Tell the students beforehand that they will be given marks for participating. Use the Learning Management System to spot who is not participating.

Thanks Ian,

i guess compelling students to participate can act as a good external motivator, especially when it has influence on the overall grade..

but there will be students who cannot understand the usefulness of the course, or make sense of the way the content is presented or gathered, or they are genuinely shy of 'online interaction'.. what methods should be used to identify such students and engage them in the course..

regards, raza

When I taught an online graduate course, I was initially disappointed with the quality of student participation. I did three things: (a) used a rubric to assess the quality and character of the contributions, (b) awarded micro points by how well they did, (c) demonstrated several times the kind of critical, constructive contributions to dialogue that I wanted. The change in how they participated was dramatic, and quite satisfactory.

I found that my prompt answering of student questions helped to motivate them by showing them that I cared. To help students to master the mechanics of on-line working, I posted each student's query and my answer to the whole class as a "Frequently Asked Question", even though, in reality, only one student had posed the question!

I told my (shy) students that if they did not want their question and my answer posted to everybody, they should mark it "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line.

Non-participating students can be motivated to get involved in the online virtual learning platform by giving them certain incentives like grades or points or marks, which will increase their participation. They should be given feedback on their tasks, encouraged to do more, generally appreciated for good work !

Shyness face-to-face does not imply reluctance to write. However, it could result in being camera shy or microphone shy.

Dear Raza,

in the case as you described I find peer-monitoring extremely useful. Form small groups (2-4 persons) of your students and let them prepare a topic and later present it to other students. Usually, being in the protected environment of a small group, shy students can also participate. The students who lack motivation may be motivated by the group dynamics. Hence, the small group makes it almost impossible to not participate. Of course, the case can happen that the student still refuses to contibute. Offer your groups an open ear if they have problems to organize their group work.

Thank you very mcuh for such great input into managing this problem. I will be grateful if i can be guided about the assessment rubric to evaluate contribution. Is there a standardized format or should one prepare according to a particular forum or topic..

regards, raza

I have found that it is also influenced by platform and ease of use. Anecdotally I find if the platform is similar to one students already use e.g. Google+ and Facebook. I have found that shy students engage more that way.

Could you please give more information on your rubric.