Today's society is characterized by changes that place greater demands on the competence development of professionals. The White Papers, Meld. St. 16 (2016-2017) and Meld. St. 14 (2019/2020)) points out that digitalization and flexibility are a key to making education accessible to adult students. During the corona-pandemic, mainly teaching in higher education was done through digital learning platforms. Bern, Lorentzen and Noranger (2021) have examined the student's participation in digital teaching. The survey indicates that visibility, belonging and community have an impact on the students' participation in the digital lessons, (Bern, Lorentzen, & Nordangen, 2021). Fossland and Tømte (2019) have looked into the tension between active participation and passive acquisition in knowledge development. Findings from their survey show that affiliation too group and the program appear to be decisive for participation and collaborative learning in online studies.

In this article we will look at how the use of online seminars can help to increase student participation in the digital classroom.  

Our research question is:

1. Which factors do students think are important for their own participation in online seminars?
2. Which characteristics of the teacher do students think contribute to their own participation in online seminars?

 Theoretic framework:

In the academic literature, it can be difficult to distinguish clearly between the classical seminar and the seminars as group teaching. It is therefore difficult to identify the criteria that characterize a good seminar in the academic literature. Roar Pettersen (2005) uses group teaching where one can recognize principles and working methods that we think are somewhat similar to seminars in our understanding. He describes group teaching as an arene for dialogue- and discussion-like teaching in small groups. What can be interpreted from the teaching activity seminar or group teaching is that several of these teaching methods are dependent on activity and participation. According to Illeris (2012), the most general form of interaction is participation. Participation can be characterized by the learner being part of a targeted activity that is common with someone else, a community of practice. That is, the more active one is, and the more one engages, the greater the chance that one learns something significant, and that one learns in such a way that one can remember it and use it in relevant contexts (Illeris, 2012 p.129).

Sfärd (1998) makes a division into two metaphors, acquisitions and participation, in a cognitive and cited/sociocultural learning perspective. Acquisitions refer to learning that occurs through concepts and cognitive structures. Participation points to a situated perspective on learning where interaction and activity are central. This metaphor has many similarities to Lave &Wenger's understanding of professional learning communities (Wenger & Lave, 1991). If the learning takes place in a community, participation is required, but participation will provide both opportunities and limitations. Vygotsky's sociocultural perspective on learning, human thinking and action is that one takes an interest in how individuals and groups acquire and exploit physical and cognitive resources (Wittek, 2004). From a sociocultural perspective, the interaction between collective and individual is in focus. 

These different ways of understanding participation can be linked to the Norwegian philosopher Hans Skjervheim's understanding of how to make oneself a participant through engagement. According  to Skjervheim, engagement can be about engaging with the other or what the other says, and thus contributing to subject-subject relationships (Skjervheim, 1996).  In situations where one cannot, or will not, engage with the other directly, such as in a teacher-student relationship, it is nevertheless possible, according to Skjervheim,  to meet in an equal subject-subject relationship, if one introduces a third paragraph in the relationship, where common directing towards a common matter constitutes a third paragraph (Skjervheim, 1996).

The growing demand for flexible online studies, which will make education more accessible, requires new knowledge in this field. Our research can show the potential that will lie in online seminars as a form of teaching and contribute to the further development of flexible online studies. This study will provide knowledge about how we as teachers can arrange for the students to experience themselves as part of a community. Our data is collected from a part-time study for students who either take the course as part of a BA-course or as a single course in further education. We conducted a survey (N69). In practice, this included completing a digital questionnaire where there were structured questions with an opening for supplementary comments. For the questions with an opening for supplementary comments, we used thematic analysis. Through a thematic analysis, we have tried to track various factors that may affect the students' participation in the digital seminar, which can then be used to explain how the use of seminar can contribute to increased participation in the digital classroom. Thematic analysis, Clarke and Braun describe as a flexible, basic method of qualitative data analysis, attempting to identify and treat patterns or themes, through a fixed procedure of six steps; 1. become familiar with data; 2. Produce the first codes; 3. Looking for theme; 4. Review of topic; 5. Identify theme and name; 6. Writing a report (Braun & Clarke, 2006)

Findings from the survey refer to various factors that seem to have an impact on the students' participation in online seminars. We have divided the factors that the students believed had an impact on their own participation in the webinar into three main areas; framework conditions, working methods and learning environment. (research question 1) • Our findings related to working methods provide a basis for saying that work methods that facilitate discussion are important for student participation. (Working methods) • Our findings clearly show that the structure of the seminar has a lot to say for the students' participation, and that clear and structured tasks are preferred over freer reflection. The content is also emphasized, where the relevance of the content in particular is of importance. (framework conditions) • Our findings show that fellow students and teachers are a significant factor for participation in webinars. According to our survey, the most significant factor for participation, associated with the learning environment, is the teacher. (learning environment) Through the thematic analysis, we have, based on the students' free responses, identified various characteristics of the teacher that seem to contribute to increased participation. These are divided into two main groups, where we distinguish between the teacher's personal qualities and the teacher's practical didactic and professional skills. (research question 2) • Our findings give us reason to believe that the teacher's ability to engage has an impact on student participation. However, the meaning of the term may be perceived as not very tangible. • Our findings show that the teacher's ability to structure and organize has an impact on the students' participation.

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