Visualising Interactions in Online Collaborative Learning Environments: an Exploration of Students' Online Participation

This book is a PhD which involves designing and implementing a Virtual Interaction Mapping System ? VIMS software tool. VIMS is designed and developed using SVG, Perl, Java, JavaScript. PHP, AJAX and MySql, which can be used to visualise the interactions and analyse the dialogue taking place in the Moodle environment. We have incorporated the principles of HCI in the visualisation tool such as to minimise the barrier between the human's cognitive model of what the user wants to accomplish and the computer's understanding of the user's task. This visualisation model which is embedded into a Learning Management System (Moodle) can be used to visualise the online interactions of students in a learning environment, revealing the structures of online discussion. This system is based on a thorough literature review, and has not been used before. VIMS is an excellent interface for teachers and researchers as it assists analysis of online collaborative learning and prompts when moderation may be necessary.