Learning Analytics for Understanding and Supporting Collaboration

Abstract Collaboration is an important competency in the modern society. To harness the intersection of learning, work, and collaboration with analytics, several fundamental challenges need to be addressed. This chapter about collaboration analytics aims to highlight these challenges for the learning analytics community. We first survey the conceptual landscape of collaboration and learning with a focus on the computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) literature while attending to perspectives from computer supported cooperative work (CSCW).

Socio-Semantic Network Motifs Framework for Discourse Analysis

ABSTRACT Effective collaborative discourse requires both cognitive and social engagement of students. To investigate complex socio-cognitive dynamics in collaborative discourse, this paper proposes to model collaborative discourse as a socio-semantic network (SSN) and then use network motifs – defined as recurring, significant subgraphs – to characterize the network and hence the discourse. To demonstrate the utility of our SSN motifs framework, we applied it to a sample dataset.

Networks in Learning Analytics: Where Theory, Methodology, and Practice Intersect

Keywords: network analysis, networked learning, social network analysis, learning analytics, network science, editorial ABSTRACT Network analysis has contributed to the emergence of learning analytics. In this editorial, we briefly introduce network science as a field and situate it within learning analytics. Drawing on the Learning Analytics Cycle, we highlight that effective application of network science methods in learning analytics involves critical considerations of learning processes, data, methods and metrics, and interventions, as well as ethics and value systems surrounding these areas.