Collaborative Learning of Students in Online Discussion Forums: A Social Network Analysis Perspective

Abstract. Many courses are currently delivered using Course Management Sys-tems (CMS). Discussion forums within these systems provide the basis for col-laborative learning. In this chapter, we present the use of Social Network Analy-sis (SNA) to analyze the structure of interactions between the students in these forums. Various metrics are introduced for ranking and determining roles, while clustering and temporal analysis techniques are applied to study the student com-munications, the forming of groups, the role changes, as well as scrutinizing the content of the exchanged messages. Our approach provides the instructor with better means to assess the participation of students by 1) identification of partic-ipants ' roles; 2) dynamic visualization of interactions between the participants and the groups they formed; 3) presenting hierarchy of the discussed topics; and 4) tracking the evolution and growth of these patterns and roles over time. The applicability of the proposed analyses are illustrated through several case studies