This learning module takes new users through CGScholar, step by step. CGScholar is a cutting edge "social knowledge" technology. In its Community app, CGScholar, people connect and interact with peers and admins in free-flowing knowledge dialogues. In the Creator app, peers provide feedback to each other using specially designed knowledge filters. CGScholar's Analytics app offers the latest of "big data" technologies to trace knowledge development and learner progress. Its Bookstore contains tens of thousands of peer reviewed projects, including learning modules that nurture a "reflexive pedagogy."
1.1.1 Locating CGScholar
CGScholar, or Common Ground Scholar, is a social knowledge platform that you can find on the web at cgscholar.com. It has been developed by Common Ground, a not-for-profit public benefit corporation located in the Research Park at the University of Illinois.
Funding for the research and development work behind CGScholar has come both to Common Ground and the University of Illinois from the Institute of Educational Sciences in the US Department of Education, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the National Science Foundation.
For more information about the research and development work in the development of CGScholar, visit our research page. The content of this learning module can also be found in the Help area in the top right of the CGScholar screen.
1.1.1 CGScholar Apps
CGScholar consists of six working spaces, or apps.
1.1.3 CGScholar Access
Community, Creator, and many Bookstore items are available to any user at no charge—just set up an account. Access to Publisher, Analytics and available at no charge on a trial basis, then for a per-user annual charge. Event and Bookstore are available to conference organizers and publishers for a modest percentage of sales. Please contact us at <support@cgscholar.com> to discuss your licensing needs. Income supports maintenance and ongoing development based on not-for-profit sustainability principles.
1.1.4 Roles in CGScholar
CGScholar helps organize knowledge communities with a number of different roles:
Comment: If you have a question about CGScholar, ask it in the comments box below this update. Another community member is likely to know the answer!
You can post the chunks of content on the left hand side of this screen as an Update into any community that you admin, as and when your community members need advice on how to use some aspect of CGSholar. If you only want to post a part of this Update, or you want to amend it, you can edit it in of at any point until the first person has commented or starred. Mouse over the Update and a little edit pencil will appear.
You may wish to survey the members of your class or knowledge community at the beginning and end of a Learning Module or Unit of Work to find out demographics, opinions, attitudes, and about their experience of using CGScholar. You can create surveys in Publisher => Tools => Survey. To see a sample pre-course survey, take the [Preview Survey] link below.
1.2.1 Top Gray Navigation Bar
1.2.2 Main App Tabs
In the main menu across the top of the screen, access the principal CGScholar apps:
Also: Search Peers and Communities.
1.2.3 Left-Hand Column, Community
More about Community in later tutorials.
1.2.4 Middle Column, Community
In the middle column, the content varies depending on whether you have selected from the pull-down menu behind your name:
More about Community in later tutorials.
1.2.5 Right Hand Column, Community
1.2.6 The Foot of the Page
1.3.1 Scholar Access
Access CGScholar via your web browser at http://cgscholar.com. We recommend recent versions of Firefox, Chrome, or Safari. Because there is a lot happening on many screens, we recommend not using phones. If you are wanting to navigate CGScholar in a language other than English, you should set your browser to your language of choice.
Access CGScholar in one of the following ways:
1.3.2 Creating an Account
1.3.3 CGScholar Account Types
CGScholar has a number of different types of accounts, each with different roles and responsibilities.
A1.3.1 Inviting Over-18 Scholars to Join a Community in CGScholar
A1.3.2 Joining a Private Community
A1.3.3 Managing Under-18 Accounts and Walled-off Organizations
Walled-off organizations are private spaces in CGScholar. Walled-off organizations are essential for Under-18 scholars. Over-18 scholars can be a member of Scholar Open as well as one or more walled-off organizations.
2.1.1 Introduction to the Community App
Community is a social media space within CGScholar with some important differences. In fact, rather than “social media,” we call this a “social knowledge” technology because it is designed for knowledge interactions, rather than connections between “friends” or participation by “followers.” Instead, in CGScholar, we have “peers” and community “members.”
In Community, you can view and make updates, comment on updates, and star updates. If you make these in your profile page, the update feeds to your peers. If you make these in a community (you can only create an update there if that community is unrestricted), the update feeds to all the members of that community
You can also provide information about yourself, your interests, and your knowledge experiences. If you are over 18 and not a student, you can choose from a range of privacy settings including full visibility of your knowledge profile on the web, including feeds to Facebook and Twitter.
