Abstract
In this article, we introduce the results of a study concerning user data visualizations in the context of the TUT Circle, a social media enhanced web service for learning, networking, and communication at the Tampere University of Technology (TUT). Well-designed visualizations can provide valuable insight into student activity and participation in an online course, and therefore support both teachersâ?? and studentsâ?? strategic decision making. We found social network analytics and visualizations useful in providing information to improve the pedagogical practices of online courses, as well as the studentsâ?? overall engagement in their studies and study lives. However, to be useful, the visualizations need to have enough hints so that the users can interpret the different elements in them in the right way.
Highlights
Social media enhanced web environments have been a topic of increasing interest in recent years
At the Intelligent Information Systems Laboratory (IISLab) at Tampere University of Technology (TUT), we have studied the use of social media enhanced environments in a higher educational context from several different viewpoints, such as the quality factors of social media enhanced web-based environments, students’ motivation to use that kind of environment, the possibilities of supporting peer-to-peer learning, and networking among hypermedia students, as well as the collaboration between students with two different academic backgrounds [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
The students found the interactive visualizations to be more useful than the static ones, except the bar chart visualization representing the students activity in the TUT Circle
Summary
Social media enhanced web environments have been a topic of increasing interest in recent years. At the Intelligent Information Systems Laboratory (IISLab) at Tampere University of Technology (TUT), we have studied the use of social media enhanced environments in a higher educational context from several different viewpoints, such as the quality factors of social media enhanced web-based environments, students’ motivation to use that kind of environment, the possibilities of supporting peer-to-peer learning, and networking among hypermedia students, as well as the collaboration between students with two different academic backgrounds [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] The results of these earlier studies were utilized to develop the TUT Circle, a content management framework built on Drupal.. When compared to the use of thirdparty social media platforms, the use of the TUT Circle, that is maintained by its developers, enables the collection http://www.tut.fi/piiri http://drupal.org/
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