It is helpful to think about what you want to accomplish and how, when facilitating online peer learning.
Take a few minutes to fill out this checklist. Ignore any questions that are not relevant to your situation, or which you don’t know how to answer and add any particular context that is missing.
Part 1 - Purpose and Form¶
Think about the desired purpose and outcome for the peer learners? What are they trying to learn? Why (think about the word "intent")? People are busy and if they don’t see and understand the purpose and its value, they won’t participate. Consider these questions...
- What is the purpose of the peer learning group that you can communicate to potential members? (Practice on a friend or colleague. If they don’t understand, refine your statement further.) Please write it down here.
What kind of group is it? Consider this range of options from a pair or triad, to a defined group of people, to a broader, open informal network. Smaller groups tend to focus on strong personal connections and shared goals. Networks work with overlapping interests. They can help create many "weak connections" and amplify the flow of ideas and information, but have very little interest in being a community or group.)
- What are the group’s specific outcomes or process goals? Please describe them. For example, an outcome oriented group may be compiling a set of useful practices for use at work. A process oriented group may be about building relationships that can then be deployed as they need them, such as responding to a grant opportunity, problem solving, or brainstorming something new.
- What are the benefits of participation? Are they measurable and visible to members and potential members? Describe them. Use the test question “what is in it for me” from the perspective of the participants.
- Who is determining the goals? By the organizer? Group members? Both? How are these outcomes negotiated? Think about how ownership by members may or may not play a role in the success of the group. Learning has many motivations, from internal self-motivation to a particular learning need defined by one's job or manager.
- Is the goal of the group in line with your work, role or organization? If the group is part of a larger organization, is the purpose consistent with organizational goals and culture? If not, how will that affect your group? Are you trying to do something new that may or may not be welcomed by the larger organization? We ask this question to be aware of any potential barriers or clashes, as well as opportunities and synergies.
- Must this happen online? Is the group’s purpose something that can only be done / accomplished online? Will it replace something offline? Or is it some combination with face to face?
- Do the interactions need to be synchronous (same time) and/or asynchronous (different time) interactions? If synchronous, what range of time zones do you cover?
- Is this generally a formal or informal initiative?
- What sorts of time frames are you thinking about. For a "rule of thumb,: 1 day face to face equals at least a week online, sometimes longer if your participants are not online daily. For example, colleagues who don't work at a desk are online less than those who are online all day, and thus their participation patterns and needs may be different. Some people can only go online at home in the evenings or weekends due to job restrictions. Plan for longer time frames in this type of setting.
- What can you learn from others’ experiences? Do you have examples of other groups with similar goals that you might explore for ideas? Please list, and if they have open websites, please bring the URLs to share.
Part 2: Membership Questions
Who are the peers? What are their contexts and needs? Consider these questions...
Membership- What is the minimum number of people you need for a successful initiative? Maximum?
- How might the peer learning group expand if there is greater interest?
- Do you want your peer group to be public or private? If private, what determines eligibility?
- Where might you find potential participants? Are you building from an existing pool of participants? Or drawing in new people?
- How will you communicate with your potential participants to market the peer learning opportunity? (Remember: just putting up an online space does not guarantee anyone will come participate in it!)
Participant Make up- What is the gender, professional, cultural make up of the group?
- Are there power issues (i.e. will some feel disinclined to participate because people of power are participating?)
- Are there any particular learning style issues you should be aware of? (LINK TO A RESOURCE OR PAGE ON LEARNING STYLES)
- Are there any language issues such as the need for translation, a common language or set of (or no set of) common languages? (For example, community members, etc.)
- How many different time zones might be represented by the group? (For example, when bringing in other experts or peers from out of state)
Motivation and Interest
- How motivated are people to participate? What is “in it for them?”
- Is this part of their job, or in addition to their job? If in addition, will they have/make time?
