Studying Collaborative Learning Using Name Networks

This article reports on efforts to gain greater insight into the operation of LIS e-learning communities, by applying automated text-mining techniques to text-based communication to identify, describe and evaluate underlying social networks within such communities. More specifically, the article presents a new, content-based method for automated discovery of social networks from threaded discussions called name networks. This new method has been incorporated into an online tool called Internet Community Text Analyzer (ICTA) and is available at http://textanalytics.net. The proposed method is evaluated in the context of six online classes. The results suggest that the name network method is a viable alternative to costly and time-consuming collection of social network data using surveys. The study also demonstrates how name networks can be used to evaluate online classes.

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