1. Equitability and dominance in online forums:an ecological approach Dept of Communications and Systems Faculty of Mathematics, Computing and Technology Jon Rosewell EATING, 13th November 2008

2. The few and the many… • Participation in forums is very variable • a few students post many messages • many students post a few messages

3. It seemed a good idea at the time… • A relatively painless way of analysing FirstClass forums • Looking at patterns of messages, not content • quantitative, not qualitative • Postings only, not ‘readings’

4. What is the point? • Analyse past forums • make sense of what went on • Relate to structural features • how to design the perfect forum • Dashboard approach • monitor the health of forums

5. Forums included in study • Course-based: moderated, not tutors • Large: 100-800 students • Mainly 10 pt, 10 week intensive courses • Peer support • Varying purpose: chat, discussion, help, … • Only some presentations analysed • 4 courses, 36 forums, 3000 posters, 27000 posts

6. The few and the many (again) • Robin Mason: ‘Rule of thirds’ • 1/3 post many, 1/3 post few, 1/3 lurk read • Or should it be: • posters, readers, phantoms? • Or for posters: • post many, post some, post one or two • Actually a bit more subtle…

8. All the data you want

45. Do you want to see it again?

46. Do patterns vary?

47. Ecological analogy • Communities often composed of dominant species plus a long tail of rare species • Biodiversity • a statistic of academic and practical interest

48. Diversity indices • How to measure diversity? • simple species count risky because of long tail • dominance should count against diversity • Diversity indices try to capture both: • richness (species count) • equitability (relative abundance of species)

49. Shannon’s index where: S total number of species (participants) piproportion of ith species (proportion of total postings)

50. Ecological stories