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Learning Analytics for Learning Blogospheres

Manh Cuong Pham, Michael Derntl, Yiwei Cao, and Ralf Klamma

RWTH Aachen UniversityAdvanced Community Information Systems (ACIS)

September 2, 2012, Sinaia, Romania

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Motivation

Knowledge sharing by blogospheres– Blog-based learning activities / informal learning (klamma

et al., 2007; Robes, 2005)The dynamics of learning blogospheres– Change of content – Change of topics– Emergence of comments/feedback – Bloggers’ expertise– Blogging process is self-regulated learning

Learning analytics helps, but how?

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Research Questions and Methodologies

Structural Analysis

SNA

Content Analysis

Burst analysis

Mediabase blogs

eTwinning blogsSocial

capital

How to conduct SNA to identify social capital?

Applied in

Applied in

How to conduct content analysis to identify topic bursts and shifts?

How to integrate both analytics to make learning analytics approaches?

Blog

Capture new ideas

Develop “half-

baked” ideas

Get feedback

Complete ideas &

learn

Blogging

Learning analytics

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Research Questions and Methodologies

Structural Analysis

SNA

Content Analysis

Burst analysis

Mediabase blogs

eTwinning blogsSocial

capital

How to conduct SNA to identify social capital?

Applied in

Applied in

How to conduct content analysis to identify topic bursts and shifts?

How to integrate both analytics to make learning analytics approaches?

Blog

Capture new ideas

Develop “half-

baked” ideas

Get feedback

Complete ideas &

learn

Blogging

Learning analytics

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Structural Analysis

SNA measures– Local clustering coefficient – Global clustering coefficient

– Betweenness; diameter; average path length; etc.Social capital – Benefits from the membership in social networks or other

social structures– Identified via SNA measures

triplesconnected ofnumber trianglesofnumber 3×

=D

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Identification of Individual Social Capital

Given the network G=(V,E), where V is the set of nodes and E is the set of edgesStructural holes: nodes with high betweenness

where: : number of shortest paths between nodes i and j that pass through node u

: total number of shortest paths between nodes i and jClosures: nodes with high local clustering coefficient

where: is the set of neighbors of node u

∑≠≠

=jiu

u

jijiuB),(),()(

σσ

),( jiuσ

),( jiσ

{ }( )( ) 2/1)(N(u)

E w)(v, :N(u) wv,C(u)

−∈∈

=uN

)( uN

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European eTwinning Blog Network

#Blogs #Blog entries #Comments #Teachers20963 49604 7184 3264

Project diary network statistics (as of Nov., 2011)

Blog network G− Node: teacher− Edge

− Comments on a blog entry written by the other teachers

− Weighted by the number of comments

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Structural Analysis on Project DiaryNetwork

Power law distributionExistence of hubs

High-degree teachers in the centerStars do not connect to other stars

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Research Questions and Methodologies

Structural Analysis

SNA

Content Analysis

Burst analysis

Mediabase blogs

eTwinning blogsSocial

capital

How to conduct SNA to identify social capital?

Applied in

Applied in

How to conduct content analysis to identify topic bursts and shifts?

How to integrate both analytics to make learning analytics approaches?

Blog

Capture new ideas

Develop “half-

baked” ideas

Get feedback

Complete ideas &

learn

Blogging

Learning analytics

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Content Analysis

For blog entries and blog comments– Analysis of rising and falling topics, utterances, and

sentiments– Exploration of trendy topics and topic shifts: topic flow

Burst analysis

– Visual burst analysis– Burst co-occurrence

Appear Gain popularity FadeTopics:

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Social software data collected inCommunities of Practice

• Mailing lists• Newsletter• Websites• RSS Feeds• Blogs

Database support by IBM DB2, eXist, Oracle, ...Widget technology based interface Visualization of

• Graphs• Tree Maps• ...

A Media Base for Web 2.0 Media

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Bursty Topics in the Mediabase Blog Network

#Words Year of 2011 2640Top 100ex.

Politics gaddafimubarak

Tools bitcoinitwin

Hardware chromebookConferences acmmm11

itsc11websites Bestcollegeson.

comTEL screencastcamp

MobiMOOCEdcampStudy boost

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Interactive Chart of Rising andFalling Bursts

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Conclusions & OutlookBlogging process is a self-regulated learning processLearning analytics supports– Learners share knowledge– Learners’ role changes with

dynamics– Capture of the dynamics of being

experts through social capital identification

– Burst topics reflect learning activities within the blogospheres

– Reflecting an overview on learning blogospheres

Structural Analysis

SNA

Content Analysis

Burst analysis

eTwinning blogs

Mediabase blogs

Social capital

How to conduct SNA to identify social capital?

Applied in

How to conduct content analysis to identify topic bursts and shifts?

How to integrate both analytics to make learning analytics approaches?

Structural hole

Closure

More SNS & blogs

Trend over time

Dynamics considered

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Advanced Community Information Systems (ACIS)

Responsive Open

Community Information

Systems

Community Visualization

and Simulation

Community Analytics

Community Support

Web Analytics

Web

Eng

inee

ring

Requirements Engineering