Understanding the Engineering Education Research Space Using Interactive Knowledge Networks and Topic Modeling Techniques

For any knowledge intensive undertaking (such as a discipline) it is critical to chart its birth and growth to understand where the discipline stands and what innovative endeavors lead to the creative accomplishments currently witnessed in its knowledge products. In this project report, we describe the research and development of a knowledge platform called Interactive Knowledge Networks for Engineering Education Research (iKNEER). This project was undertaken with the explicit goal to provide a mechanism to better understand the emerging field of Engineering Education Research (EER) and, more importantly, provide members of the Engineering Education Research (EER) community with tools and infrastructure that allows them to understand the structure and networks of knowledge within the community at any given time. Using a theoretical model that combines ultra large-scale data mining techniques, network mapping algorithms, and time-series analysis of knowledge product evolution, we attempt to characterize and provide insights into the topology of the networks and collaborations within engineering education research. We also provide a detailed description of the algorithms, workflows, and the technical architecture we use to make sense of publications, conference proceedings, funding information, and a range of other knowledge products. Finally, we apply topic modeling techniques to a subset of the data to identify the emergence and growth of research topics within the community thereby demonstrating the unique value of this knowledge platform. Overall, the picture of engineering education that emerges from a close inspection of the data shows that the area can be understood as a network of practice where several communities of practice, of which EER is one, interact with each other through loose affiliations. These affiliated groups interact through venues such as conferences and through publishing and reading (thereby citing) same articles and journals. Furthermore, although the collaborative nature of the area is growing and participation in the EER community of practice is increasing, the adoption of core ideas on how to improve engineering education are not swiftly diffusing across other affinity groups. A recent presentation of this work, attached as Appendix A, further outlines both the background and the contributions of this work, particularly in relation to the EER community. The presentation highlights the change in research practices that is occurring in the social sciences due to the availability of digital data and enhanced analysis techniques.