A FUZZY MODEL FOR REPRESENTING LEARNING BEHAVIORS IN COLLABORATIVE ACTIVITIES IN LMSs

Collaborative learning in the context of Learning Management Systems (LMSs) deals with a collection of tools and activities which learners can use to interact in a process of constructing a shared meaning of their knowledge. To support an effective and successful collaborative learning process it is especially important to correctly design the activities and to report the instructor how the collaboration is performing in the collaborative activities. Analysis of interaction in these activities can serve both to the support of learners’ self-regulation, as well as to task monitoring and evaluation on the part of the instructor. This paper proposes a fuzzy model for the representation and the description of the learning behaviors of learners and groups in the collaborative activities of a LMS, by monitoring and evaluating the collaborative learning process across several dimensions. The model aims to support the analysis of the collaborative learning process and also to help the tutor and the learners to deal with quantitative and qualitative information on the collaboration process, in an easy-interpretable way.