Together we stand, Together we fall, Together we win: Dynamic Team Formation in Massive Open Online Courses

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) offer a new scalable paradigm for e-learning by providing students with global exposure and opportunities for connecting and interacting with millions of people all around the world. Very often, students work as teams to effectively accomplish course related tasks. However, due to lack of face to face interaction, it becomes difficult for MOOC students to collaborate. Additionally, the instructor also faces challenges in manually organizing students into teams because students flock to these MOOCs in huge numbers. Thus, the proposed research is aimed at developing a robust methodology for dynamic team formation in MOOCs, the theoretical framework for which is grounded at the confluence of organizational team theory, social network analysis and machine learning. A prerequisite for such an undertaking is that we understand the fact that, each and every informal tie established among students offers the opportunities to influence and be influenced. Therefore, we aim to extract value from the inherent connectedness of students in the MOOC. These connections carry with them radical implications for the way students understand each other in the networked learning community. Our approach will enable course instructors to automatically group students in teams that have fairly balanced social connections with their peers, well defined in terms of appropriately selected qualitative and quantitative network metrics.Comment: In Proceedings of 5th IEEE International Conference on Application of Digital Information & Web Technologies (ICADIWT), India, February 2014 (6 pages, 3 figures

A group learning management method for intelligent tutoring systems

In this paper we propose a group management specification and execution method that seeks a compromise between simple course design and complex adaptive group interaction. This is achieved through an authoring method that proposes predefined scenarios to the author. These scenarios already include complex learning interaction protocols in which student and group models use and update are automatically included. The method adopts ontologies to represent domain and student models, and object Petri nets to specify the group interaction protocols. During execution, the method is supported by a multi-agent architecture

Effective performance management of inter-organisational collaborations through the construction of multiple identities

Although inter-organisational collaborations can offer better services, their performance management is complex and can often fail. Through the exploration of multiple (collaborative and non-collaborative) identities formed by partners, the paper offers guidelines for a more effective performance management of inter-organisational collaborations. More specifically, drawing upon a longitudinal qualitative study of a Greek inter-organisational collaboration, the findings of the research illustrate that both collaborative and non-collaborative identities can lead to better collaboration performance. Secondly, the study suggests that it is better to maintain the tension between stability and change within the collaborative process than resolve it. Finally, it offers four collaborative patterns for a more effective performance management of inter-organisational collaborations

Learning difficulties: collaborative inter-organisational information system use within UK retail supply networks

Inter-organisational information systems (IOIS) have been introduced to support collaborative retail supply relationships, yet how these systems are used is not well understood. This paper presents analysis of an ideographic case study of a dynamic United Kingdom grocery sector supply network. Using Archer's (1995) social change theory we explore how changes to buyer-supplier relationship structures re-conditioned individual actors' situational logics in a way that created network learning difficulties. Our analysis shows how actors' inter-organisational information system use reinforced pre-existing bargaining positions and improved already powerful actors' relative negotiating strength. This paper demonstrates the value of multi-level analysis in furthering understanding of the complex relationships between processes of network and individual learning

Using mobile technology to create flexible learning contexts

This paper discusses the importance of learning context with a particular focus upon the educational application of mobile technologies. We suggest that one way to understand a learning context is to perceive it as a Learner Centric Ecology of Resources. These resources can be deployed variously but with a concern to promote and support different kinds of mediations, including those of the teacher and learner. Our approach is informed by sociocultural theory and is used to construct a framework for the evaluation of learning experiences that encompass various combinations of technologies, people, spaces and knowledge. The usefulness of the framework is tested through two case studies that evaluate a range of learning contexts in which mobile technologies are used to support learning. We identify the benefits and challenges that arise when introducing technology across multiple locations. An analytical technique mapped from the Ecology of Resources framework is presented and used to identify the ways in which different technologies can require learners to adopt particular roles and means of communication. We illustrate how we involve participants in the analysis of their context and highlight the extent to which apparently similar contexts vary in ways that are significant for learners. The use of the Ecology of Resources framework to evaluate a range of learning contexts has demonstrated that technology can be used to provide continuity across locations: the appropriate contextualization of activities across school and home contexts, for example. It has also provided evidence to support the use of technology to identify ways in which resources can be adapted to meet the needs of a learner

University lecturers as a community of learners: A journey between technology and pedagogy

The use of online pedagogy within universities is increasing. However, this expansion is not accompanied by an associated an increase in investment in lecturers' pedagogy to assist them in the transition. At present, lecturers lack the tools to describe or illustrate the meaning they try to make of this transition between online pedagogy and technology. This paper describes the changing relationship between pedagogy and technology that a group of academic staff demonstrated in a one year Action Research project. From diagrams produced by the lecturers, it can be seen that there is a tension between the two continua of pedagogy and technology. This way of representing their views is presented as a tool for assisting lecturers to construct meaning as they continue to adopt technology in their online teaching while also providing a benchmark for their online pedagogy in order to ensure quality teaching in higher education

Towards a generic platform for developing CSCL applications using Grid infrastructure

The goal of this paper is to explore the possibility of using CSCL component-based software under a Grid infrastructure. The merge of these technologies represents an attractive, but probably quite laborious enterprise if we consider not only the benefits but also the barriers that we have to overcome. This work presents an attempt toward this direction by developing a generic platform of CSCL components and discussing the advantages that we could obtain if we adapted it to the Grid. We then propose a means that could make this adjustment possible due to the high degree of genericity that our library component is endowed with by being based on the generic programming paradigm. Finally, an application of our library is proposed both for validating the adequacy of the platform which it is based on and for indicating the possibilities gained by using it under the Grid.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Team Learning: A Theoretical Integration and Review

With the increasing emphasis on work teams as the primary architecture of organizational structure, scholars have begun to focus attention on team learning, the processes that support it, and the important outcomes that depend on it. Although the literature addressing learning in teams is broad, it is also messy and fraught with conceptual confusion. This chapter presents a theoretical integration and review. The goal is to organize theory and research on team learning, identify actionable frameworks and findings, and emphasize promising targets for future research. We emphasize three theoretical foci in our examination of team learning, treating it as multilevel (individual and team, not individual or team), dynamic (iterative and progressive; a process not an outcome), and emergent (outcomes of team learning can manifest in different ways over time). The integrative theoretical heuristic distinguishes team learning process theories, supporting emergent states, team knowledge representations, and respective influences on team performance and effectiveness. Promising directions for theory development and research are discussed

Learning 21st century science in context with mobile technologies

The paper describes a project to support personal inquiry learning with handheld and desktop technology between formal and informal settings. It presents a trial of the technology and learning across a school classroom, sports hall, and library. The main aim of the study was to incorporate inquiry learning activities within an extended school science environment in order to investigate opportunities for technological mediations and to extract initial recommendations for the design of mobile technology to link inquiry learning across different contexts. A critical incident analysis was carried out to identify learning breakdowns and breakthroughs that led to design implications. The main findings are the opportunities that a combination of mobile and fixed technology bring to: manage the formation of groups, display live visualisations of student and teacher data on a shared screen to facilitate motivation and personal relevance, incorporate broader technical support, provide context-specific guidance on the sequence, reasons and aims of learning activities, offer opportunities to micro-sites for reflection and learning in the field, to explicitly support appropriation of data within inquiry and show the relation between specific activities and the general inquiry process