Conversation and community: The potential of electronic conferences for creating intellectual proximity in distributed learning environments

As distance-independent technologies increase the flexibility with which students may participate in higher education, they may decrease the opportunities for peer interactions. This report explores electronic conferences as a medium in which community can develop among students. It examines a conference that was set up by graduate professional school students for their own use. Questionnaire data were gathered 9 months and 27 months after the conference was initiated, and the conference content for two corresponding 9-month periods were analyzed using a coding dictionary derived from the literature of professional socialization. The results indicate that students used the conference environment to extend their educational community, with stronger effect for posters than lurkers.