Using constraint satisfaction to aid group formation in CSCL

In computer-supported collaborative learning contexts, group formation is a key aspect, since different characteristics of students might influence the group performance. In this article, we present an intelligent assistant that models group formation as a weighted constraint satisfaction problem (WCSP). The assistant takes into account three students´ features, namely: psychological styles, team roles and social networks. The proposed WCSP approach is able to combine constraints and preferences both for individuals and groups. The main goal of the assistant is to aid teachers to form learning groups considering factors such as team role balance and distribution of psychological styles. We also describe a pilot study to evaluate our proposal in different scenarios.Fil: Diaz Pace, Jorge Andres. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Tandil. Instituto Superior de Ingenieria del Software; ArgentinaFil: Balmaceda, José María. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Tandil. Instituto Superior de Ingenieria del Software; ArgentinaFil: Schiaffino, Silvia Noemi. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Tandil. Instituto Superior de Ingenieria del Software; Argentin

An assistant for group formation in CSCL based on constraint satisfaction

Group formation is a key aspect in computer-supported collaborative learning, since different characteristics of students might influence the group performance. In this article, we present an assistant that models group formation as a weighted constraint satisfaction problem (WCSP), and considers three students’ features, namely: psychological styles, team roles and social networks. Our WCSP formulation is able to combine constraints and preferences for individuals and groups. This assistant can aid teachers to form groups considering factors such as team role balance and distribution of psychological styles. We report on a pilot study to evaluate the proposal in different scenarios.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

An assistant for group formation in CSCL based on constraint satisfaction

Group formation is a key aspect in computer-supported collaborative learning, since different characteristics of students might influence the group performance. In this article, we present an assistant that models group formation as a weighted constraint satisfaction problem (WCSP), and considers three students’ features, namely: psychological styles, team roles and social networks. Our WCSP formulation is able to combine constraints and preferences for individuals and groups. This assistant can aid teachers to form groups considering factors such as team role balance and distribution of psychological styles. We report on a pilot study to evaluate the proposal in different scenarios.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

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

An assistant for group formation in CSCL based on constraint satisfaction

Group formation is a key aspect in computer-supported collaborative learning, since different characteristics of students might influence the group performance. In this article, we present an assistant that models group formation as a weighted constraint satisfaction problem (WCSP), and considers three students’ features, namely: psychological styles, team roles and social networks. Our WCSP formulation is able to combine constraints and preferences for individuals and groups. This assistant can aid teachers to form groups considering factors such as team role balance and distribution of psychological styles. We report on a pilot study to evaluate the proposal in different scenarios.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

Adapting Collaborative Learning Tools to Support Group Peer Mentorship

Group peer mentorship is a relatively new addition to the area of collaborative learning. We see an untapped potential in supporting this model of mentorship with the existing collaborative learning tools like peer review and wiki. Therefore, we proposed to use a modified peer review system and a modified wiki system. From our preliminary studies using both peer review and wiki systems, we found that participants preferred the peer-review system to the wiki system in supporting them for mentorship. Therefore, this dissertation specifically addresses how to adapt the peer review system to support group peer mentorship. We proposed a modified peer review system, which comprises seven stages – initial submission of the first draft of the paper by the author, the review of author’s paper by peer reviewers, release of review feedback to the author, back-evaluation of their reviews by the authors, modification of the paper by the author, submission of the final paper and the final stage where both authors and reviewers provide an evaluation of the peer review process with respect to their learning, their perception of the helpfulness of the process, and their satisfaction with the process. We also proposed to use our group matching algorithm, based on some constraints and the principles of the Hungarian algorithm, to achieve a diversified grouping of peers for each peer review session. With these, we conducted six peer review studies with the graduate and undergraduate students at the University of Saskatchewan and teachers in Chile. This dissertation reports on the findings from these studies. We found that peer review, with some modifications, is a good tool to facilitate group peer mentorship. An evaluation of the performance of our group matching algorithm showed an improvement over three other algorithms, with respect to three metrics – knowledge gain of peers, time and space consumption of the algorithm. Finally, this dissertation also shows that wiki has the potential to support group peer mentorship, but needs further research

Aerospace Medicine and Biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes (supplement 133)

This special bibliography lists 276 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA Scientific and Technical Information System in September 1974

Management: A continuing bibliography with indexes

This bibliography lists 344 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in 1978

An artificial intelligence tool for heterogeneous team formation in the classroom

Nowadays, there is increasing interest in the development of teamwork skills in the educational context. This growing interest is motivated by its pedagogical effectiveness and the fact that, in labour contexts, enterprises organize their employees in teams to carry out complex projects. Despite its crucial importance in the classroom and industry, there is a lack of support for the team formation process. Not only do many factors influence team performance, but the problem becomes exponentially costly if teams are to be optimized. In this article, we propose a tool whose aim it is to cover such a gap. It combines artificial intelligence techniques such as coalition structure generation, Bayesian learning, and Belbin's role theory to facilitate the generation of working groups in an educational context. This tool improves current state of the art proposals in three ways: i) it takes into account the feedback of other teammates in order to establish the most predominant role of a student instead of self-perception questionnaires; ii) it handles uncertainty with regard to each student's predominant team role; iii) it is iterative since it considers information from several interactions in order to improve the estimation of role assignments. We tested the performance of the proposed tool in an experiment involving students that took part in three different team activities. The experiments suggest that the proposed tool is able to improve different teamwork aspects such as team dynamics and student satisfaction

NASA patent abstracts bibliography: A continuing bibliography. Section 1: Abstracts (supplement 31)

Abstracts are provided for 85 patents and patent applications entered into the NASA scientific and technical information system during the period January 1987 through June 1987. Each entry consists of a citation, an abstract, and in most cases, a key illustration selected from the patent or patent application