Networked and digital technologies are increasingly being used for learning in formal and informal contexts, and participant engagement occurs primarily via online discussions. In this paper, we describe an ongoing research project that focuses on examining and understanding student engagement in collaborative online discussions within a formal…

Studying the networked nature of social and cognitive aspects of learner interactions is the key to understanding how successful collaborative learning occurs in asynchronous online discussion forums (AODFs). Guided by network science and multiplex network analysis, this study compared the differences of network structure and properties between…

This research aimed to explore (1) the characteristics and patterns of student interactions on online discussion boards throughout a course using social network analysis (SNA) and (2) the mediating effect of social presence, as the underlying mechanism, on the relationship between these interactions and students' learning outcomes. Eighty-four…

This dissertation examines the interaction patterns that happen in an online learning environment. While many studies look at online learning through the lens of the learner or the learning environment, few studies look at the interaction patterns that happen through the digital traces captured by computational tools. Based on the conceptual…

Community-based courses, driven by connectivist learning theory, provide learners with a social environment that supports collaborative problem solving (CPS). The purpose of this study is to investigate the characteristics of potential collaborators before they engage in CPS. This study analyzed a community-based course, a cMOOC with a total of…

This paper presents an implementation of Connected Spaces (CxS)--an ambient help seeking interface designed and developed for a project-based computing classroom. We use actor network theory (ANT) to provide an underutilized posthumanist lens to understand the creation of collaborative connections in this Computational Action-based implementation.…

This study investigated the dynamics of complex interactions within inquiry-based (IB) discussions by visualizing patterns using social network analysis. Researchers explored network measures when learners participated in inquiry-based discussions with Practical Inquiry Model (PIM) and non-PIM questions while playing the weekly moderator's role.…

The recent model of Networked flow (NF) mapped out factors underlying optimal creative collaboration in blended spaces (physical and digital). NF conceives creativity as an evolving network bridging material and symbolic resources of the creative collaboration process at both inter and the intra-group levels. First, this model posits that optimal…

This study adds a new perspective to the observations about connectivist interaction behavior in cMOOCs by extending the notion of network building from the perspective of individuals. We explore the possibility of building a learning network named Personal Social Knowledge Network (PSKN) to support in the monitoring of learning performance and…

Purpose: Founded in sociocultural theories of learning, the authors argue that engaging learners in collaborative knowledge building is critical. When responding to others' ideas, research shows that learners in online settings more frequently focus on surface-level aspects of colleagues' contributions -- sharing, comparing and praising -- rather…

This article builds on the intersection of educational process mining and the automatic analysis of student's collaborative interaction data previously collected from a web-based multi-tabletop learning environment. The main focus of the article was to analyze and interpret the data using several process mining techniques in order to increase the…

An asynchronous online discussion (AOD) is one format of instructional methods that facilitate student-centered learning. In the wealth of AOD research, this study evaluated how students' behavior on AOD influences their academic outcomes. This case study compared the differential analytic methods including web log mining, social network analysis…