2.1.2 Profile Creation, Steps 1 and 2
2.1.3 Profile Creation, Step 3
Now you may create your first update. This is an optional suggestion at this point.
2.2.1 The Activity Stream
Your activity stream lists all the updates made by your peers and by members in communities to which you belong, as well as their other activities. To see updates only, take the filter option in the dark blue bar, and show: Updates. For a full view of an update, click on the name of that update in the activity stream.
2.2.2 The Updates Menu
When you take the Updates menu behind the community name, this opens a middle column on your screen that shows updates only. If this is a longer update, will just a summary of here—click on the update title or the "more..." link at the end to see the whole update.
2.2.3 Where to Make an Update
To create an update, go to the drop-down menu above our picture, or if you are in a community, that community’s avatar.
2.2.4 How to Make an Update
To create an update:
2.2.5 Responding to an Update
2.3.1 Your Profile Picture
To create or change your avatar or profile picture, hover over the image. You will see a small edit pencil in the top right corner.
2.3.2 Your Profile
To add information about yourself, select “About” in the pull down menu behind your name. On your “About” page, you can:
2.3.3 Identify Your Interests
2.3.4 Create Settings for Your Page
In Settings:
2.4.1 Your Publications
Publications have are works that have been through the peer review process in the Creator app and vetted by a publishing admin. These may be published in Community to your personal profile page, and/or into a community or communities, and/or the Bookstore. Your publishing admin determines whether and where your works will be published.
2.4.2 Your Shares With Admins
Shares with Admins are private shares, only visible to admins.
2.4.2 Your Shares With Peers and in Communities
Share files and links in the Shares area.
2.4.2 Sharing Unpublished Works from Creator
Unpublished works developed in Creator can be shared on personal profile pages, in communities where you admin, or with community admins where you are a member.
2.5.1 Your Peers
2.5.2 Your Communities
2.5.3 Community Access
A community might be a class of students, a group with a shared interest, or a publisher relating to authors and readers of a journal or a book series.
2.6.1 The Logic of Community
Communities are places where knowledge and interests are shared. Communities may be research networks, publishers, online courses, or classes with in-person attendance.
2.6.2 The Community Activity Stream
2.6.3 Making an Update for a Community
To create an update, select Updates in the pull-down menu behind the community name.
To make an update:
2.6.4 Posting Updates from a Learning Module
You can also post updates from Learning Modules that have been published and made available:
A2.6.1 Creating a New Community
To create a new community:
A2.6.2 Community Setup
A2.6.3 Community Settings
Select a community type and create its settings.
Select a privacy option for the community:
Decide whether content is to be:
Publisher Syncing:
Access to Analytics:
A2.6.4 Invite Members
A2.6.5 Share the Admin Role
To invite another person to be an admin, you must first be an admin:
3.1.1 Why Creator?
Creator is:
Or to put this question another way, why not Word or Google Docs?
3.1.2 Works and Projects in Creator
In CGScholar, creators develop works as parts of projects.
3.1.3 Roles in Creator
Creator is a social writing space where you can work with others in the following roles:
3.1.4 Starting a Work
There are no documents or files in Creator—instead there are “Works.”
3.1.5 Connecting to a Project
There are two ways to connect to a publishing project:
3.1.6 More Than One Creator
3.1.7 Sharing an Unpublished Work
A3.1.1 Ways to Get Creators Started in a Project
As an admin, you can set up a peer-reviewed publishing project in CGScholar's Publisher app. There are two ways to get scholars started with a project in Creator:
A3.1.2 Creating Project Groups
A3.1.3 Creating a Rubric
Rubrics are used in Projects for peer, admin, and self-reviews. The can be created by admins at Publisher => Tools => Rubrics.
You will be asked to provide the following information in a rubric:
A3.1.4 Creating a Project
To create a Project, take the [Create a New Project] at the bottom of the screen in the Publisher Directory landing page in the Publisher app.
