Blackboard and WebCT - Forum Social Network Analysis Tool

Idea

Create a GreaseMonkey script (eventually a FireFox extension) and a bookmarklet/favlet to perform Social Network Analysis on Blackboard and WebCT forums.

People

  • Dr Shane Dawson
  • Ms Aneesha Bakharia

See it in Action

[Insert Screen Grabs here]

Features

  • Displays Forum Statistics
  • Total Number of Posts
  • Post-Reply Frequency Table
  • SNA data in GraphML format
  • SNA data in NetDraw’s VNA format

Bookmarklet/Favlet Installation For Vista/WebCT

  1. Drag the SNA Analysis link to the bookmarks toolbar in Firefox. In Internet Explorer, right click on the link below and click Add to Favorites.
    SNA Analysis
  2. Visit a Forum in Vista. Click the Expand All button.
  3. Click on the SNA Analysis bookmark (from the Bookmarks menu in Firefox or the Favorites menu in IE). The SNA Analysis data will be inserted below the forum. You may need to enable the Menu bar in IE 7, to view the Favorites menu. In Firefox the page will automatically scroll to the location of the SNA Analysis data. In IE you will need to scroll to the bottom of the Forum yourself - the SNA Analysis data is inserted below the forum.
  4. The SNA Analysis will contain the number of posts, relationships and sna export data in GraphML and for the NetDraw Application (ie a .vna file). WebCT, by default limits the number of posts displayed per page. The SNA tool is only able to analyse data on that is displayed on a single page. In order to analyse a large forum, change the Paging Preferences to an appropriate number eg 200 posts per page. The Paging Preferences icon is displayed at the bottom of the forum page.
  5. You will need to save the generated txt to a .vna file. You can open and plot the graph in NetDraw. Inline graph plotting will be coming soon.

Bookmarklet/Favlet Installation For Moodle

  1. Drag the SNA Analysis link to the bookmarks toolbar in Firefox. In Internet Explorer, right click on the link below and click Add to Favorites.
    Moodle SNA Analysis
  2. Visit a Forum in Moodle. Ensure that “Display replies in nested form” is selected.
  3. Click on the Moodle SNA Analysis bookmark (from the Bookmarks menu in Firefox or the Favorites menu in IE). The SNA Analysis data will be inserted below the forum. You may need to enable the Menu bar in IE 7, to view the Favorites menu. In Firefox the page will automatically scroll to the location of the SNA Analysis data. In IE you will need to scroll to the bottom of the Forum yourself - the SNA Analysis data is inserted below the forum.
  4. The SNA Analysis will contain the number of posts, relationships and sna export data in GraphML and for the NetDraw Application (ie a .vna file).
  5. You will need to save the generated txt to a .vna file. You can open and plot the graph in NetDraw. Inline graph plotting will be coming soon.

GreaseMonkey Installation

  1. Install GreaseMonkey Firefox add-on.
  2. Restart Firefox.
  3. Uninstall previous versions. Select Tools, Greasemonkey, Manage User Scripts from the Firefox menu. Select the Blackboard SNA Forum Analysis Tool and click on the Uninstall button. Click Ok, to close the window.
  4. Click on this link to install: Blackboard and WebCT SNA Forum Analysis Tool
  5. Visit a Forum. A “Perform Social Network Analysis” link will be inserted. Click on this link. This link is located at the bottom of the page in WebCT.
  6. The SNA Analysis page will contain the number of posts, relationships and sna export data in GraphML and for the NetDraw Application (ie a .vna file). WebCT, by default limits the number of posts displayed per page. The SNA tool is only able to analyse data on that is displayed on a single page. In order to analyse a large forum, change the Paging Preferences to an appropriate number eg 200 posts per page. The Paging Preferences icon is displayed at the bottom of the forum page.
  7. You will need to save the generated txt to a .vna file. You can open and plot the graph in NetDraw. Inline graph plotting will be coming soon.