equitability and dominance in online forums: an ecological approach
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Equitability and dominance in online forums: an ecological approach. Dept of Communications and Systems Faculty of Mathematics, Computing and Technology. Jon Rosewell. EATING, 13 th November 2008. The few and the many…. Participation in forums is very variable - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Equitability and dominance in online forums:an ecological approach
Jon Rosewell
EATING, 13th November 2008
Dept of Communications and SystemsFaculty of Mathematics, Computing and Technology
The few and the many…• Participation in forums is very variable
–a few students post many messages–many students post a few messages
It seemed a good idea at the time…• A relatively painless way of analysing FirstClass forums• Looking at patterns of messages, not content
– quantitative, not qualitative• Postings only, not ‘readings’
What is the point?• Analyse past forums
–make sense of what went on• Relate to structural features
–how to design the perfect forum• Dashboard approach
–monitor the health of forums
Forums included in study• Course-based: moderated, not tutors• Large: 100-800 students• Mainly 10 pt, 10 week intensive courses• Peer support• Varying purpose: chat, discussion, help, …• Only some presentations analysed• 4 courses, 36 forums, 3000 posters, 27000 posts
The few and the many (again)• Robin Mason: ‘Rule of thirds’
–1/3 post many, 1/3 post few, 1/3 lurk read• Or should it be:
–posters, readers, phantoms?• Or for posters:
–post many, post some, post one or two• Actually a bit more subtle…
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Do you want to see it again?
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Do patterns vary?
Ecological analogy• Communities often composed of dominant species plus
a long tail of rare species
• Biodiversity–a statistic of academic and practical interest
Diversity indices• How to measure diversity?
–simple species count risky because of long tail–dominance should count against diversity
• Diversity indices try to capture both:–richness (species count)–equitability (relative abundance of species)
Shannon’s index
where:
S total number of species (participants)
pi proportion of ith species (proportion of total postings)
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From May (1975) Patterns of species abundance and diversity, pp 81-120 in Cody & Diamond Ecology and Evolution of Communities, Harvard University Press
Shorrocks Genesis of Diversity after Lack (1947) Darwin’s Finches
Pianka (1981) ‘Competition and niche theory’ in May Theoretical Ecology
From Whittaker (1972) Evolution and Measurement of Species Diversity, Taxon, 21, pp. 213-251
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Mark Newman Power laws, Pareto distributions and Zipf’s lawContemporary Physics, 46, 323-351http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/courses/2006/cmplxsys899/powerlaws.pdf
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State of play• No simple underlying model
– Not geometric: not straight on log-linear plot– Not broken stick or log-normal: not sigmoid– Not power law: not straight on log-log plot
• So use diversity index as summary
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Other possible analyses• Thread lengths• Starters & finishers• Groups• Readers• etc…
Is it useful?• At least in subset here, patterns of participation seem remarkably
consistent, so:– doesn’t seem to tell us much about existing forums– no clues as to what to do differently next time
• Dashboard not likely to be much help– although simple measures might (rate of posting…)
• Moderators– offer quicker route into feel of conference– can intervene more rapidly– skilled moderation more useful than statistics!
www.open.ac.uk
Jon RosewellThe Open UniversityWalton HallMilton KeynesMK7 6AA
All courses
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