Start Project setup by determining the Project type:
Multi Work projects involve a group working together on a project with the same deadlines, each writing their own work and reviewing each other’s works. Reviewers are randomly assigned. | Single Work projects travel at their own pace, with their own deadlines. Reviewers must be manually assigned in this project type. |
Automatic projects proceed without the admin checking each phase. Admins do not receive notifications as the project proceeds from phase to phase. | Manual projects only proceed when the admin has checked and approved each phase. Admins receive a notification when a work in a project requires their attention. |
Date scheduling sets predetermined deadlines for each phase. These cannot be changed after a project has commenced, but are advisory only—creators are not locked out if they submit late. | Duration scheduling sets the length of time for each phase, which means that the length of a project will vary according to how responsive creators, reviewers, and admins are once they receive a notification that a task needs to be undertaken. |
Rather than set up a project from the beginning every time, admins can duplicate and then edit a previously created project. However, the Project type cannot be edited in a duplicated Project. You need to start a new Project if you want it to be a different type.
Invitation and Draft Settings:
Feedback Settings:
Revision Settings:
Publish Settings:
Review the project settings.
3.2.1 The Ideas Behind Creator
The CGScholar development team has created a unique technology for writing to the web, technically called a "semantic editor." (You can read a long and technical version of this story by the designers of CGScholar in their book, Towards a Semantic Web.) The nice thing about this technology is that it has none of the clutter of a word processor—the hundreds of fonts and thousands of formatting options. Creator has just one simple toolbar. And it is much more powerful than a word processor—you can embed all kinds of media inline, including sound, video or dataset.
One of the innovative aspects of the Creator technology is that there are no documents or files. Instead, there are "works" which are constantly being composed and recomposed from a huge database. Moving away from documents and files produces some significant advantages. One is that Creator can reformat your work in a whole lot of ways—you'll see two already when you use the little print icon in the dark blue title bar: either a web page or a PDF. These are generated on-the-fly and at the time of use, capturing the latest version at the moment of access.
The other big advantage is that the software can scan and data mine your work. The Block Quote icon tells us that the piece of text that has been selected is not yours and therefore that it has not been plagiarized. The Emphasis icon tells us which terms are important to you or different from the rest of the text. Students and teachers can also call up detailed assessment data, using CGScholar's powerful Analytics tool.
The screen is designed around a left/light division, with a curtain that can be pulled from side to side to expand or minimize one side or the other. Working in Creator is a recursive process where, across the multiple phases of a publishing project, scholars shunt backward and forward between the left and right sides in a process with might be considered dialogical or dialectical:
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3.2.2 Information About Your Work
Enter information about your work (or metadata) at About This Work => Info => Work, hover over to select the edit pencil, and enter the following:
3.2.3 The Creator Toolbar
Mouseover each icon to see a description of what it is for. Add content by typing in text. You can also do the following (going through the icons in the toolbar from left to right):
Some icons will open dialogue boxes to upload content. For practical reasons, CGScholar has to set limits on uploaded files. In the case of large video files, it is best to upload to YouTube or Vimeo, and use embedded media function in the Creator toolbar.
Here are two things about the Creator working space that you may find unusual at first:
3.3.4 Working in a Publishing Project
When you are involved in a publishing project, before you start your work you should look carefully at project information:
See Tutorial 3.1.5 for how to connect to a publishing project.
3.3.5 Saving and Versions
Creator autosaves continually, so there is no need to ever to use the [Save] button.
3.3.1 Creating Elements in the Structure Tool
A work in Creator consists of a series of movable chunks, called Elements. There are three kinds of Element:
To create an Element, go to About this Work => Structure => [Add New]
3.3.2 Creating a Structure for Your Work
Use the Structure tool to organize your work into elements. This helps plan your work thoughtfully as well as to make the organization of your work clear to reviewers in draft and readers when it is published.
3.4.1 The Checker Tool
As you get ready to submit, be sure to go over your work with the Checker tool, at Feedback => Checker. Unlike spelling or grammar checkers which sometimes tell you something is wrong when it is not, Creator's checker only makes change suggestions, and these include synonyms, in case you may wish to change a word.
3.4.2 Messages and Dialogue
3.4.3 Submitting a Finished Draft
Once you are satisfied with your draft, it is time to submit your work. Do not submit incomplete works, because you will not get the full benefit of your reviewers’ comments and suggestions. The draft you submit should your best work and most complete attempt to address the objectives of the project.
A3.4.1 Locating a Project
A3.4.2 Managing a Project
On the Publisher Project Summary Page an admin can:
- The member’s name is a link to their personal profile page in Community.
- The work title is a link to detailed project summary for that particular work.
