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CETLI Pilot Supports Building Community for Online Students

Student looks at computer screen for an online meeting.

30Aug’24

Feature Stories, Spotlights

August 30, 2024 by Erin Bartnett

One afternoon in early March, a group of CETLI staff members gathered in room 133. Q Quaye, CETLI's Online Student Services Coordinator, offered everyone seltzers and snacks, and for the first few minutes, the group debated the value of salty versus sweet, advocated for a tv show on Hulu, and dreamed up weekend plans. The room quieted as Quaye began their talk, a rehearsal for a presentation they would deliver at the Stanford Digital Education Summit on evaluating Slack for building community for students online.

How might online students find community without the room, the snacks, the opportunity to advocate for an hour well-spent on Hulu? Quaye was passionate about making that community possible, and they were actively evaluating a technology pilot that could make that happen.

Slack for Online Learning at Penn 

The Slack for Online Learning at Penn technology pilot was launched in July of 2023 by CETLI (formerly the Online Learning Initiative), in collaboration with Penn Engineering Online, Information Systems & Computing, and the Courseware team at Penn Libraries and was funded by a grant from the Penn Technology Investment Committee (PTIC) IT Development Fund.

The pilot assessed how Slack and Coursebot, Slack’s custom Learning Management System (LMS) integration for Canvas, could enhance community building in select courses in six fully online degree programs at Penn. The Coursebot integration created a Workspace in Canvas where students, TAs, and instructors could quickly and more informally chat with one another. 

“Learning is social and at Penn we are always looking at ways to build community and communication into our learning experiences. Having community as a core tenet, and not an afterthought, sets us apart.”

Why Community Matters  

“Residential students have so many opportunities to connect with one another: chatting with one another before or after classes, in student clubs, or while living together in residence halls,” Quaye said. “Online students don’t have these avenues for informal connection, so it’s important to create spaces with them in mind so they can also feel part of their learning communities. It really enriches the overall academic experience to be able to connect with your peers.” Indeed, a study conducted by Garrison & Arbaugh confirmed that when students develop community and have strong communication networks—between themselves and also with instructional teams—there is a measurable impact on student success. 

Penn is a leader in online learning: one in ten degree-seeking students is enrolled in a fully online program, and eight of twelve schools offer online degrees. Rebecca Stein, the Co-Executive Director of CETLI, elaborated on how finding innovative solutions for strengthening connection is another way Penn leads in online learning: “Learning is social and at Penn we are always looking at ways to build community and communication into our learning experiences. Having community as a core tenet, and not an afterthought, sets us apart.”  

Quaye is invested in finding ways to build community for online programs at Penn in multiple ways. For starters, they lead the Online Student Affairs Working Group, where staff across Penn meet throughout the year to share the strategies they are using to support online program students.  

Quaye also took on the evaluation of the pilot as one of their first lead roles at CETLI. They developed an understanding for how each of the online degree programs functioned, learned more about the unique community goals for each program’s students, and collaborated with teams across Penn to evaluate how Slack could meet both staff and student community needs.   

“Q has a strong knowledge on the theory and research in education, which they combine with analytical thinking and quantitative skills. This set them up for success in evaluating the Slack pilot,” Stein said. “But even more important, were their soft skills of connecting with staff members across the school teams and central units, giving everyone the ability to share back honestly and productively, so we can learn, as a community, what worked and what didn’t.” 

Slack's Impact on Community Building for Students 

In the fall semester, the pilot had 484 participants. Each program was able to customize and use Slack for their needs—some made it available to all students in the program, while others only made it available for select courses where collaboration was central to the learning goals of the course.  

Throughout the pilot, Quaye sent surveys to students, staff, and instructors and met with Slack administrators for each program to hear directly how the pilot was going. At the end of that first semester, 48% of students reported that Slack helped them feel more connected to their peers. For synchronous courses, students also noted the value of Slack for asking questions during class time. 

In the spring, the pilot nearly quadrupled in size, with a total of 1,872 participants enrolled. Based on the fall semester evaluations, Quaye collaborated with program administrators to find more ways to support users. They created a web page for professors and TAs that explained how they could integrate Slack into their classrooms, as well as a student-facing starter guide that programs could share with students to make the transition to Slack more accessible for all. Students and staff continued to value the ways they could connect with peers. Instructors also began to use Slack to connect with students, though students reported that they were hoping for more engagement from their instructors and TAs on Slack than they ultimately received.  

On March 28, there was a new challenge to the pilot—Slack would no longer be available for download in Mainland China. While students who were currently using Slack weren’t impacted, the new change would pose significant challenges for any future wide-scale adoption of the course integration—any incoming students based in China wouldn’t have access to the tool.   

Despite the challenges, the pilot showed a significant impact on community building efforts for students. At the end of the spring semester, 68% of students agreed that Slack helped them feel more connected to their peers—an increase of 20% in just one semester. And more than half of students, 56%, preferred using Slack over other communication tools. 

At the end of the spring semester, 68% of students agreed that Slack helped them feel more connected to their peers—an increase of 20% in just one semester.

The Pilot's Conclusion

The pilot ended on July 1, 2024. While Slack did make students feel more connected, the Coursebot integration, which is not being regularly maintained by Slack, presented technical issues. Unfortunately, without the necessary commitment from Slack, it would create an unsustainable workload for the university teams. 

After the pilot ended, CETLI conducted debriefs to determine future processes for technology pilots, and also learn from program administrators about their experiences during the pilot and understand their future community building needs. Overall, Stein said, the pilot “confirmed the importance of having an easy communication platform within the course to build community and enhance learning, and it clarified that we need to create community across courses and cohorts as well.”  

Now, Quaye and the team at CETLI are searching for new tools that better support the needs of students, instructors, and staff in the innovative online programs across Penn. The goal is to identify and assess a new tool by Fall 2025. Quaye continues to seek out ways to build community in online programs now and into the future. “I think the next tool we use will focus on expanding the scope of the community: not just within the classroom, but across an entire program,” Quaye said. “We also want a tool where current students can connect with online program alumni. This is only the beginning, and I’m excited to see how CETLI can continue to support building strong online communities in the upcoming academic years.” 

CETLI Resources  

CETLI hosts several Online Learning Communities of Practices for online learning staff across Penn, including the Online Student Support working group.

If you are interested in exploring how to build community for online programs, support online students, design an online learning experience and more, CETLI is also available to consult with you.