Related papers: Learning about social learning in MOOCs: From stat…
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) platforms are becoming increasingly popular in recent years. Online learners need to watch the whole course video on MOOC platforms to learn the underlying new knowledge, which is often tedious and…
In this work, we present a novel quantification of conflict in online discussion. Unlike previous studies on conflict dynamics, which model conflict as a binary phenomenon, our measure is continuous-valued, which we validate with manually…
We propose a simple model to explore an educational phenomenon where the correct answer emerges from group discussion. We construct our model based on several plausible assumptions: (i) We tend to follow peers' opinions. However, if a…
We present a shared data model for enabling data science in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). The model captures students interactions with the online platform. The data model is platform agnostic and is based on some basic core actions…
How can we model arguments and their dynamics in online forum discussions? The meteoric rise of online forums presents researchers across different disciplines with an unprecedented opportunity: we have access to texts containing discourse…
In this study, we explore peer-interaction effects in online networks on speaking skill development. In particular, we present an evidence for gradual buildup of skills in a small-group setting that has not been reported in the literature.…
This paper explores the suitability of using automatically discovered topics from MOOC discussion forums for modelling students' academic abilities. The Rasch model from psychometrics is a popular generative probabilistic model that relates…
We present an analysis of user conversations in on-line social media and their evolution over time. We propose a dynamic model that accurately predicts the growth dynamics and structural properties of conversation threads. The model…
The explosive growth of social media has not only revolutionized communication but also brought challenges such as political polarization, misinformation, hate speech, and echo chambers. This dissertation employs computational social…
Millions of people use online social networks to reinforce their sense of belonging, for example by giving and asking for feedback as a form of social validation and self-recognition. It is common to observe disagreement among people…
Blended courses have become the norm in post-secondary education. Universities use large-scale learning management systems to manage class content. Instructors deliver readings, lectures, and office hours online; students use intelligent…
Learning from the crowd has become increasingly popular in the Web and social media. There is a wide variety of crowdlearning sites in which, on the one hand, users learn from the knowledge that other users contribute to the site, and, on…
Sense of Community (SOC) is vital to individual and collective well-being. Although social interactions have moved increasingly online, still little is known about the specific relationships between the nature of these interactions and…
One goal of online social recommendation systems is to harness the wisdom of crowds in order to identify high quality content. Yet the sequential voting mechanisms that are commonly used by these systems are at odds with existing…
The explosion of Open Educational Resources (OERs) in the recent years creates the demand for scalable, automatic approaches to process and evaluate OERs, with the end goal of identifying and recommending the most suitable educational…
Online social media have greatly affected the way in which we communicate with each other. However, little is known about what are the fundamental mechanisms driving dynamical information flow in online social systems. Here, we introduce a…
Online forums are rich sources of information about user communication activity over time. Finding temporal patterns in online forum communication threads can advance our understanding of the dynamics of conversations. The main challenge of…
This article presents a systematic analysis of the patterns of behavior of individuals as well as groups observed in community-driven platforms for discussion like Reddit, where users usually exchange information and viewpoints on their…
Social Network sites are fertile ground for several polluting phenomena affecting online and offline spaces. Among these phenomena are included echo chambers, closed systems in which the opinions expressed by the people inside are…
Online discussion forums are complex webs of overlapping subcommunities (macrolevel structure, across threads) in which users enact different roles depending on which subcommunity they are participating in within a particular time point…