Is it fair to lurk?

I'm doing research on MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) right now. I've only participated in a few, but the concept intrigues me. My focus areas are instructional design and instructor activity. The literature on MOOCs is expanding, but much of it centers on individual experience in the MOOC. As researchers consider individual goals and motivations for participating in MOOCs, participant profiles begin to emerge. One participant type that was inevitable – at least in my opinion – is the lurker.

The lurker is present not only in MOOCs, but in any networked situation both face-to-face and online. You know the lurker. You've probably been the lurker; I have. In fact, I lurk a lot. I lurked in face-to-face situations. One time, my sister and I went to the dog track and decided to lurk to see if we could pick a few winners before actually placing a bet. We never did get comfortable enough to wager, so we just watched about 17 races. We felt kind of conspicuous after a while. Lurking online is much easier. Your name shows up on the participant list, but you just never contribute. Or you have a Twitter account and follow people, but never tweet. That kind of thing.

So what's the big deal with the lurker? Well, some authors see lurkers as "free-riders" (Tschofen & Mackness, 2012). In other words, lurkers take and don't give. Connected learning environments offer the ability for participants to interact and share knowledge (Mackness, Mak, & Williams, 2010). Such environments, in fact, rely on individual contributions and sharing for knowledge creation. According to Siemens (2010), lurking is never a good thing nor is it ever acceptable. Siemens believes that even newcomers to a situation should be sharing and helping to create understanding. He asserts that newcomers may be better positioned than experts to help other newcomers.

I don’t know about you, but that makes me uncomfortable. The last thing I want to do is reveal my ignorance in a public forum (although I wind up doing exactly that all too frequently). I like to look around, get comfortable, and see what's going on: how smart is everyone else? If they are too smart – meaning smarter than I am – I may decide just to hang out and absorb or perhaps leave the forum all together. It's unlikely my exposed ignorance will add much, and will likely only annoy the smart people. And online, people are none too shy about informing you of your ignorance, sometimes rather unpleasantly.

How do you feel? Is it fair to lurk in an open forum? Does everybody have an obligation to participate? Have you ever been a lurker yourself?

References

Mackness, J., Mak, S., & Williams, R. (2010). The ideals and reality of participating in a MOOC. In L. Dirckinck-Holmfeld, V. Hodgson, C. Jones, M. de Laat, D. McConnell, & T Ryberg (Eds.), Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Networked Learning 2010. University of Lancaster, Lancaster (pp. 266-275). ISBN 9781862202252

Siemens, G. (2010, December 1). My personal learning network is the most awesome thing ever [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://www.elearnspace.org/blog/2010/12/01/my-personal-learning-network-is-the-most-awesomest-thing-ever/

Tschofen, C., & Mackness, J. (2012). Connectivism and dimensions of individual experience.  The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 13(1), 124-143.