Interactive Visualization Tools to Improve Learning and Teaching in Online Learning Environments

• Autores: Kuosa, Kirsi; Distante, Damiano; Tervakari, Anne; Cerulo, Luigi; Fernández, Alejandro; Koro, Juho; Kailanto, Meri
• Año de publicación: 2016
• Idioma: inglés
• Tipo de recurso: artículo
• Materia: Ciencias de la Computación e Información; Learning analytics; Information retrieval; Visualization tools; e-learning; Data mining; Information visualization
• Institución: Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas de la Provincia de Buenos Aires

This paper presents two interactive visualization tools for learning management systems (LMS) in order to improve learning and teaching in online courses. The first tool was developed at the Intelligent Information Systems Laboratory (IISLab) at the Tampere University of Technology (TUT). The tool is used to analyse students’ activity from automatically recorded user log data and to build interactive visualizations. They provide valuable insights into the learning process and participation of students in a course offered to teachers and students. The second tool was developed at the Unitelma Sapienza University. It extends navigation and search functionalities in the discussion forum of an LMS with a topic-driven paradigm. The tool analyses forum content and automatically identifies discussion topics. It then enhances the original forum with a topic-driven navigation structure and an interactive search graph. Both tools have been developed as plug-ins for the Moodle LMS, but their analysis processes and techniques can be adopted into any LMS.