- Status indicates where the work stands currently in the publication process (green = completed; orange = overdue; grey dot = unstarted or cancelled).
- Last update and assigned feedback contributors are listed.
- Icons allow the admin to view the work in Creator (magnifying glass), output the work as a web page or PDF (printer), and remove the work from the project.
When the admin takes to the link on a Work from the Publisher Summary page, they reach the Project summary for that particular Work, including:
3.5.1 Kinds of Feedback in Creator
One of the most powerful features of Creator is that more than one person can give and receive feedback at the same time, or at any time. There's no having to pass files backwards and forwards so one person can comment on the work one at a time as is the case with Word files. Nor is there the confusing “jumping cursor” of Google Docs. In Creator, the feedback is clearly structured and neatly organized.
3.5.2 Receiving a Feedback Request
3.5.3 Writing Reviews
There are two aspects to Reviews: 1) a qualitative judgment expressed on a numbered scale; and 2) an open-ended explanation of this rating.
3.5.4 Annotating the Text
As well as giving feedback through a review, you may be required to annotate the work. An annotation is a comment or a suggested change about a specific part of a work.
3.5.5 Submitting Feedback
When you have finished your review of a peer’s work, make sure you have completed any other requirements such as “Annotations” and a “Publication Recommendation.”
3.5.6 Additional Feedback Cycles
If you, the creator, or your admin believe you should go through another feedback cycle:
3.6.1 Revising Your Work
When feedback is ready, you will receive a notification. Click on the notification link and you will be taken directly to the correct work. The next phase of a project is revision. Study carefully the feedback that you have received. Depending on the kinds of feedback that the publishing admin requested, you may see one or more of:
3.6.2 Writing a Self-Review
After you have revised your work, but before submitting it to your admin for possible publication, write a self-review. This should be a reflection on the feedback you have received, and the ways you have changed your work ready for submission of a new, revised version. In traditional peer review, this is called a “change note.
Here are some of the things you might address in your self-review:
3.6.3 Offering Feedback on Feedback
Creators can dialogue with reviewers in two ways:
Creators and reviewers will be named or anonymous depending on the project settings created by the admin.
3.6.4 Submitting Your Work for Publication
The last phase of a project in Creator is publication, or a decision by the publishing admin not to publish your work at this time.
3.6.5 Republishing Previously Published Works
If you wish to make further changes to your work after it has been published, make changes in the Current version, then send a request to republish through About This Work => Project => Dialogue.
A3.6.1 Publishing a Work
A3.6.2 Unpublishing and Republishing a Work
There are two ways for admins to unpublish the old version and republish a revised version of a previously published work.
4.1.1 The Idea of Learning Analytics or Knowledge Community Analytics
In CGScholar, the Analytics app is visualization tool that tracks progress in knowledge and learning communities, for the whole community, as well as for individual members of the community. It is built using cutting edge “big data” and “artificial intelligence” technologies. Every member can see their own progress towards objectives that have been set by admins.
In the context of students learning in a unit of work or a course, the intended outcomes of the Analytics app are:
4.1.2 Getting Started in Analytics
A scholar does not see the Analytics tab in CGScholar until they become a member of a community where the admin has selected that option.
Before a course or unit of work commences, the teacher will have specified:
The main visualization in Analytics is an “aster plot.” An aster is a flower that has flat petals radiating outwards. Each petal of the aster plot displays progress of one metric associated with an individual’s activity or ratings received within CGScholar. For example, this may include the number of updates you have posted to the community, or the average word count of your works assigned in Creator.
The admin chooses which metrics to include in the plot, their weight towards the overall score, and the target values. The target value is the metric value that represents a 100% score.
The metric score is capped at 100%. For example, if the target value for average words per work assigned is 1,000 then a value of 900 average words per work would yield a score of 90%, and a value of 1,300 would yield a score of 100% (scores are capped at 100%).
During the unit of work, admins (e.g. teachers) and members (e.g. students) is able to access ever member’s progress visualization, including the capacity to dig deep into areas requiring additional attention by an individual participant. This makes visible deficiencies which might otherwise pass unnoticed.
Data for the Analytics app has been pre-processed, which means that it often a few hours old. Check the time your analytics data was last processed beneath your name and photograph.
