Post on 01-Apr-2015
The Virtual Participant — 28th June 1999 Page 1.
The Virtual ParticipantKnowledge Management and
Electronic Conferencing
Project team: Simon Masterton, Stuart Watt
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Overview
• Problems and Goals• How does it work?• What were we looking for?
– The Virtual Participant in action
• What really happened?– And what the students thought
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The Problem
• Use of Electronic Conferencing growing– Required component of many courses– Distributed student body– Supplement to tutorials
• This has problems– Not all students use it– It can be expensive– Some students have no other contact– It does not offer enough to students
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Goals
• to re-use the knowledge contained in discussions from previous years;
• to reduce the load on the tutors from answering common problems;
• to encourage students to use the technology and participate
• to provide some support to students which is always available.
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The Study
• 3 years, October 95 - September 98• B882: MBA elective, 850 students• Conferencing since 1991• Initial prototype• Study - evaluate - revise• Second prototype.• Improvement
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So how does it work?
• Another ‘Participant’– Exactly the same access as all students– No special hardware or software required
• Reads all messages in chosen conferences– Stores contents of every message– Stores ‘History’ of every message
• Keyword and phrase matching– Stored from all messages in a thread– Considers all possible stories– Threshold for triggering
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Example interaction
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What we were looking for
• VP should match threads with stories– A response is then triggered saying a ‘possible’
match relevant to the current discussion has been found
• Students will read its messages– The curious will ask it questions– Critics will make comments
• Tutor follow up– The tutors will post messages giving their own
opinions and comments on how useful/less the VP has been
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The VP in action
• Creative Management– Second year MBA elective - conferencing
since ‘91
• Uncle Bulgaria– Womble Metaphor - Recycling Knowledge
• Tutors Response– Distraction– Might go mad?– Why Uncle Bulgaria– Every year is different
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What really happened
• Some of them liked it!• Tutor follow up
– Important VP message followed up by tutor to draw attention to the point raised
• Students can’t read instructions• Name can affect students view
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Students Comments
• Name
• Presentation
• Content and Context
• User Confusion
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Re-implementation
• Second version– Name - Active Archive– Presentation - FirstClass Gateway– Interaction - Private (and public)– Content, Maintenance, Control– Retrieval - Thresholds reduced
• Further EvaluationQuestionnaire/Interview
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The Survey (98)
• AA posted a total of 42 messages• AA sent a total of 302 messages• 401 students read 1 or more AA
message• 179 read 9 or more AA messages• Surveyed all participants• 60 responses - after one week.
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Choice Highlights• Did you learn anything:• 13 responses
– Yes, primarily the structure of TMA’s– Yes: e.g. interpretation of KAI score.– Yes - gave some leads for TMA subjects– Have helped to broaden understanding of
various topics without wading through drivel
– More information / ideas
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Choice Highlights
• Questions– Should continue to be used: 90%
agreed– Name: 79% agreed– Put me off: 11%– Reduce discussion: 9% agreed– Relevant: 95% agreed– Direct to participants: 15% agreed
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And Finally...
• Four dimensions of acceptance– Anthropomorphic versus
Mechanomorphic– Private versus Public– Closed versus Open– Fixed versus Extensible