Analysis of a Learning Community as a Social Network

Online knowledge-sharing communities are usually small. In this paper, we present the challenge of analyzing a large online community in order to determine if it is feasible for knowledge-sharing. We deploy social network techniques to analyze patterns of interactions critical to information- and knowledge-sharing among learners in a virtual community. Based on this, we determine the characteristics of the network and the roles of the actors. The research was carried out at the Faculty of Information Technologies in Mostar (FIT), after the end of the 2007/8 academic year, during which 293 freshmen were enrolled. We collected data from the FIT Community Server (FITCS), for the period from 1.10.2007 until 30.9.2008, and modeled them into three networks (N, N1 and N2). Network N (overall communication) has 273 vertices, N1 has 143 (fall semester course in Programming), and N2 has 99 (summer semester course in Programming). With regard to the number of enrolled freshmen, we estimate that 85 to 90% communicated via FITCS. The characteristics of the analyzed networks are as follows: density varied from 0.17 to 0.25, average distance from 1.80 to 1.93, cohesion from 0.53 to 0.63, betweenness varied from 7.83 for N to 56.23 for N1, and closeness varied from 52.66 to 56.78. The results for the characteristics of selected actors are degree (ranging from 10 to 119), betweenness (ranging from 0 to 88.17), and closeness (ranging from 16.93 to 60.62). The results of this research show that some educators do not have a proper roles in the online knowledgesharing community, but that can be due to the fact that the actors are freshmen. On the other hand, some of the most successful students, with extrovert personalities, were the stars of the three analyzed networks. Therefore, we can conclude that the analyzed part of FITCS is a knowledge-sharing community. Recommendations are that we should motivate educators to support online knowledge-sharing, that we should educate educators about their proper role in such a community, and that we should motivate successful students with introvert personalities to be more active in knowledge-sharing.