4.1.3 Interpreting the Aster Plot
A4.1.1 Locating the Data
The unit of analysis in the CGScholar's Analytics app is the community. Analytics measures all the activity in a community. These means that you need to start a new community each time you want to apply Analytics. This new community might be a course offering in a particular term or semester. Or it may be a unit of work within a course. For granular views of the activity all scholars, search for the community whose analytics you wish to view, then take the [This Community] link on the Analytics landing page. There you will see:
A4.1.2 Creating Analytics Settings
4.2.1 Average Text Quality Score Per Work
This metric is calculated as the average text quality score on the last version of your works in the Community/Publisher space (as a percentage of the target value, max is 100%). The text quality (or "text structural complexity") measure is computed as an average of three methods: Flesch-Kincaid, Coleman-Liau, and Automated Readability Index. The scores produced by these methods are an approximate representation of the US school grade level needed to comprehend the target text. This metric score is the percentage of this value relative to the target value capped at 100%.
4.2.2 Average Peer Review Percentage Score Received
This metric score is calculated as the average over all of percent scores received on reviews of your works by your peers (as a percentage of the target value, max is 100%). The percent score for a peer review is the total of points you received from the reviewer for all rubric items as a percentage of the maximum possible.
4.2.3 Average Self Review Percentage Score Received
This metric score is calculated as the average over all of percent scores received on self-reviews of your works (as a percentage of the target value, max is 100%). The percent score for a self-review is the total of points you received from the reviewer (you) for all rubric items as a percentage of the maximum possible.
4.2.4 Average Instructor Review Percentage Score Received
This metric score is calculated as the average over all of percent scores received on instructor (administrator) reviews of your works (as a percentage of the target value, max is 100%). The percent score for an instructor review is the total of points you received from the reviewer for all rubric items as a percentage of the maximum possible.
4.2.5 Knowledge Survey Percentage Correct Score
There could be multiple occurrences of these petals, one for each survey created and deployed from CGScholar’s Survey app. Knowledge surveys are scored like quizzes. Each survey item has a correct answer and your total score is the percentage of correct answers. The percentage of this total score relative to the target value of the metric will produces the score for this metric.
4.2.6 Custom Metrics
Custom metrics are petals that are added by an administrator. They can appear in any section of the aster plot. Administrators are responsible for hand coding the scores for these petals (or they can be imported from external applications). Administrators can also provide feedback to each student along with their scores. These metrics are used primarily for activities external to CGScholar, or to link with external applications.
A4.2.1 Knowledge Metrics
What knowledge measures do you expect to apply?
A4.2.2 Adding a Knowledge Survey
A4.2.3 Adding a Custom Metric
4.3.1 Number of Comments You Have Made on Instructor Updates
The total number of comments that the student made on updates that were authored by a Community/Publisher administrator (as a percentage of the target value, max is 100%).
4.3.2 Number of Updates You Have Made in the Community
The total number of updates the student has authored in the Community space (as a percentage of the target value, max is 100%).
4.3.3 Average Word Length of Your Updates
The average word length of updates the student has made in the Community space (as a percentage of the target value, max is 100%).
4.3.4 Percent of Community Projects You Have Started
The number of projects that the student has started in the Creator measured as a percentage of the target value (max is 100%). A project is a Work in Scholar that is part of a Publisher Project. A student may be expected to complete a certain number of assignments during the course of a class. Assignments are not available to students until created and assigned by a Publisher administrator, and so this metric starts at 0 and increases as projects are assigned and the student begins work on those projects.
4.3.5 Average Word Length of Your Works
The average word length of works the student has created in Creator (as a percentage of the target value, max is 100%). As new works are started this metric will sometimes decrease because it is an average over all of the student's works. For example, if you have one work with 1,200 words and the target is 1,000 words your score will be 100% (you cannot exceed 100%). If you then start a second work your score will immediately drop to 60% because 1,200 words plus 0 words divided by two projects is 600 words on average with a target of 1,000. As you accumulate more words in your second project the metric will increase towards 100%.
4.3.6 Average Percent Change in Revisions to Your Works
To produce this score, for each work the average percent edited between all versions is computed, then those values are averaged across all works a student has created in Creator space (as a percentage of the target value, max is 100%). As new works are started this metric will sometimes decrease because it is an average over all of the student's works.
