Design and description of the social help usage profile for the TENCompetence infrastructure.The work on this publication has been sponsored by the TENCompetence Integrated Project that is funded by the European Commission's 6th Framework Programme, priority IST/Technology Enhanced Learning. Contract 027087 [http://www.tencompetence.org

Brouns, Francis

DSpace at Open Universiteit Nederland

Usage profile Social Help 
In any learning network for lifelong competence development, providing proper learner 
support services is of paramount importance. And as we illustrated in our model, turning a 
learning network into an effective and efficient communities relies on strengthening the social 
ties in the network. So, there is a major role for learner support services that involve other 
people that provide, part of, the support. In that, the social support serves a double purpose. 
First of all, it solves the immediate need of a learner who has a question or request for 
support. Secondly, because this is brought about by involving other people, it works towards 
strengthening social ties. There are several possibilities to supply a social support system. A 
major distinction can be made by whether the learner looks around for suitable peers (either 
from his personal contact lists or for others in the network) and contact them directly or 
whether the learning network provides a services to recommend suitable peers. The system 
then either presents the recommended peers and the learner decides whom to contact or the 
system sets up a facility for learner and peers to communicate and connect. For both 
approaches it evolves around being able to find the most suitable persons. Keywords here are 
finding, suitable and connect. To enable this we need different kind of data. First of all we 
require information of all people in the network; this entails personal information, profile 
information, as well as eportfolio information like competences, proficiency level, interests, 
and actions taken in the learning network (i.e. the relationships between users and between 
users and objects). This information then has to be visualised in such manner to the network 
users that they can use this to decide whom to contact or made available to the system in order 
to be able to select suitable peers. The system than either can present this as a list of 
recommended people and allow the learner to initiate contact, or the system can use this list to 
set up an ad hoc transient community. This means that there is a high interdependence 
between the Social help usage profile, the Overview usage profile and the ePortfolio usage 
profile, not only in data used, but also in functionality offered. And at a slightly lower lever, 
the profile is linked to the Follow course. CDP, and Personal development planning usage 
profiles, mainly in data used.  
 
 
Figure 1: Generic social support model 
 
Scenarios 
A generic use case diagram for the generic social support model is provided in Figure 2.  
Identify potential peer 
tutors 
Formulate support 
request 
Define context of 
support request 
Support creating 
answer 
End process 
  
Figure 2: A generic use case diagram 
 
There are however, alternate flows possible, as depicted in Figure 3. 
 Figure 3: Alternative flows 
 
In the use case below we also describe some events that are prerequisites for the social help 
usage profile to operate, but factually do not belong to the social help usage profile. Some of 
these steps should be taken care of by the ePortfolio and the CDP usage profiles.  
Scenario 1: Ad hoc transient community for support to a content related 
question 
Description 
Suppose we have a Community on Psychology with a competence profile for Junior W&O 
psychology. The CP covers 3 competences: Identifying client needs, Individual assessment 
and Work place analysis. As this is a profile for a junior function, required competence levels 
are set in the CP to 4, 3, and 2 respectively. User Philip has registered for this community and 
selected this CP. He performed a self-assessment, and has set the current levels for each of the 
competences. As he is a novice, he assessed his competence level for ‘Indentifying client 
needs’ at 2, and the others at 1. For those competences that are not yet at the required level, he 
has created a personal development plan (PDP). This PDP is based on the CDPs for each of 
the three competences in the CP. Philip might even add other activities to the PDP. The PDP 
shows the activities Philip has to complete to attain the competences for which the target level 
has not yet been reached. It turns out he has to study A1, A2, A3, A6, A7, A9 and A10. Next, 
we know that Philip already has started with the CP some time ago and in the meantime has 
completed A3, A6 and has started with A7. Finally, let’s assume that Philip while studying 
learner decides 
to find people 
learner selects 
people 
visualisation of people’s 
information, either from known 
people in the contacts list or from 
unfamiliar others in the network 
learner asks for 
support 
system recommends 
people 
system selects 
people 
learner contacts 
people 
system contacts 
people 
system connects 
people 
A1 Quantitative data analysis, runs into problems. He has a problem understanding the 
relations between a number of concepts and as a consequence he is not able to complete an 
assignment. He studies some additional literature and searches the web, to no avail though. 
Philip is studying on his own and thus out of touch with any peer students decides to pose a 
question to the 'on-line tutor'; he describes the general problem and his question.  
 
Below we outline the most extensive flow of events for such a scenario, but omit from the 
flow those events that factually should be dealt with by the ePortfolio, follow course, or PDP 
usage profiles, even when those events include functionality and not just data. 
 
This scenario could also be followed for any other type of question or request for support and 
is not restricted to content-related questions. 
 
