@guy75 @iLearningUK next time 😉 there might be an #ocTEL session at the ALT conference in Sept https://t.co/1aCFbq1Gvm— Martin Hawksey (@mhawksey) June 24, 2014

@guy75 @sonyamcchristie mid course survey highlight time as major factor http://t.co/vz4grJtKD7 #octel— Martin Hawksey (@mhawksey) June 24, 2014

Week 6 is the last week of the formal running of the course and on 23 June is the officially the last day of the course. Before we get to the ins and outs, we want to acknowledge what our community of authors, […]

I was not expecting to meet an #octel participant at #geug14. Great to finally meet @iLearningUK in person :)— Martin Hawksey (@mhawksey) June 23, 2014

@jojacob_uk @megacolour @MarenDeepwell yes – #octel will still be active in July. After that we’ll move website into a more read-only mode— Martin Hawksey (@mhawksey) June 20, 2014

The answer to the big question “Is there one preferred platform for learning online?” Is… http://t.co/lkkpWUMnKA #octel— Martin Hawksey (@mhawksey) June 20, 2014

The previous post comparing the activity level in ocTEL generated some interesting responses a number highlighting that whilst not visibly active on the ocTEL the had benefited from peripheral participation.

@mhawksey it has been 🙂 might write a semi-lurker’s blogpost reflecting in #octel to help make my learning more explicit, show appreciation

— Maha Bali (@Bali_Maha) June 19, 2014

This type of auditing role is common in courses like ocTEL. One of the questions we posed participants in the mid course survey was what influenced their level of engagement. A summary of the responses (n. 42) shown below indicates, not surprisingly, that time is a factor in level of engagement. Interestingly for us as a course team, and the Association, is the indication that digital badging had such a positive influence on engagement. In some ways it is perhaps not surprising that this type of gamification managed to hook some people.  Another question raised internally was the apparent lack of influence tutor support had on ocTEL participants to engage. One factor that might have influenced this response was the visibility of tutor support, a number of our tutors having a dual role of participant AND tutor.

One issue this type of quantitative evaluation has is respondents are reporting level of engagement against a set of predefined factors. So what influenced you level of engagement in ocTEL?

@jojacob_uk hard to capture people auditing the course. Seeing who is catching up is a nice side effect of using badge submissions #ocTEL— Martin Hawksey (@mhawksey) June 19, 2014

@Bali_Maha yes no magic tech to capture that but glad you found peripheral participation useful #octel— Martin Hawksey (@mhawksey) June 19, 2014

What influenced participants level of engagement in #ocTEL? http://t.co/vz4grJtKD7 http://t.co/hQp1eByW88— Martin Hawksey (@mhawksey) June 19, 2014

As we enter the final topic of ocTEL it’s perhaps not surprising that we, the ocTEL team, are also asking ourselves the question ‘Where do we go from here‘. Part of this answer is to look at where we have come […]

@FernFaux can’t automate Mozilla Backpack as far as I know but you can host your own backpack instance which might permit #octel— Martin Hawksey (@mhawksey) June 18, 2014

@romieh have you seen ‘Evidencing Employability Skills with Open Badges’? http://t.co/vcaZZ28eoL Touches on these issues #octel— Martin Hawksey (@mhawksey) June 18, 2014

Evaluating #octel 2013 with this year: What do the numbers tell us? http://t.co/sIYwO3t1ys http://t.co/VfEUJzpDGe— Martin Hawksey (@mhawksey) June 18, 2014

“We choose formative as it was early in the course and the topics were new to the students” http://t.co/7P1fd71UUd #octel— Martin Hawksey (@mhawksey) June 17, 2014

#ocTEL Week 4: TEL one Badge < eSubmission, and eFeedback http://t.co/kb00evYrJE&mdash; Martin Hawksey (@mhawksey) June 17, 2014

TEL One: Experiences or expectations of e-assessment and e-feedback › Tutorial questions practice http://t.co/Xq0rawlzkp #octel— Martin Hawksey (@mhawksey) June 17, 2014

#ocTEL Explorer activity 3.5: http://t.co/m8VBHY4Udt < ‘Comparing and contrasting Jorum resources and YouTube content’— Martin Hawksey (@mhawksey) June 17, 2014