Analysing discussion forum data

The widespread use of online discussion forums in educational settings provides a rich source of data for researchers interested in how collaboration and interaction can foster effective learning. Such online behaviour can be understood through the Community of Inquiry framework, and the cognitive presence construct in particular can be used to characterise the depth of a student's critical engagement with course material. Automated methods have been developed to support this task, but many studies used small data sets, and there have been few replication studies.