This study explores how student learning via asynchronous, threaded discussion boards may be managed successful. We examine the elements of course scaffolding on that affect student learning and engagement in discussion. We explore the role of the instructor in mediating learning. We base our findings on an analysis of 21 online courses in the IS domain, conducted by multiple instructors over a...

Web inference techniques have become more sophisticated and which can be used for many real world applications like market strategies, business intelligence and etc... In social networks the interest of a single user represents the interest of the whole group to which he belongs to. There exist various approaches to find out the interest of a group, but suffers with the accuracy of clustering u...

Our objective is to develop a computational model to predict visual attention behavior for an embodied conversational agent. During interpersonal interaction, gaze provides signal feedback and directs conversation flow. Simultaneously, in a dynamic environment, gaze also directs attention to peripheral movements. An embodied conversational agent should therefore employ social gaze not only for ...

A number of software environments have been developed as media to support collaborative knowledge building, typically featuring a Web-based threaded discussion facility. We have recently developed such a system, known as WEBGUIDE. The distinctive feature of this system is support for structuring collaboration and knowledge construction with personal, group and comparison perspectives. While pil...

BBS(Bulletin Board Systems) is one of the most common places for threaded discussion. It becomes more and more popular among web users, especially in China. Everyday a huge amount of new discussions are generated on BBS. It is too difficult to find hot topics. To solve this issue, we propose a novel approach to detect hot topics on BBS for any period of time. Our solution consists of three step...

Gordon Pask’s conversation theory stands as a major contribution to cybernetics, education and epistemology. Ranulph Glanville was Pask’s student. He made himself familiar with conversation theory and promoted it in his lecture and writings throughout his career. In doing so, he made significant contributions. I summarise some of these here. To set the scene, I briefly outline some of the main ...

This paper discusses issues, possibilities and existing approaches for fitting an exception handling mechanism (EHM) in CSP-based process-oriented software architectures. After giving a survey on properties desired for a concurrent EHM, specific problems and a few principal ideas for including exception handling facilities in CSP-designs are discussed. As one of the CSP-based frameworks for con...

An experimental study of asynchronously communicating dyads tested the claim that conceptual representations could more effectively support collaborative knowledge construction in online learning than threaded discussions. Results showed that users of conceptual representations created more hypotheses earlier in the experimental sessions and elaborated on hypotheses more than users of threaded ...

Gordon Pask developed not only a Conversation Theory, but also a (less well-known) Interaction of Actors Theory, partly in response to demands during the time he worked in Amsterdam. The paper aims to clarify how this Theory intended to minimise the effcts of use on scientific results, while maximimising the help such results to improve on actions. This would facilitate empirical study of what ...

Despite the abundance of research investigating general and academic vocabularies and developing dozens of word lists, few studies have compared academic vocabulary with general service word lists such as conversation vocabulary. Many EAP researchers assume that university students need to know all the words in West’s (1953) General Service List (GSL) as a prerequisite to academic words (e.g., ...