Since social networks analysis in education offers valuable insights into social structures and social dynamics that shapes individuals behaviors and information storage and transmission, it has become a hot topic in educational science studies. The aim of this study is to examine the educational sciences studies conducted at higher education…

E-learning occupies an increasingly prominent place in education. It provides the learner with a rich virtual network where he or she can exchange ideas and information and create synergies through interactions with other members of the network, whether fellow learners or teachers. Social network analysis (SNA) has proven extremely powerful at…

This study focused on the analysis of Grade-12 (Senior) students' sociocultural constructivist interactions using Web 2.0 applications during a geographical research process. In the study methodology context, a transdisciplinary case study (TdCS) with ethnographic and research action data was designed, implemented and analyzed in real teaching…

Teachers and instructional designers frequently incorporate collaborative learning approaches into their e-learning environments. A key factor of collaborative learning that may affect learner outcomes is whether the collaborative groups are assigned project topics randomly or based on a shared interest in the topic. This is a particularly…

Introduction: This paper aims at understanding virtual communities of learning in terms of dynamics, types of knowledge shared by participants, and network characteristics such as size, relationships, density, and centrality of participants. It looks at the relationships between these aspects and the evolution of communities of learning. It…

This qualitative case study used General Systems Theory and social network analysis to explore the relationships between the members of a district central office and principals of elementary schools within an urban school district in the Midwest. Findings revealed sparse relationships between members of the district central office and principals,…

Participation in online communities is an increasing need for future language teachers and their professional development. Through such participation, they can experience and develop an awareness of the behaviors required to facilitate their future learners' participation in online learning. This article investigates participation, interaction…

In this study, we develop a theoretical model to investigate the association between social network properties, "content richness" (CR) in academic learning discourse, and performance. CR is the extent to which one contributes content that is meaningful, insightful and constructive to aid learning and by social network properties we…

When looking for ways to improve library services, we considered what data sources were readily available to us and how we could harvest and use this data. We investigated three years of chat reference statistics at Central Michigan University, a large research institution, to gain a better understanding of our patrons' chat behavior. We then…

This study explores the use of citation analysis methods to assess the influence of program evaluations conducted within the area of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. Citation analysis is widely used within scientific research communities to measure the relative influence of scientific research enterprises and/or…

This paper reports on the results of an analysis of the research proposals submitted to the MOOC Research Initiative (MRI) funded by the Gates Foundation and administered by Athabasca University. The goal of MRI was to mobilize researchers to engage into critical interrogation of MOOCs. The submissions--266 in Phase 1, out of which 78 was…

Researchers in a recent study found that online students' ability to self-regulate led to more focused attention and time on task, and in turn, these skills could lead to better learning. Given the need for more theoretical work in this area, as well as the potential practical benefits from the use of these pedagogical strategies, we sought to…

This paper presents an extension of an ongoing study of online learning framed within the community of inquiry (CoI) model (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 2001) in which we further examine a new construct labeled as "learning presence." We use learning presence to refer to the iterative processes of forethought and planning,…

Interactive relationships in online learning communities can influence the process and quality of knowledge building. The aim of this study is to empirically investigate the relationships between network structures and social knowledge building in an asynchronous writing environment through discussion forums in a learning management system. The…

This study proposes and verifies the performance of an analysis tool for visualizing online interactions. A review of the most widely used methods for analyzing online interactions, including quantitative analysis, content analysis, and social network analysis methods, indicates these analysis methods have some limitations resulting from their…