The design of idea works: Applying social learning networks to support tertiary education

Abstract

Online education has progressed from having students passively read and watch materials to having them proactively engage in interactions with other students and teachers. Social network technologies enable students to interact with each other, leading to a new platform for online education. Based on the social learning theory, we design a new social learning network system, named IdeaWorks. Two empirical studies, a usability study and an impact study, were conducted to examine how the social learning network system (i. e., IdeaWorks) has an impact on students’ learning activities. The results of the usability study show that IdeaWorks’ design performs well on user interface, functionality, and process. Generally, users have a high level of usage intention towards Idea-Works. The results of the impact study show that learning via IdeaWorks, as well as learning in traditional classrooms, enables users to perceive a high level of social presence, cognitive presence, satisfaction with the course, and satisfaction with the group. However, the impact study also showed that we should enhance IdeaWorks to support instructional communication and group communication in the context of online education.