Automated discussion analysis - Framework for knowledge analysis from class discussions

• Main Authors: GOTTIPATI, Swapna, SHANKARARAMAN, Venky, GOKARN NITIN, Mallikan
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2020
• Subjects: Discussions; Online discussion forum; Live classroom discussion; Discussion analysis; AI technology; Framework; Databases and Information Systems; Data Science; Education
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/5542; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/6545/viewcontent/DiscussionAnalysisFramework_Camera.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

This research full paper, describes knowledge management of class discussions using an analytics based framework. Discussions, either live classroom or through online forums, when used as a teaching method can help stimulate critical thinking. It allows the teacher to explore in-depth the key concepts covered in the course, motivates students to articulate their ideas clearly and challenge the students to think more deeply. Analysing the discussions helps instructors gain better insights on the personal and collaborative learning behaviour of students. However, knowledge from in-class discussions and online forums is not effectively captured and mined due to lack of appropriate automated tools. In this paper, the authors propose an automated discussion analysis (ADA) framework that provides a starting point providing guidance on the development of automated tools for performing different analysis on live classroom or online discussions. AI technology plays a key role in developing tools for knowledge representation and analysis. We propose software systems based on ADA framework and AI technology. The paper then describes a case study where one model of the ADA framework, individual behaviour analysis model, has been applied to automate the analysis of the online discussion forum used in a postgraduate course.