Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 6 Map of placenames found in MOOC forum posts; raw counts shown in the
top map
, and
counts normalized by the number of students enrolled from each country in the
bottom map
Conclusions
In this paper we have contributed examples of visual, computational, and
combined visual-computational analysis of forum data from a MOOC on
Cartography. Our results reveal the ways in which novice students perceive
the utility of maps, the key topics students discussed during the course itself,
and the Geography embedded in those forum discussions.
There remains much work to do to further explore and analyze these data.
Of specific interest to us is the relationship between time and the analyses we
have shown here. For example, discussion topics changed over time from
week to week in the class, and one wonders whether or not the placename
references may vary along with those changing topics as the course pro-
gresses. We can also further explore the extent to which where a student
comes from has an influence on the places they mention as examples in topic
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