Enhancing International Virtual Collaborative Learning with Social Learning Analytics

Abstract

The ability to work collaboratively in intercultural virtual teams, is constantly gaining importance for the labour market. Virtual Mobility enables students to acquire the necessary intercultural teamwork skills while remaining locally integrated into their regular studies. But still, international virtual collaborative learning scenarios demand much time and effort for planning and coordination which binds resources. The support concepts for such collaborative virtual learning groups are also resource-intensive, because learners should be accompanied by qualified e-tutors to optimise learning results both at individual and group level. Classical summative tests and exams are rather unsuitable for the assessment of collaboration as expected learning outcome. These arrangements also need new formative assessment forms, as participants need active and ongoing feedback. A meaningful assessment of learning processes and outcomes should not only be based on the observation of `soft' factors but should also be complemented by `hard', fixed, automatically measurable, quantitative indicators. To gain these hard indicators the research project ISLA - Indicator-based Social Learning Analytics was launched. This paper presents the procedure for implementation as well as virtual presence, content creation and relationships within the community as first derived indicators and their prototypical visualisation in a Learning Analytics Dashboard.