Productive re-use of CSCL data and analytic tools to provide a new perspective on group cohesion

The goals of this paper are twofold: (1) to demons trate how previously published data can be re-analyzed to gain a new perspective o n CSCL dynamics and (2) to propose a new measure of social cohesion that was developed t hrough improvements to existing analytic tools. In this study, we downloaded the Simuligne c orpus from the publicly available Mulce repository. We improved the Knowledge Space Visuali zer (KSV) to deepen the notion of cohesion by using a dynamic representation of socio grams. The Calico tools have been used and extended to complete this cohesion measure by a nalyzing lexical markers. These complementary analyses of cohesion, based on clique sizes and communication intensity on the one hand, and lexical markers on the other hand , offer more detailed information on (a) the relationships between participants and (b) the stru ctu e and intensity of communication. In particular, the analyses highlight strong convergen ces that were not visible in the previous analysis.

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