Social information sharing in a CSCL community

This study is designed to clarify important features of social network analysis for analyzing community-based activities in a CSCL setting. The theoretical and methodological background is social/communication network analysis, which is employed to identify and understand students' communication and interaction patterns when collaborating through wireless computer networking tools. Thirty-two students were given high-end laptops with access to the wireless Internet, and their use of and communicative patterns via these systems were gathered through a proxy server. Findings show that social influences, in the form of network prestige effects, strongly affected the likelihood and the extent to which information posted in the CSCL environment was shared by peers in this learning community.

[1]  Caroline Haythornthwaite,et al.  Networks of information sharing among computer-supported distance learners , 1999, CSCL.

[2]  Steven B. Andrews,et al.  Power, Social Influence, and Sense Making: Effects of Network Centrality and Proximity on Employee Perceptions. , 1993 .

[3]  Michael J. Papa,et al.  Communicative Indices of Employee Performance With New Technology , 1988 .

[4]  B. Wellman,et al.  Work, friendship, and media use for information exchange in a networked organization , 1998 .

[5]  Barry Wellman,et al.  The Place of Kinfolk in Personal Community Networks , 1990 .

[6]  Aaron V. Cicourel,et al.  The integration of distributed knowledge in collaborative medical diagnosis , 1990 .

[7]  David Krackardt,et al.  QAP partialling as a test of spuriousness , 1987 .

[8]  N. Webb Peer interaction and learning in small groups , 1989 .

[9]  Etienne Wenger,et al.  Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation , 1991 .

[10]  David Krackhardt,et al.  PREDICTING WITH NETWORKS: NONPARAMETRIC MULTIPLE REGRESSION ANALYSIS OF DYADIC DATA * , 1988 .

[11]  Á. M. Hernáez Borgatti, Stephen; Martin Everett i Lin Freeman. UCINET IV. Network Analysis Software. Version 1.0. Columbia: Analytic Technologies, 1992 , 1995 .

[12]  W. Buckley Sociology and modern systems theory , 1967 .

[13]  Timothy T. Baldwin,et al.  The Social Fabric of a Team-Based M.B.A. Program: Network Effects on Student Satisfaction and Performance , 1997 .

[14]  L. Hubert,et al.  Quadratic assignment as a general data analysis strategy. , 1976 .

[15]  J. Coleman,et al.  The Diffusion of an Innovation Among Physicians , 1957 .

[16]  Stanley Wasserman,et al.  Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications , 1994 .

[17]  Alain Degenne,et al.  Power and Centrality , 1999 .

[18]  Terrance L. Albrecht,et al.  Relational and Content Differences Between Elites and Outsiders in Innovation Networks , 1991 .

[19]  S J Jay,et al.  Computers and clinical judgment: the role of physician networks. , 1985, Social science & medicine.

[20]  Lorne Olfman,et al.  Organizational Memory , 1998, Proceedings of the Thirty-First Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.