From Online Interaction to Social Learning Analytics and Community Building: A Learning Engineering Perspective

Educators and researchers emphasize that online interaction is the key to ensure positive social and cognitive learning in online instructions. The research in online learning often is grounded in the frequency of communication, three types of interaction, and content of online communications. To understand learning effectiveness, researchers collect, measure, and analyze students’ perceptions and attitudes toward online instructions and their metacognitive, social learning, and sociocultural learning skills. With more advanced data science technologies available, educators are able to collect, observe, measure, and analyze online participants’ interaction behaviors from the point of view of social interactivity and the method of Social Network Analysis (SNA), which studies the quality and the connections of social interactions and the roles each individual play in networks and communities. SNA grants a broader view of the emerging social network and community. This chapter investigates how educators may integrate interactivity and SNA to enhance effective interactivity and community building. Understanding interactivity behaviors would help educators to advance online learning, teaching, and instructional designs.