Try creating your own social network diagram. Take a recent thread in the tutor group forum, which includes six or more postings, and sketch it as a network diagram. Note who appears to be central to the discussion.

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It’s quite frustrating that the SNAPP project is defunct so there seems to be no opportunity to actually acquire the tool. I can’t find a code repository but there may be one somewhere.

The best I could do was get a waybackmachine snapshot (2020) of the project site when it was active. You can still navigate the site but the tool does not seem to be readily available.

I have found a useful tool which runs on Windows, Mac and Linux called SocNetV (2020)

I wouldn’t necessarily trust the software without running it through your virus scanner. I checked it with ClamAv and it came up clean.

I haven’t found all the quirks yet but I did manage to produce a representation of a discussion from week 4. I was a little confused as to how to present Jade’s second post which is a reply to her own thread starter it shows as a kind of loop here:

I have added another discussion into the same diagram below. This shows another discussion from the same week but with far fewer participants.

As you can see I haven’t attempted to join these discussions together.

 

 

 

Reflect on what is represented in this diagram and on what is missing.

This diagram represents line of communication between participants in the course. It does not provide any information about what is being communicated. There may be posts which are simple acknowledgements while others may contain detailed discourse. Perhaps the weighting function which I do not understand at this point could provide an indication of the “quality” of the discusion.

There is no relationship between the two discussions. They could be related topics but there is no way to tell.

Does the diagram change your understanding of the tutor group and of your role within it?

This does show that although one person starts the thread it can soon be “taken away” by other participants. The initial post is responded to by two people but the bulk of the conversation is happening later in the thread.  The tutor obviously plays an important role in both discussions.  I do try my best to take part in the discussion forums as evidenced by the larger network diagram.

Could you use this diagram to make recommendations that might improve learning in the forum or would you need more information?

I do not think this diagram could provide any meaninful insight into learning in the forum. There is not enough information about what is happening in the thread.

In what ways is the diagram misleading?

The diagram only shows who is participating the most it does not reflect how useful the contributions of those individuals are.  Clare’s contribution at the top of the diagram could be the most insightful piece of information but the diagram does not contain enough information to prove this.

Discuss situations in your local educational environment, or in one you know well, in which a social network diagram might be used to improve learning and/or teaching.

In our context the social network diagram could be used to study patterns of email, Teams and support request contacts with support staff to see how complex the communications get for one staff member during a typical month. In the staff development courses the forum interactions could be mapped to show if participants are communicating with each other – perhaps engaging in peer learning – or if all of the communication is to and from the mentors or HR staff.

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References:

Aneesha (2011) SNAPP Social Networks Adapting Pedagogical Practice, Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20140419013841/http://www.snappvis.org/ (Accessed: 15th July 2020).

SocNetV (2020) Social Network Visualiser – Downloads, Available at: https://socnetv.org/downloads (Accessed: 15th July 2020).