15th DOST Engineering Research and Development for Technology Conference
Initial Design Considerations Using Social Network Analysis for a Social Learning Management System* Orven E. Llantos1,2,a*, Ma. Regina Justina E. Estuar1,b 1
Ateneo Social Computing Science Laboratory, Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines
2
Department of Computer Science, School of Computer Studies, Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology, Philippines a
[email protected],
[email protected]
Abstract—Learning Management Systems (LMS) today face new challenges to be more social in response to the influences of social media. Using social media in place of LMS or using social media along with an LMS suffers the problem of focus and data exchange compatibility, among others. Social media used as an educational platform need to deal with authenticity, security and privacy concerns. This paper tries to conduct a preliminary examination of a perceived social LMS environment with teacher, parent, and student as agents. It is done by using the initial data from previous deployments of my.eskwela system and applying social networking analysis. Results showed that faculty agent is the most influential among agents while the student is the central agent that propagates information in the network. Keywords— social Learning Management System, Social Networking Analysis, Centrality
I. INTRODUCTION The traditional African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child”, is a good principle to guide the development of Learning Management Systems (LMS) where the involvement of Teachers, Students and Parents are necessary for the holistic learning of a child. LMS provides on-demand learning because of technologies like cloud computing which enables mobile gadgets to access information anytime, anywhere. With LMS, a teacher can upload lessons which can then be accessed by both students and parents. LMS provides an opportunity to attend lessons on a regular basis. With this scenario, designing and building an LMS must include features guided by the identification of central role(s). Some studies started on logs for extracting information about faculty and student interactions [1]. While others compare faculty and student engagements in LMS systems hoping to capture different role behaviors [2].Some have designed LMS that addressed faculty concern [3], [4] and some even lead to the conclusion that faculty members are important or the central role to consider for effective adoption [5], [6]. Though there are studies about student adoption factors and perceived compatibility issues, the detailed discussion of design considerations was not done [7], [8].
In this study, a system called my.eskwela would be the basis of discussion to initially find the central roles in a Social LMS. my.eskwela is a system developed to provide a collaborative student information system for teachers, students and parent with the goal of increasing a sense of responsibility to look after the student’s success in school [9]. Version 1 was deployed and tested in MSU-IIT and the version 2 was deployed and tested in Tambo Central School. Teachers, students and parents evaluated version 1 while only teachers evaluated version 2. Further, version 2 was deployed on the cloud and accessible by mobile and desktop web. It has been designed to fit the requirements specifications of Philippine Department of Education K-12 program. Based on the three core users as agents in a learning en- vironment, this study will conduct a preliminary investigation to have an overview of a perceived social LMS using Social Network Analysis (SNA). Specifically, we ask: 1) Using social network analysis, who plays the
central figure in a social LMS? 2) What can be extracted as design considerations
from the results of SNA? II. M ETHODOLOGY In the following sections, a social network derived from my.eskwela experiences would be studied using social net- working analysis. Computational results will then be the basis for designing the perceived social LMS. A. my.eskwela As A Social System The presence of teachers, parents, and students in my.eskwela makes it a social system [10]. In the context of social systems students, parents and teachers are considered decision makers. At the same time, the system features can be the communication channels in which decision makers can have interactions through the primary system.
15th DOST Engineering Research and Development for Technology Conference
B. Agent x Agent Matrix The Agent x Agent matrix was derived from the experiences of my.eskwela versions 1 and 2. There is a strong connection between Teacher, Student and Parent agents. There was no same agent relationship found but Student-Student is enabled because of the perceived collaboration for better performance [11]. C. Agent x Task Matrix There are three types of tasks: implemented, requested and perceived. Implemented tasks are those that are already in my.eskwela 1 and 2. Requested tasks are those that came from the focus group for a future version. Finally, the perceived tasks are those that came from LMS pieces of literature towards becoming a social LMS. D. Computing Tool Using the Agent x Agent matrix and Agent x Task matrixes, Organizational Risk Analyser (ORA) developed at the Computational Analysis of Social and Organizational System (CASOS), was used to compute for the centrality measures of each agent [12]. III. RESULTS AND D ISCUSSIONS Table I, shows the centrality measures. Influence, closeness, trust, and prestige in the communicative power, Student is the most central compared to the Parent and Teacher. The provision for Student to Student in the Agent- Agent matrix may have caused this. Student’s relationship spans to all while the other agents, Teacher, and Parent, relationship to their co-agent are not specified. TABLE I AGENT CENTRALITY MEASURES Aspect S T P Influence 0.333 0.222 0.222 Closeness 0.385 0.308 0.308 Trust 1 0.474 0.474 Prestige (Communicative Power) 1 0.667 0.667 Prestige (Sphere of Influence) 0.625 0.917 0.542 Shared Situation Awareness 0.375 0.303 0.322
Mean 0.259 0.333 0.649 0.778 0.694 0.333
However, the measure of prestige in the sphere of influence indicates that Teacher is the most central. This measure means that the Teacher, having the most tasks in the network is the source of information while the Student help propagates the information in the network together with the Parent being the similar agent. IV. C ONCLUSION Discovery of design considerations is possible by applying SNA from the social network of a perceived social LMS. Centralities provided more insights for sound design decisions. The discovery of the detailed insights is not evident in general software engineering requirement analysis. Thus, this study would like to emphasize the importance of doing SNA for developing social platforms. V. FUTURE STUDIES Though this research dealt with conceptual social network derived from the experiences of my.eskwela, the study of the social network with actual user data is desirable in future studies.
15th DOST Engineering Research and Development for Technology Conference
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