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Exploiting context information for identification of relevant experts in collaborative workplace-embedded e-learning environments

2007 , Lokaiczyk, R. , Godehardt, E. , Faatz, A. , Goertz, M. , Kienle, A. , Wessner, M. , Ulbrich, A.

This work introduces an approach to discover collaboration partners and adequate advising experts in a workplace-embedded collaborative e-learning environment. Based on existing papers dealing with work task and user context modelling, we propose the following steps towards a successful collaboration initiation. In the beginning, the user's current process task needs to be identified (1). Taking into account the knowledge about the current process, availability of experts as well as organizational and social distance, relevant experts regarding the actual work task of the learner are pre-selected by the environment (2). Depending on the pre-selection and users' preferences, the potential collaboration partners are displayed in an expert list (3). That way, the learner is able to initiate beneficial collaborations, whose transcripts are used to enhance the existing knowledge base of learning documents (4).

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Facilitating asynchronous discussions in learning communities: the impact of moderation strategies

2007 , Kienle, A. , Ritterskamp, C.

A facilitator or moderator is often responsible for supporting processes and their progress in learning communities. In this article we present an approach for supporting moderators of asynchronous processes in learning communities. This approach follows the socio-technical perspective: it includes a theory-based development of moderator tasks and the technical features designed to support these tasks. Starting with relevant work in this area, we describe our approach to moderator support in the collaborative learning environment KOLUMBUS 2. In a qualitative study, a professional moderator facilitated the discussion processes of a group of 12 students based on KOLUMBUS 2. The moderator used different methods and varying levels of participation intervention. The study showed that different intervention strategies led to different levels of student participation and different successes in finding common results at the end of the discussions. Suggestions for the design of technical features are also made.

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Explicit referencing in learning chats

2006 , Holmer, T. , Kienle, A. , Wessner, M.

Chat is used in many learning scenarios and platforms for synchronous communication support. Up to now evaluation of chat communication requires time consuming manual coding and analysis of the chat transcript. In this paper we present a method that combines manual and automatic steps: (1) chat transcripts are manually referenced, i.e. for each chat contribution it is determined to which previous contribution it refers to. (2) the referenced chat transcripts are structurally analysed by calculating different measures. The results of this structure analysis help to evaluate the learning chat and indicate where further (manual) analyses might be helpful. In addition, the ability of chat to support a certain type of learning scenario can be evaluated. We then discuss how chat can be improved by providing functionality for explicit referencing to the participants during the chat. The evaluation of a university seminar in the winter term 2004/2005 that used the tool KOLUMBUS Chat shows that references are used to different extents and not continuously. We analyse the reasons for (not) using explicit references. The results provide hints about the technical and organisational design for learning chats using references.