Online Social Annotation

Abstract

This research aimed to gain an understanding of how social annotations can be used to facilitate students' pre-class learning in a postgraduate unit at an Australian university. We analysed both survey data and system logs to examine students’ participation, performance, and experience when engaging in social annotations. The results show that online offshore students had a better overall unit result when considering their WAM before starting the unit. Furthermore, students had positive experiences with the social annotation activities. The students have identified several key benefits of engaging in social annotation and the associated challenges, providing valuable information for future course design. In summary, this investigation reveals the value of social annotation tools to facilitate student pre-class learning in both online and face-to-face classes.