Forum participation plugin for Moodle: development and discussion

Abstract

At present, a large amount of software has been created to analyze social networks, such as libraries to access online social networking APIs, software to draw graphs and tools to use and analyze networks. In fact, and because of the use of Moodle as standard Learning Management System at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, in 2009 was born the idea of creating a plugin for Moodle capable of analyzing forums in which students participate and of identifying the major players within the student network. This work is about the present state of such plugin, which provides useful information to teachers so that, through the use of social network analysis, allows them to make decisions to improve and promote participatory education. Here, we show the application of the plugin to three case studies, in two different universities, which allowed to evaluate its usefulness and to compare the information according to the variables that influenced each case study.