SAMOS: a model for monitoring students' and groups' activities in collaborative e-learning

Abstract

We address the issue of monitoring students' and groups' activities in online collaborative learning environments. Such monitoring can provide valuable information to online instructors, who may guide and support the development of efficient collaborative learning projects. We have developed and tested an information system, Student Activity Monitoring using Overview Spreadsheets (SAMOS), which facilitates the automatic generation of weekly monitoring reports derived from data contained in server log files. These reports provide online instructors with visual information regarding students' and groups' activity, thus allowing for a quick and easy classification of students and groups according to their activity level. That way, entities with a low activity level are easily identified, which allows the establishment of just-in-time assistance for them. Furthermore, instructors can use complementary qualitative monitoring reports, issued by the students themselves, to anticipate potential problems – such as student dropouts or possible conflicts inside the groups – and take operational and tactical decisions to handle them.