Internet Learning Volume 3, Number 2, Fall 2014 | Page 94

Visualizing Knowledge Networks in Online Courses
Interactive 1. Thread Timeline with Corpora.
influence of an author on a conversation’s
structure, but also the influence of particular
conversational features on a discussion,
with or without regard to the author. For
example, imagine that instead of counting
DiscussionRank from the first post in
a thread and comparing thread scores, we
count from each post that includes a citation,
and compare cited resource scores. If
the DiscussionRank score after a citation
to Resource A is calculated at 3, and the
score subsequent to Resource B is 5, then
Resource B could be said to have generated
more discussion than Resource A. This
method could be applied to other conversational
features as well to help investigate
their impact on conversation.
C. RQ2 Example: Chronology of a thread
with author corpora
Our sample discussion data is from
Group 4, Week 1, in response to
a discussion prompt that assigns
learners to discuss depictions of predictive
analytics in the media, and to describe how
predictive analytics could be or are used
in their workplace. We will examine the
thread for which Renlit is the lead author
and posts seven times, with three other
students and two instructors posting once
each.
This thread is characterized by a
strong primary line of discussion between
the lead author and two instructors, in a
question-answer-question-answer structure.
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