@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

@iLearningUK @mhawksey would love to make trip up, but stuck down here with fun student project pitches. Should make them #ocTEL related!— Guy Saward (@guy75) June 23, 2014

#GEUG on today with sessions being streamed live on Google Hangouts. #ocTEL and @A_L_T anchor @mhawksey presenting: https://t.co/HZPiA1ZDDR— Chris Jobling (@cpjobling) June 23, 2014

Finally met the brains behind #ocTEL at #GEUG14. Good to meet you too @mhawksey :)— Joel Mills (@iLearningUK) June 23, 2014

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

@mhawksey Very particular circumstances, but I got a new job after signing up to #ocTEL so old then new employer have been working me hard!— Sonya McChristie (@sonyamcchristie) June 20, 2014

@jojacob_uk @MarenDeepwell Yay! I don’t have to rush through Week 6 #octel in a day :-)) Many thanks @mhawksey— megacolour (@megacolour) June 20, 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?

@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

@mhawksey Thnx for that – be interested to see a longitudinal view of #octel ‘participation’ how course ‘objects’ become an archive (or not)— Frances Bell (@francesbell) June 19, 2014

@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

@mhawksey ah right, thanks. I’ll take a look at that then. #octel— Fern Faux (@FernFaux) June 18, 2014

@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

@mhawksey Nice data to start evaluating #octel . How will you find data to show how many people are lurking or still catching up?— Jo Jacob (@jojacob_uk) June 18, 2014

@mhawksey hey Martin. That graph seems normal, I guess. But #octel for me is sthg I engaged with in a semi-lurking fashion, but valued a lot— Maha Bali (@Bali_Maha) June 18, 2014