Table 2.

Sample quotations from participants

Aspect of Course		Quotation
Overall satisfaction with the course		“It made it easy to fit the course in around my day job.”
		“I very much liked the live webcasting as it is interactive and facilitates discussion and debates among the participants.”
Value for money and group size		“The size of the group matters. If it was large, then some members taking part would be silent. This could possibly be overcome by breaking the group into smaller discussion groups and sticking with the same breakout groups across all sessions.”
Connectivity with other students
	Positive	“Surprisingly felt more connected than I thought I would, I think for two main reasons: - [I had] the ability to associate thoughts and questions through the text chats with specific individuals (this would be lost if audio interaction was adopted instead) - The group activities split us up into smaller groups, which were more manageable and interactive. I felt connected and respected. The pace was set by the presenters—they greeted everyone as if they were equally important and welcomed.”
	Negative	“There were times in the chat rooms when I felt very isolated; the others were chatting and my comment/query was missed in the exchange. Sometimes this led me to think that my input was not valid/valued.”
	Suggestions for change	“Would it be possible to have information about people closer at hand (ie, when someone has commented, it’s hard to remember who they are, where they are from, and what they do)?”
Connection and physical environment of participation
	Positive (for at home)	“I was able to concentrate better, had the liberty to move around (to take water or go to toilet) and to eat without disturbing the cohorts; if I didn’t understand any concept and if I was not convinced by explanation by the tutors, I had the chance to surf the net for clarifications.”
	Negative (for at work)	“Sometimes not having somewhere to be ‘physically’ made it more difficult to take time out of everyday work to attend. I’d be sitting at my computer with headphones on but still very much ‘at work’ (ie, people in my office chatting and occasionally talking to me)—I think in a classroom situation it is perhaps easier to focus. A note to all participants to buy themselves a good pair of earphones if they are planning to listen whilst at work (ie, if they have a shared office) would be very helpful.”
	Use of more asynchronous materials such as recorded webcasts from the year before	“I think [the] risk of asynchronous [materials is that the experience] becomes less engaging—like watching a TV program rather than discussing thoughts [and] ideas with students in real time.”
		“I like the fact that the course uses real-time interaction. The real-time, two-way communication provided by the chat room is very important to the course delivery.”
	Interface	“I discovered that you could send ‘a secret message’—this was excellent, and I have had excellent 1:1 conversations with some of my colleagues.”
		“This [session where we used a slide share] worked quite well, although it reduced the space available for the chat window. If you can find a way of accommodating all three things, that’d be ideal, but on balance I think a large chat area is more important than providing access to the slides from within the Web application.”
	Audio vs text input	“Would have liked to have [the] ability to talk sometimes (although not very often, surprisingly).”
		“The advantage of text is that we could all speak simultaneously; text was also instantaneous. Bearing in mind that some participants were at the other side of the world, I am sure that there would be problems with audio feeds. Text works. We are all, increasingly, becoming used to typing/texting, and it is a comfortable medium. However, English may not be the first language for all.”
		“I do like audio, but then you need a ‘hand raising’ tool too, like in e-class.”