The increasingly prevalent use of online- or blended-learning in schools universities has
resulted in asynchronous online discussion forum becoming an increasingly common means to
facilitate dialogue between instructors and students as well as students and students beyond
the boundaries of their physical classrooms. This proposed academic book contributes to the
literature on asynchronous online discussions in the following three main ways: First it
reviews previous research studies in order to identify the factors leading to limited student
contribution. Limited student contribution is defined as students making few or no postings
students exhibiting surface-level thinking or students demonstrating low-level knowledge
construction in online discussions. It then identifies the various empirically-based guidelines
to address the factors. Second three potential guideline dilemmas that educators may
encounter: (a) use of grades (b) use of number of posting guideline and (c)
instructor-facilitation are introduced. These are guidelines where previous empirical research
shows mixed results when they are implemented. Acknowledging the dilemmas is essential for
educators and researchers to make informed decisions about the discussion guidelines they are
considering implementing. Third nine exploratory case studies related to student-facilitation
and audio-based discussion are reported on and examined. Using students as facilitators may be
an alternative solution to educators who wish to avoid the instructor-facilitation guideline
dilemma. Using audio discussion would be useful for participants with poor typing skills or
those who prefer talking to typing. The proposed book is distinctive in comparison to current
competitor titles because all the findings and guidelines are empirically-based. Furthermore
the nine expanded case studies provided specifically address the issue of student peer
facilitation and audio-based discussion. Student peer facilitation and audio discussion are two
areas that hitherto received comparatively lesser attention compared to instructor facilitation
and text-based discussion. ?
