On the Importance of Personal Profiles to Enhance Social Interaction in Learning Networks

Berlanga, A. J., Bitter-Rijpkema, M. E., Brouns F., & Sloep, P. B. (2008). On the Importance of Personal Profiles to Enhance Social Interaction in Learning Networks. Presented at the IADIS International Conference on Web Based Communities 2008. July, 24-26, 2008, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.Nowadays, we witness a surge of online profiling communities; in them people make their profile available to others with the intention to share it and get in touch with others, find previous friends, classmates or colleagues, or look for new opportunities. Given their capacity to encourage members to be connected with other members and their growing popularity, we hold that some lessons can be learned from such communities. In this paper’s initial exploration, we analyze some of the most popular profile sites to spot indications on profile composition and the affordances they use to encourage people to interact and to establish connections with other members. Based on this we discuss the importance of personal profiles depicting the characteristics and support mechanisms needed to enhance social interaction in Learning Networks.The work on this publication has been sponsored by the TENCompetence Integrated Project that is funded by the European Commission's 6th Framework Programme, priority IST/Technology Enhanced Learning. Contract 027087 [http://www.tencompetence.org