature review and has identified a gap that research regarding student perceptions of online courses is limited and has generally focused on those who have taken online courses. This paper reports the research in which data was collected from 180 students taking criminal justice courses on campus at a large 4-year university in the Southwest and 100 students taking criminal justice courses in an online program at that same university. The analysis has focus on differences in perception between students who have taken online courses and those who have not.

Key results are as follows:

• Students in both groups generally agreed that it takes more effort to complete an online course.
• Having the experience of taking online courses may increase one’s opinion of the quality of such courses, with increased experience further increasing this opinion.
• Online course experience does not influence the perception of the youngest students because they might not be as self-directed in their learning style as the older students.
• Online course experience seemed to matter slightly more for females than for males, with more significant results for the former group.

Assessment:
This paper indicates that a student would hesitate to choose an online course in the beginning but as he/she experiences online courses, his/her perception about online course becomes more favorable.

Reflection:
The results from this study confirms general observation that those who have not taken online course tend to hesitate to enroll for online course. But it is interesting to note that once a student experiences online course, his/her perception about online course improves. This is an important finding for the study of adoption of online courses.

Paper Review: Retrieval Practice Produces More Learning than Elaborative Studying with Concept Mapping

Karpicke, J. D., & Blunt, J. R. (2011). Retrieval Practice Produces More Learning than Elaborative Studying with Concept Mapping. Science, 331(6018), 772–775. doi:10.1126/science.1199327

Summary:
This paper examines the effectiveness of retrieval practice relative to elaborative studying with concept mapping. It presents findings from two experiments. Eighty undergraduate students participated in Experiment 1. The students first studied a science text under one of four conditions within a single initial learning session.

1. In the study-once condition, students studied the text in a single study period.
2. In the repeated study condition, students studied the text in four consecutive study periods.
3. In the elaborative concept mapping condition, students studied the text in an initial study period and then created a concept map of the concepts in the text.
4. In the retrieval practice condition, students studied the text in an initial study period and then practiced retrieval by recalling as much of the information as they could on a free recall test.

On the final test 1 week later, the repeated study, elaborative concept mapping, and retrieval practice conditions all outperformed the study-once condition on both verbatim and inference questions. Retrieval practice produced the best learning, better than elaborative studying with concept mapping, which itself was not significantly better than spending additional time reading. Interestingly, students predicted that repeated studying would produce the best long-term retention and that practicing retrieval would produce the worst retention, even though the opposite was true.

Second experiment extended the first one by three means:

1. Texts with enumeration structures and texts with sequence structures were used.
2. Each student created a concept map of one science text and practiced retrieval of a second text.
3. Half of the students took a final short-answer test, like the one used in Experiment 1, and half took a final test in which they created concept maps of the two texts, without viewing the texts on the final test.

The results on the final short-answer test were similar for verbatim and inference questions, as was the case in Experiment 1. Retrieval practice produced better performance than elaborative concept mapping for both types of science text collapsed across the two text formats, the advantage of retrieval practice was again large. Even when the final test involved using memory to construct a concept map, practicing retrieval during original learning produced better performance than engaging in elaborative study by creating concept maps during original learning. Again in this experiment too, students erroneously predicted that elaborative concept mapping would produce better long-term learning than retrieval practice.

Assessment:
In this paper, the researchers have strongly argued that retrieval practice is a powerful way to promote meaningful learning of complex concepts commonly found in science education. Interestingly, this is not what students themselves predicted. So this finding is quite valuable.

Reflection:
This finding is very important from online education perspective since it would be easier online to provide retrieval practice to students.

Paper Review: The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning

Karpicke, J. D., & Roediger, H. L. (2008). The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning. Science, 319(5865), 966–968. doi:10.1126/science.1152408  

Summary: This paper reports the research which had following three goals:

1. Once information can be recalled from memory, what are the effects of repeated encoding (during study trials) or repeated retrieval (during test trials) on learning and long-term retention, assessed after a week delay?
2. Examine students’ assessments of their own learning.
3. Is speed of learning correlated with long-term retention, and if so, is the correlation positive (processes that promote fast learning also slow forgetting and promote good retention) or negative (quick learning may be superficial and produce rapid forgetting)?

In the experiment, the researchers had college students learn a list of foreign language vocabulary word pairs and manipulated whether pairs remained in the list (and were repeatedly practiced) or were dropped after the first time they were recalled. Students in one condition learned foreign language vocabulary words in the standard paradigm of repeated study-test trials. In three other conditions, once a student had correctly produced the vocabulary item, it was repeatedly studied but dropped from further testing, repeatedly tested but dropped from further study, or dropped from both study and test.