Part 3: Type of Peer Learning Interactions
To achieve your peer learning purpose, you generally design a set of activities or create the conditions for the members to create peer learning activities. What kinds of interactions do you want to foster? In other words, what activities must the group do to achieve its peer learning goals?
- Are people learning through conversations and discussions? Short term or ongoing? Focused or open-ended?
- Is there a particular thing that has to be learned, or is it more emergent?
- Are people wanting to find people and create connections for ongoing peer learning (social networking)?
- Learning from each other via question & answer?
- Are they focused around information such as documents or other static content?
- Is the learning happening around a shared task or activity?
- Are the interactions initiated by you or by the members?
- Will there be subgroups that work/learn on different things?
- Are the interactions intellectual? Social? Sensitive? Controversial? Any "red flags" you should consider?
- Will the interaction generate content/knowledge that needs to be captured?
Part 4: Technological Issues
There are two parts to the technology issues. One is access, the other is the combination of technological skills and comfort. You can more easily assess the first. The second is a bit trickier.
- What kind of Internet access do most participants have? 56.6 K modem? T-1 access or greater? DSL or Cable Modem access? Unknown?
- Is the Internet access available at all times; are there any limitations? (i.e do people have to pay for access, go to an internet café, etc.)
- What are the minimum technical requirements for your online tools such as type of computer (PC/Mac), operating system, age of computer? (Remember, you will need to communicate this up front.) Do participants have adequate computer equipment to have a satisfactory experience with the interaction tools you are proposing?
- If you propose to use video or audio, do they have the proper equipment?
- Do the members frequently use mobile devices? More than computer based devices?
- What is the expected level of comfort and skill of the participants in using a web browser?
- What comfort do they have experimenting with/trying new tools?
- Are there members who can help other members with technical issues?
- Are there any organizational firewall issues? (This can affect some synchronous applications such as Skype and some chat and web meeting tools.)
- Are there any prohibitions about downloading and installing applications?
- Do you have an online conferencing platform, need recommendations on a platform host or some other combination?
- What technical support can you offer your participants? Who will support YOU technically?
Part #5: Facilitation
Who will host or facilitate in your online peer learning space?
- If not you, how will the hosts/facilitators be trained?
- What will be their responsibilities?
- How will they be supported and/or compensated?
- What kind of reporting will you have them do to monitor as needed?
Part #6: Guidelines, Rule and Governance¶
Informal peer learning doesn't require much structure and thus there is little need for explicit terms of engagement. However, less formal social norms can be very useful. In more formal contexts, or where organizational needs make it necessary, it is useful to have an idea of what kinds of agreements, rules or governance do you want/need for your peer learning work? Some questions to consider...
- Will there be strong and defined rules, or more general and/or casual guidelines? Remember, balance control and emergence. People like enough structure to be comfortable, but not so much control as to feel oppressed or controlled.
- How will you communicate this to your members?
- Will there be problem resolution processes? How will you share that process?
- If work or project teams emerge, what processes and agreements will you need? Virtual teams benefit from explicit processes and it is worth investing time in them. Short term events won’t usually sustain a lot of attention for process issues.
- If you are doing a large or public site, do members have to agree to a “Terms of Service” or other form of agreement before becoming members?
- Who makes decisions in the community about the online interaction space? You? Peer learning leaders? The sponsoring organization? Anyone and everyone?
Part #7: Reflection, Monitoring and Evaluation¶
How will you know if your peer learning group is meeting its goals? What might you do to stimulate reflection and self evaluation within the group?
- What ongoing reflective practice might you consider incorporating into your plan and processes?
- What evaluation methodologies or approaches would you like to consider and how might they work online?
- What qualitative measures? (Member satisfaction, feeling of belonging, sense of usefulness in their work, etc.)
- What quantitative measures (page views, # members, # posts, time elapsed for questions to be answered, tasks accomplished, etc.)
Did you find this checklist helpful? Let us know. It is based on the
Online Community Purpose Checklist/ which is available under a Creative Commons Share Alike License - feel free to use with credit.
