Bayesian Model of Social Capital in

Virtual Learning Communities: Process,

Procedures and Challenges
Ben Daniel1,2, Gordon McCalla1, Richard Schwier2

Laboratory for Advanced Research in Intelligent Educational Systems

(ARIES) Research Group1,
Virtual Learning Community Lab (VLC), Educational Communications &
Technology2
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada

{ben.daniel,gordon.mccalla,richard.schwier}@usask.ca
 Outline of Presentation
• Background
• Social Capital (SC) in Virtual Learning Communities (VLCs
-Purpose
-Problems
•Research Goals
•Fundamental Variables of SC in VLCs
•Modelling SC using Bayesian Belief Network (BBN)
•Overview of BBN
•Constructing and Updating a BBN
•BBN Model of SC in VLCs
•Empirical Analysis to Update the Model
•Examples of Scenarios and Results
•Methodological Challenges
•Summary
 Background
• A VLC is a group of people who gather in cyberspace with
intention of pursuing learning goals
• SC is a connections among individuals—social networks and
norms of reciprocity and trust worthiness that arise from them
(Putnam, 2000)
• SC is a residual side effect of social interaction and the enabler
of future interactions (Resnick, 2002)
• SC is a stock of active connections among people(Cohen &
Prusak 2001):
-It involves trust, mutual understanding, respect and
shared values and behaviours within a community
 What is SC in VLCs?
• SC is a web of positive or negative relationships which can
facilitate information exchange, knowledge sharing, and
knowledge construction (Daniel, Schwier & McCalla,2003)
• SC is enhanced through continuous interaction, built on trust
and maintained through shared understanding
• SC exhibits multidimensional, multilayered, and multivariate
properties and variables
 Why Study SC in VLCs?

• SC serves as a conduit for information and knowledge flow

and dissemination
• SC can be a useful framework for understanding social issues
that are critical to knowledge sharing and collaborative
learning
• Enables individuals to locate help from peers
• Enhances collaboration based on reciprocal relationships
• Encourage shared understanding among learners
 Problems of SC in VLC
• SC is neither technically sound nor precisely defined
• It is not clear whether SC is an input or output/process or
outcome
• SC can be easily used to exclude others from entering into certain
communities
• SC only emphasize relationships inside communities but grossly
ignores connections between communities
• SC covers many variables with varying degrees of interpretations
and measurements
 My Research Goals
• To identify the components of social capital that are critical to
the process of knowledge creation in VLCs
• To develop a computational model of SC that can be used for
further analysis of SC in VLCs
• To propose technique, tools, and a framework for stimulating
models of SC in VLCs
 Research Framework
SCapital Interaction

Sample Transcript
Web of + or –
relationships

Message
Results Scapital Model

Unit of Analysis Paragraph Semantics

Sentence
Ways to study SC Tools to support Codes
in VLCs SCapital Cluster 1

Themes Cluster 2

Cluster n

BBN SC Model

BBN to Update Scenario development

model
 Fundamental variables of SC?
Variable Name Variable Definition Variable States

Interaction A mutual or reciprocal action Positive/Negative

between two or more agents
determined by the number of
messages sent and received
Attitudes People’s general perception about Present/Absent
each other and how such perceptions
relate to interaction in the community
Community Type The type of the environment, tools, Virtual learning community
goals, and tasks that define the group (VLCs) and Distributed
community of practice (DCoP)
Shared Understanding A mutual agreement/consensus High/Low
between two or more agents about the
meaning, or understanding of an
object or each other
Awareness Knowledge of people, tasks, or Present/Absent
environment and or all of the above
 Fundamental variables of SC?
Variable Name Variable Definition Variable States

Demographic awareness Knowledge of an individual Present/Absent

demographic information (country of
origin, language and location)
Professional Cultural Knowledge of people’s background Present/Absent
Awareness training, skills and competences
Knowledge task Awareness Knowledge about an individual’s Present/Absent
capability to perform a given task
Capability Awareness Knowledge of people’s competences Present/Absent
and skills in regards to a particular task
Norms and social protocols The mutually agreed upon and Present/Absent
acceptable and unacceptable ways of
behaviour in a community
Trust A particular level of probability with High/Low
which an agent use to assess the action
of another agent
Web of positive or negative High/Low
Social Capital relationship within a community
 Bayesian Belief Network
• A BBN is a graphical model, modelling causal relationships
between two or more variables
• A Bayesian network consists of:
– A particular kind of directed acyclical graph (DAG)
– Nodes representing random variables
– Directed edges (arrows) between pairs of nodes representing
relationships among variables
 Bayesian Belief Network Cont..1
• BBN depends on conditional probability Theory
• The Network topology in BBN models describe a unique
probability distribution
• The conditional probability of each variable given its parents in
the DAG suggests:
-If there is an arrow (directed edge) from X to Y, then X is a
parent to Y
X Y
- In other words X has a direct influence on Y; P (Y|X)
-And so the conditional distribution for each node in a network
given its parents is denoted by: P(Xi|Parents(Xi))
 Why Use Bayesian Belief Network?
•Handles incomplete data sets
•Helps learn about causal relationships
•Facilitates the combination of domain knowledge and data, in
conjunction with Bayesian statistical techniques
•Provides an efficient approach for avoiding the overfitting of data
•In BBN unlike frequentist approach, repeated trials are not required
to measure probability distribution
•BBN effectively satisfies the rules of probability
Constructing and Updating a BBN
Identify Variables
Sample Transcript Transcript Corpus