Following are the results reported in this paper:

• Repeated retrieval practice enhanced long-term retention, whereas repeated studying produced essentially no benefit.
• Students’ predictions of their performance were uncorrelated with actual performance.
• Forgetting rate for information is not necessarily determined by speed of learning but, instead, is greatly determined by the type of practice involved.

Assessment:
The research presented in this paper has produced results that contradict the conventional wisdom. The conventional wisdom is that if information can be recalled from memory, it has been learned and can be dropped from further practice, so students can focus their effort on other material. Research reported in this paper shows that this conventional wisdom is wrong. Even after items can be recalled from memory, eliminating those items from repeated retrieval practice greatly reduces long-term retention. Repeated retrieval induced through testing (and not repeated encoding during additional study) produces large positive effects on long-term retention. This is very important contribution that needs further validation for generalization.

Reflection:
Continuous testing is considered to be a best practice in software development. Looks like it is also a best practice in education! On more serious note, this paper strengthens the argument that technology can enhance quality of learning since repeated testing is easier with use of technology. 

Paper Review: Role of social presence and cognitive absorption in online learning environments

Leong, P. (2011). Role of social presence and cognitive absorption in online learning environments. Distance Education, 32(1), 5–28.    

Summary: Based on literature review, this paper has proposed following hypothesis:

1. Social presence will be positively related to student satisfaction with online courses.
2. Cognitive absorption will be positively related to student satisfaction with online courses.
3. Social presence is an antecedent to cognitive absorption and will be positively related to cognitive absorption.
4. Interest will be related to cognitive absorption and student satisfaction with online courses.

An online survey was used to collect data from 294 students enrolled in 19 online or online hybrid courses of the University of Hawaii system and Hawaii Pacific University during the Spring 2005 and Fall 2005 semesters. Following were the results:

• While social presence influences student satisfaction, its impact is not direct, but rather mediated by cognitive absorption.
• There is direct impact of interest on student satisfaction.
• No significant relationship was found between interest and cognitive absorption.
• A significant relationship was found between interest and social presence.

Following were mentioned to be limitations of the study:

• Specific to asynchronous text-based learning environment facilitated through CMS such as WebCT.
• Convenience sampling
• Use of only one data point

Assessment:
This paper makes a contribution by empirically showing relationships among social presence, cognitive absorption, and student satisfaction with online learning environment. A similar approach could be used to validate the results for online learning environment that use social media tools such as discussion forums and video lectures.

Reflection:
The empirical analysis is very detailed.

Paper Review: Students’ use of asynchronous discussions for academic discourse socialization

Beckett, G. H., Amaro-Jiménez, C., & Beckett, K. S. (2010). Students’ use of asynchronous discussions for academic discourse socialization. Distance Education, 31(3), 315–335.  

Summary: This paper addresses two research questions:

1. What are multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-cultural and multi-level Teaching English as Second Language (TESL) master’s and doctoral students’ perceptions of Online Asynchronous Discussion (OAD) in general and why?
2. What do multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-cultural and multi-level TESL master’s and doctoral students use OADs for and how?

The research was conducted using qualitative techniques at a large mid-western University in USA between 2003 and 2007. Purposeful sampling was used to choose a sample of 13 students and one faculty member. Following findings are reported:

• Students’ perceptions of OAD:
• OADs are great but not helpful for improving writing.
• Disappointed, demotivated and frustrated by lack of participation and guidelines.
• Participants viewed the OADs as virtual communities of practice for language socialization and as opportunities to learn the languages and cultures of the academic and professional communities that they were part of  by engaging with more knowledgeable and experienced others such as their professors as well as their more experienced peers.
• Academic discourse socialization was done by all members of the virtual community in various forms.

 The paper has concluded by drawing implications for further research and practice.

Assessment:
Primarily done as a qualitative research, this paper reports findings on students’ use of asynchronous discussions for academic discourse socialization. Since the sample size is small (13), the findings perhaps would not be generalizable but still provide a starting point in right direction.

Reflection:
Online Asynchronous Discussion (OAD) is a critical component in online learning to foster learner-learner and learner-instructor interaction. Viewing its use for academic discourse socialization is a next step in valuing its importance. Further research would be needed to validate these findings.