Actors: Learners and peers, system 
Primary Actors: Learner, system 
Flow of Events 
1. While working for action A1, Philip has difficulty understanding some concepts. 
The resources in the action do not provide sufficient detail or are of the wrong 
level to help Philip in finding the answer himself. He decides to look for support. 
2. Philip accesses the support form that is available from the action or the community 
and poses his question in sufficient detail indicating which action sprouted the 
question. 
3. The form provides detailed information on how to phrase his question with 
sufficient detail to allow the system to select suitable peers. 
4. The system determine to which action the question belongs, searches for related 
resources, selects the most suitable peers and invites them to assist Philip in 
finding an answer to his question. 
5. The peers can accept or decline this invitation, giving a reason for this decision. 
6. When the peers accept the invitation they indicate how competent they perceive 
themselves. 
7. When the required number of peers has accepted the invitation, the system sets up 
an ad hoc transient community (e.g., forum or wiki) that can be accessed only by 
Philip and the selected peers. The ad hoc community contains the question, related 
documents and a guideline. 
8. The system notifies Philip and the peers that a sufficient number of people have 
accepted and ask them to join, providing access to the ad hoc community. 
9. Philip and peers can discuss the question, using the related documents as starting 
point, and jointly reach a solution or answer to the question. 
10. When Philip is satisfied with the answer he can close the discussion, rating the 
answer and the contribution of the peers. 
11. Philip also has the possibility to add the peers to his contact list. 
12. The system archives the ad hoc community. 
 
Model for content related questions: 
Precondition:  A community with a competence profile, competence development plan, set 
of actions and a set of users with their profiles indicating their progress with 
regard to the actions and competence proficiency level. 
Main steps: 1. Philip poses a question 
2. The system determines 
a. the most relevant text fragments 
b. the appropriate actions 
c. the most suitable peers 
3. The system sets up a collaboration space (wiki/forum) containing the 
question, the text fragments and guidelines. 
4. The system sends invitations to the selected peers to assist. 
5. Philip and the peers discuss and formulate an answer in the collaboration 
space. 
6. If answered (or after a given period of time) Philip closes the discussion 
and rates the answer. 
Postcondition: The answer is stored. 
 
Alternate flow I 
An alternate flow is possible. At step 4 above, the system selects the most suitable peers, but 
in stead of inviting the peers on behalf of Philip, the system present Philip with the list of 
selected peers, together with additional information (profile, eportfolio, etc) to allow Philip to 
choose peers himself. 
The flow of events can stop here, or continue with alternate flow II. 
 
Alternate flow II 
When step 4 is partly replaced by alternate flow I, the system can continue setting up the 
technical infrastructure for the ad hoc transient community and make them available to Philip 
and the peers he selects. 
Scenario 2: Finding people 
For the scenario described above a different approach can be taken. It still involves setting up 
an ad hoc transient community, but more initiative is left to the user and system involvement 
is less. 
 
When a learner has a question, the learner can choose whether to contact people they already 
know or look for support by somebody else. Again, there is a choice; the learner browses the 
learning network for other people. Here the user depends on availability of user profiles and 
visualisation of profile relative to the question. Or the learner asks the system to choose for 
him (like described in the first scenario) or asks the system to support him in the selection 
process. In the latter case, either the system assist in providing access to users’s profiles like 
in the Overview usage profile or presents visualisation of users’ profiles related to the support 
request. 
Scenario 3: Community formation 
- increase participating by actively connecting persons and creating shared experiences and 
therewith stepwise promoting community formation -  
 
A well-engineer at a small specialised consultancy company is following a series of online 
courses to acquire the required competences on topics such as ‘safety measurements: legal 
and technical’, ‘ soil conditions’, ‘ drill angle and techniques’ and alike.  
 
Unfortunately, being from a small company he does not know any peers in the network. 
Nevertheless while studying he is regularly confronted with the need to find peers to discuss 
problems and to work on specific assignments e.g.:  
- Who can help me with the following question: “while studying the allowed 
combinations of type of soil and drill technique, I have arrived at –at least to my 
understanding- an inconsistency in the applicable legislation and the optimal technique. 
Who can help me to answer this? 
- For the course ‘safety measurements: legal and technical’ I have to do a small research 
project and to write an essay together with a peer. Who can help me? 
 
Typical aim: Establish a community. 
Typical users:  Individual user trying to establish a community of peers with a shared 
interest. 
 
Actors: learner, peers, system 
Workflow:  
1. The user opens the social help and launches the ‘ask-us’ and formulates his 
question.  
2. ‘Ask-us’ reacts with the choice to contact one of e.g. (1) a list of known contacts 
for this person, (2) a list of last contacted by this person; (3) a list with users with 
matching profiles related to this person (4) a network visualization of ongoing 
related contacts (4) automatically contact the “best” peer. 
3. The user selects one or more of the people from the list and browses their profiles. 
When you found a suitable person, he can contact them, either by using one of the 
communication facilities provided by the system, or via the contact details 
provided in the portfolio (email, telephone, street address). 
4. The user sets up a communication facility (or request the system to do that) and 
invites his contacted persons to participate in the community. 
 
