The critical role of profiles in social e-learning design
Evidence points to the fact that the integration of Social Networking Sites (SNS) features, into e-learning environments has been highly accepted by students, because of its benefits of improving the learning experience. Yet, not enough attention has been paid to what role learners' profiles play in the use of social e-learning environments, which does not match the importance of profiles in SNS. This paper presents how profiles are implemented in the second version of Topolor, a social personalised adaptive e-learning environment (SPAEE), and learners' perceived acceptance of the design and the implementation. To complement the findings, a case study is conducted to analyze the profile-related features in Topolor, which illustrates a generally high level of learner acceptance of these features. The analysis is finally concluded to suggest future research directions, in order to further analyze and improve these features.