Evaluate
No
Message
Yes

Determine Graphical
Structure
Unit of Analysis Paragraph Semantics

No

Evaluate

Sentence
Yes
Code(s)
Elicit & Compute Initial Cluster 1
Probabilities

No
Evaluate Themes Cluster 2

Yes

Build Scenarios to
Update Model Cluster n

No
Evaluate

Yes

Conduct Sensitivity
Analysis

l
de
o
M
No
Evaluate

e
at
d
p
Yes

u
Validate Model
to
s
io
ar
en
c
S

No
Evaluate

Yes

Computational Model
BBN Model of SC
Analysis of SC in a VLC: Study 1

• Purpose
-Preliminary examination of how SC relates to knowledge
sharing in actual VLC and identify additional variables
• Goals
-Understand the process involved in knowledge creation in
VLCs
-The role of different variables that can influence the process of
knowledge creation in VLCs
• Procedure
-A content analysis method to examine a body of interaction
transcripts taken from a graduate course
-A grounded theory approach to analyze and interpret data
 Data Sources & Research Context
• Transcripts of online discussions
• Transcripts of email
• 12 students enrolled in a 6 credits graduate course in the
foundation of educational technology
• Online discussions were scheduled for each topic in the
course
• Synchronous and asynchronous tools were used for over a
two-week period
 Data Analysis Procedures
• Coding done in Atlas ti Qualitative Data Analysis Software
-Purposeful coding for anticipated variables
-Grounded theory approach for novel variables not earlier
identify in the model
-Transcripts were coded by one researcher
-Inter-coder reliability estimates were not calculated
 Total Frequncies of
Observations

0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
Interaction

Professional
Awareness

Capability
Knowledge
Awareness

Demographic
Awareness

Technology
Community

Variables

Hospitality

Shared
Key Findings of Study 1 Cont..

Understanding

Information
exchange
Social Capital Discourse Variables in a Formal Virtual Learning

Social
Protocols
 Analysis Interactions in a Video-Mediated
Virtual Community: Study 2
• Purpose
-To understand interaction patterns in video-mediated VCs
• Goals
-Identify different themes that emerge from interaction in a
video-mediated virtual community
-Identify the indicators of SC in this community
• Procedure
-Employed a content analysis to examine a body of interactions
-A grounded theory approach to analyze and interpret data
 Data Sources and Research Context
• Data obtained from transcripts of interactions
• The data sets were collected daily, in one half hour segments
at different hours over a period of one month during the
summer of 2002
• Results reported here are only from one data set drawn a
particular VC (“Café Americano”)
 Total Number of
Utterances Observed

0
100
200
300
400
500
Demographic
Awareness
Economic

Food
Information
Exchange
Social
Technology
Problems
Community

Community
Language
Hospitality
Utterance Categories

Similes
Informal
Study 2 Key Findings…1

Utterance Patterns in Café Americano Virtual

Language
Visual
Awareness
Interaction
 Study 2 Key Findings..2
• Results revealed sustained level of interactions (SC
characteristic)
• Discourse themes were variant
• Discourse of social issues seems to be dominant
• Emergent community language
• There is evidence of high level of awareness (SC
characteristics)
 Examples of Scenarios

Scenario 1
Imagine a virtual learning community of graduate students with diverse professional
training and cultural backgrounds. Members of this community are not exposed to each
other in face-to-face settings. The community has a strict formalised structure and goals of
interactions. Members of the community are all motivated to learn more about the subject
domain and determined to successfully complete the course. As interaction progress
individuals begin to disagree more on issues under discussion either because they disagreed
with their colleagues’ opinions, or their understanding of the issues are grounded on their
prior experiences. What is the SC of such a community?

Scenario 2
A distributed community of practice of software engineers with goals of sharing information,
and providing peer-support to each other. Members in this community shared common
concerns and are drawn from all over the world, and are composed of highly experienced
software developers and novices. Evidence of positive interactions was observed, and
individuals eventually got exposed to each other and began developing social networking by
privately exchanging personal information among themselves. There was reasonable level of
shared understanding since individuals are either professional software engineers or students
but formal social norms for interaction were not explicitly stated and most of the activities and
discussions were informally organized. What is the level of SC in this community based on
this scenario?
Results of Scenario 1 after Propagation
Results of Scenario 2 after Propagation
 Methodological Challenges
• Research into SC in VLCs, is still new with lots of challenges
• The method employed in studying and analyzing natural
conversations in VLC faces reliability issues
• Though internal validity can be proven, claiming external validity
might be challenging to achieve
• The fundamental limitations of BBN relate to:
-Learning the structure and potentials for each node in the net
-It is always necessary to provide training data to learn the
structure and parameters of the BN and or to learn data from a
network topology
-A significant effort is required to identify accurately the
conditional probability of each node in a network
-The power of the model depends on the accurate identification of
prior probabilities and the sensitivity analysis of each variable in
the network
 Summary of Results
• SC is a multivariate construct
• In VLCs, trust remains a fundamental variable of SC but it is not
the only proxy for observing the presences of SC
• Different forms of awareness are critical to understanding SC in
VLCs
• SC is both a collective property of a community as well as the
individuals in the community
• Shared understanding in a community is an important ingredient
for maintaining SC in VLCs
 Thanks!
Questions and Discussions

Ben Daniel1,2, Gordon McCalla1, Richard Schwier2

Laboratory for Advanced Research in Intelligent Educational Systems (ARIES) Research Group1,
Virtual Learning Community Lab (VLC), Educational Communications &
Technology2
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada

{ben.daniel,gordon.mccalla,richard.schwier}@usask.ca

Web Address: http://www.cs.usask.ca/grads/bkd708