 
Most important activities in this usage profile + related actions 
Activity Relation actions 
Ask question Access support form 
Complete support form 
Select suitable peers Determine action 
Determine support context 
Select relevant peers, using selecting criteria relevant for the support context 
Retrieve relevant documents 
Invite suitable peers Send out invitation 
Accept/decline 
Notify user and peers 
Set up ad hoc transient community Set up wiki 
Provide access to wiki to selected peers 
Add relevant documents to wiki 
Add question to wiki 
Add guidelines to wiki 
Discussing problem Create entries in forum/wiki 
Formulate answer 
Discuss answer 
Rate contributions 
Rate peers 
Socialising Add peers to list of contact or friends  
 
In particular some important activities from the ePortfolio usage profile are mentioned 
below. Part of the data required is supplied by eportfolio, PDP and Follow course. 
Without these data the Social help usage profile is hard to implement. 
activity Related actions 
Describing oneself Create profile 
Update profile 
Update portfolio Add evidence to eportfolio, both by system as user. 
Define public and private areas and data in eportfolio. 
 
 
 Name of Deliverable 
 
TENCompetence – IST-2005-027087  
 
2 
Dependency on other usage profiles 
The social help usage profile depends on several of the other usage profiles, because 
these usage profiles generate the data that are required for the social help usage 
profile. Not only the data of the current user is important, but of all users in registered 
to the CP and the community 
- eportfolio. This usage profile aggregates personal data across the other profiles, 
in particular personal development plan and follow course. 
- to allow the user to create a personal profile for the community, consisting 
of at least name and contact details (email address).  
- to allow the user to decide whether contact details are private or public 
- to retrieve evidence (current and target competence levels, goal, current 
proficiency level,  completion status actions) for competence of CPs other 
than the current selected one. 
- follow course. Preferably the SH usage profile operates on data of users of the 
same CP. That is not always possible. In that case the SH usage profile 
retrieves the data on the competences in the community.  
- to determine which users have registered for the activity or course 
- to determine which user has started the activity or course 
- to determine which user has completed the activity or course 
- to determine when (date) the users have started the activity or course 
- to determine when (date) the users have completed the activity or course 
- personal development plan. This is both relevant for the CP as well as the 
community (so, all competence profiles in the community). The latter is taken 
from the eportfolio usage profile.It is not necessary that the user of the social 
help usage profile actually has created the CP, but the social help usage profile 
requires data on competence and competence levels.  
- to retrieve competences (as part of the CP) 
- to retrieve people with the same competence but from another CP 
- to retrieve target competence levels for competences in the CP 
- to retrieved registered users for the CP 
- to retrieve the completion status of the actions/courses that are part of the 
CDPs of every competence in the CP 
- to retrieve users’ goal (i.e. the CP with the competences with required 
level) 
- to retrieve users’ current competence levels 
- to retrieve the users’ development plan (i.e. competences not attained) 
- to retrieve users’ progress 
- to retrieve users’ completed actions 
- to retrieve users’current competence levels 
- to retrieve the evidence provided in the self-assessment. This can be used to 
do a more advanced selection of suitable peers. 
- knowledge management. The resources of actions can be used to determine the 
scope of support requests. 
- to retrieve the resources used in individual actions or resources related to 
specific competences 
- overview/exploring network  
 Name of Deliverable 
 
TENCompetence – IST-2005-027087  
 
3 
- to retrieve additional data on people in the network for more advanced 
selection algorithms, based on actions people take when exploring the 
network 
- competence assessment 
- rating of assessor of supplied evidence 
- judgment of assessor 
 Name of Deliverable 
 
TENCompetence – IST-2005-027087  
 
4 
 
Importance of PCM services in this usage profile 
This usage profile requires the retrieve services of Community, (Competence 
Development Plan), Competence profile, User, List Communities, List Competence 
Profiles, List Competence Development Plans, List Competences, List Users, 
Common Types attainedLevelType, competenceLevelType, planForType, Forum, 
Messages, Personal Development Plan, Learning Activity, Assessment Activity, List 
Resources, Resource.  
 
The existing services however, return only the data pertinent to a certain user, not for 
all users registered to that object. In addition, the services do not return all required 
data. 
 
The SH usage profile also requires data from the eportfolio usage profile to retrieve 
personal data (at least full name, email address, contact details), and overview of 
competence proficiency over multiple CPs. And to add people to one’s contact list 
and list of friends. 
 


Usage profile Social Help

http://dspace.ou.nl/bitstream/1820/1499/1/Usage_profile_social_help_v8.pdf

Usage profile Social Help

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