Development of a Game Communities of Inquiry Scale (GCoIS)

This article introduces a new instrument called the game communities of inquiry scale (GCoIS). It was inspired by the community of inquiry framework and its related questionnaires. The purpose of the scale is to explore game communities from an educational perspective. It was validated with 1,275 players inhabiting digital outlets like Twitch.tv, Reddit, and Discord. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were completed, leading to a final scale composed of 14 items subdivided in three subscales: 1) community attractiveness, 2) community receptiveness, and 3) community cognition. The paper describes the development and testing of the instrument. It concludes with implications for scholars and practitioners who can employ this instrument for understanding game communities and their traits.

Co-constructing an Opportunity with a Community of Inquiry

Entrepreneurs can learn about potential opportunitiesthrough social interactions with communities of inquiry. However, how do entrepreneurs build such communities, and how do they engage community members over time to develop their potential opportunities? Building on a recent study of eight new ventures and their communities of inquiry over nine months (Shepherd et al. in Journal of Business Venturing, 106033), this chapter presents a social model of opportunity development. The chapter explains how entrepreneurial teams that progress well toward market launch consist of varied specialists who openly engage their communities of inquiry. This open engagement leads such teams to gather diverse information, generate multiple alternatives (technology and market), and test conjectures about their potential opportunities through disconfirmation. In contrast, unsuccessful entrepreneurial teams rely on focused engagement with their communities of inquiry. This focused engagement leads these teams to gather specific information, generate a few related alternatives, and seek to confirm their opportunity conjectures. This chapter highlights new insights into entrepreneurial teams’ engagement with communities of inquiry to explain opportunity development and, ultimately, new venture progress.

Researching online communities of inquiry through digital ethnography

Research into providing effective online education has suggested an important goal for instructors is the creation of an online community of inquiry (CoI) where social, cognitive, and teacher presence are all important aspects of successful online learning. With reference to a recent reflective practice case study, this paper describes ways that the research on online communities of inquiry may be enriched through the use of digital ethnography. In the target reflective case study, data analysis tasks were designed and presented in an online VoiceThread site, promoting dialogic and multimodal engagement with data from actual research studies that are central to the module theme in teacher education. Interaction around these tasks is coded using the CoI framework. Ethnographic data from the participants was collected and coded using qualitative research protocols to contextualise the interaction data and provide a clearer understanding of how participants had come together throughout the module. The ethnographic data revealed some interesting concerns with online learning, including the use of technology as a barrier to participation.

Cross Reality (XR): Challenges and Opportunities Across the Spectrum

Cross Reality (XR) resources hold promise for enhancing instruction and learning experiences in and out of the classroom. Appropriate XR applications can provide the foundation for new types of learning environments and experiences while bringing users together to create unique communities of inquiry and practice. Here we explore the opportunities and benefits of harnessing the affordances of XR while exploring the challenges associated with implementation. Recommendations and implications for future research are also addressed.

Expanding the Terrain of Online Higher Education Through Active Blended Learning

As institutions harness the growing mobility in the lives of students and recognize the expanding terrain of possibilities by incorporating innovative active blended learning approaches, it is imperative to reimagine education itself. Connectivity and active blended learning can open doors for focused interactions, fostering deeper understanding through synchronous and asynchronous learning. The level of attention given by programs to active blended learning can sometimes portend success – programs with strong strategies and methods find ways to flip classrooms, deploy practical skill-based experiences, and design rigorous engagement initiatives. How can more programs take advantage of active blended learning methodologies and approaches to engage communities of inquiry for collaborative learning across borders?

Fostering Communities of Inquiry and Connectivism in Online Technical Communication Programs and Courses

In increasingly online higher education environments, instructors must develop positive and community-oriented learning environments, equivalent to, if different from, face-to-face learning experiences. Connectivism and communities of inquiry are complementary theories that facilitate the design and development of online learning and enable online learners to connect with peers. This article discusses two pedagogical interventions that encourage connectivism and foster communities of inquiry in online technical communication programs: (a) a face-to-face orientation workshop at the beginning of an online program and (b) a peer-review activity in a research methods graduate course. The article explains the development, deployment, and evaluation of the activities.