Automated Collaborative Process Analysis

Automated Collaborative Process Analysis is one area within the field of Learning Analytics focused on applying computational modeling technology to process data from collaborative learning encounters. It draws from a similar technological foundation to processing of open response questions in educational contexts and assessment of writing, but it encompasses more than that, including analysis of discussions occurring in discussion forums, chat rooms, microblogs, blogs, and even wikis. This work has had its impact in multiple areas, including offering analytic lenses to support research, enabling formative and summative assessment, enabling of dynamic and context sensitive triggering of interventions to improve the effectiveness of learning activities, and provision of reflection tools such as reports and feedback after learning activities in support of both learning and instruction. While it is true that discourse is incredibly complex, it is still true that there are meaningful patterns that state-of-the-art modeling approaches are able to identify. Much of the existing work in this area views learning and its connection with language from a Cognitive lens, in other words, seeking categories of language behavior whose presence in a discourse makes predictions about learning gains because of the connection between the associated discourse processes and cognitive processes associated with learning. Nevertheless, some work in the area views learning and its connection with language through a Social lens in order to leverage the important interplay between Cognitive and Social factors in learning. Some of this work seeks to identify discourse processes that reveal underlying dispositions, attitudes, and relationships that play a supporting (or sometimes interfering) role in the learning interactions. Much recent published work points to progress in this area as well as opportunities for growth in ongoing work.