Identifying Implicit Links in CSCL Chats Using String Kernels and Neural Networks

Chat conversations between more than two participants are often used in Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) scenarios because they enhance collaborative knowledge sharing and sustain creativity. However, multi-participant chats are more difficult to follow and analyze due to the complex ways in which different discussion threads and topics can interact. This paper introduces a novel method based on neural networks for detecting implicit links that uses features computed with string kernels and word embeddings. In contrast to previous experiments with an accuracy of 33%, we obtained a considerable increase to 44% for the same dataset. Our method represents an alternative to more complex deep neural networks that cannot be properly used due to overfitting on limited training data.