Background: Online Collaborative Writing (OCW) has been reported to be useful to improve writing quality in higher education. However, challenges emerge during the collaborative processes, mainly centering on how to sustain active interactions and communications in order to complete a high quality of writing. Objectives: Using the design-based…

Educational researchers have pointed to socioemotional dimensions of learning as important in gaining a more nuanced description of student engagement and learning. However, to date, research focused on the analysis of emotions has been narrow in its focus, centering on affect and sentiment analysis in isolation while neglecting how emotions…

Background: Deep discussions play an important role in students' online learning. However, researchers have largely focused on engaging students in deep discussions in online asynchronous forums. Few studies have investigated how to promote deep discussion via mobile instant messaging (MIM). Objectives: In this study, we applied learning…

Despite the potential of learning analytics (LA) to support teachers' everyday practice, its adoption has not been fully embraced due to the limited involvement of teachers as co-designers of LA systems and interventions. This is the focus of the study described in this paper. Following a design-based research (DBR) approach and guided by concepts…

Many educational institutions lack well-defined, targeted policies to address problems relating to student smartphone use on campus. In this study, we analyse the patterns of student smartphone use on academic campuses and propose a range of policy measures to address the problems arising from such use. Our research, which draws on primary data…

Background: Technological innovations such as Learning Management Systems (LMS) are becoming more and more prevalent in the learning environments of students. Distilling and acting on knowledge gathered from these systems, the field known as learning analytics, allows educators to hone their craft and support students more effectively by providing…

An essential part of making dashboards more effective in motivating students and leading to desirable behavioural change is knowing what information to communicate to the student and how to frame and present it. Most of the research studying dashboards' impact on learning analyzes learning indicators of students as a group. Understanding how a…

Social learning analytics (SLA) tools are designed to visually demonstrate online discussions with a goal to foster student engagement. However, empirical studies indicate controversial results of the effect of SLA tools on student engagement. This design-based research designs a student-facing SLA tool to demonstrate discussions from three…

This study explored the dynamics of students' knowledge co-construction in an asynchronous gamified environment in higher education, focusing on peer discussions in college business courses. Utilizing epistemic network analysis, sequence pattern mining, and automated coding, we analyzed the interactions of 1,319 business students. Our findings…

This phenomenological study expands upon Bean and Metzner's (1985) A Conceptual Model of Nontraditional Student Attrition framework by introducing a new Academic Variable, Learning Analytics (LA), and identifying two specific Social Integration Variables (Sense of belonging; Microaggressions). LA was not a factor in 1985 when the original model…

The purpose of this paper is to share insights gained from the discovery, design, and delivery phases of creating a three-tiered model of non-academic learning support in open, distance, and flexible learning (ODFL): "Learner Engagement and Success Services (LESS)", at Open Polytechnic | Te Pukenga, New Zealand. Presented as a case…

Student wellbeing has been foregrounded during the recent Covid-19 pandemic but this is broad brush and contested with different models being followed across the sector. One aspect of concern is the extent to which access to the technology institutions require students to use contributes to additional stress. A student survey (n=30) in one UK HEI…

We conducted an investigational study of the formulation of the heterarchical online knowledge-based community among university students, which also involved users outside a course. As an exercise in a course, students were assigned to post their opinions regarding global issues on Twitter to connect with social actors. The emerging all…

The transition to tertiary level learning requires students take responsibility for their own learning and independently synthesise conceptual knowledge specific to their discipline. We designed an interactive online lesson that aimed to build student engagement and foster self-regulation of understanding for a foundation concept in molecular…

Sharing the same philosophy of "relations matter" with computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL), social network analysis (SNA) has become a common methodology in the CSCL research. In this research, I use SNA methods from "relational ties," "network modes," and "integrated methods" perspectives to…