4.3.7 Average Number of Multimedia Elements in Your Works
For each final version of a student's work in the Creator space the number of embedded multimedia elements is counted and averaged. The percentage of this averaged value relative to the target value for this metric yields the score for this metric (max is 100%). For example, if you have an average of 10 multimedia elements embedded in the final version of your works and the target value for this metric is that you should have at least 20, then your score would be 50%. As new works are started this metric will sometimes decrease because it is an average overall of the student's works.
4.3.8 Average Word Length of Your Feedback on Peer Reviews
This metric is calculated as the average word length of your feedback on reviews that you have received from others (as a percentage of the target value, max is 100%). This is not the word count of reviews you have authored. That metric is in the “help” section of the aster plot.
4.3.9 Information Survey Percent Completed
There could be multiple occurrences of these petals, one for each survey. This metric does not just reflect that you took a survey or not, but rather it is the percentage of questions that you answered on the survey relative to the target value. Any questions left unanswered may result in a score less than 100%. For example, if the target value is 100% and you answered 90% of the questions then you will receive a score of 90%. If the target value had been 90% then you would have received a 100% score.
4.3.10 Custom Metrics
Custom metrics are petals that are added by an administrator. They can appear in any section of the aster plot. Administrators are responsible for hand coding the scores for these petals (or they can be imported from external applications). Administrators can also provide feedback to each student along with their scores. These metrics are used primarily for activities external to CGScholar, or to link with external applications.
A4.3.1 Focus Metrics
What focus measures do you expect to apply?
4.4.1 Average Number of Views of Your Updates
This metric is calculated as the average number of views of updates that you posted to this Community space (as a percentage of the target value, max is 100%).
4.4.2 Number of Reviews Completed
This metric is the number of reviews that you have completed within this Community/Publisher space (as a percentage of the target value, max is 100%).
4.4.3 Average Number of Words Per Reviews You Authored
This metric is the average of the number of words you produced across all reviews you have authored in the Community/Publisher space (as a percentage of the target value, max is 100%).
4.4.4 Number of Comments You Have Posted
: This metric is the number of comments that you have made on updates not posted by and administrator in the Community/Publisher space (as a percentage of the target value, max is 100%).
4.4.5 Average Number of Annotations on Peer Works
This metric is an average of the number of annotations that you have provided on reviews of peer works in the Community/Publisher space (as a percentage of the target value, max is 100%).
4.4.6 Average Rating Percentage Score from Peers for Your Reviews
This metric is the average of the percent score you received from your peers for the peer reviews you authored (as a percentage of the target value, max is 100%).
4.4.7 Custom Metrics
Custom metrics are petals that are added by an administrator. They can appear in any section of the aster plot. Administrators are responsible for hand coding the scores for these petals (or they can be imported from external applications). Administrators can also provide feedback to each student along with their scores. These metrics are used primarily for activities external to CGScholar, or to link with external applications.
A4.4.1 Help Metrics
What help measures do you expect to apply?
A4.4.2 Adding an Information Survey
5.1.1 The Ideas Behind the Learning Module
The CGScholar development team has created the Learning Module as an alternative to the traditional educational artifacts of textbook, syllabus, and lesson plan. The learning module is also quite different from the digital versions of these—the e-textbook and the learning management system. These are essentially digital reproductions of old learning architectures, based on content delivery and transmission pedagogy. The underlying principle of the Learning Module is “reflexive pedagogy.”
As a pedagogical design, the Learning Module is not a textbook. It is not a syllabus. It is not a lesson plan. And it is all of these things, or it does the job of all of these things, but does all these things differently.
5.1.2 Learning Module Architecture
Learning Modules have a two-column format: a “for the member” side on the left where the teacher speaks directly to the student, and a “for the admin” side where the teacher speaks the professional discourse of education, articulating learning aims, curriculum standards and teaching tips. Members can be named any way the Learning Module designer chooses: “student,” “participant,” “member,” etc., and admins can be named “teacher,” “instructor,” “coordinator,” “admin,” etc. The name is less important than the difference in the discourse.
A Learning Module offers three modes of interaction with and between students:
The Learning Module is a work type within CGScholar’s Creator app, so you if you want to want to design one but have not used Creator before, we recommend you familiarize yourself with Section 3 of these tutorials.
5.1.3 Finding Learning Modules
The CGScholar Bookstore contains many types of items including journal articles and books. One special kind of work available in the bookstore is the Learning Module.
5.1.4 Using Learning Modules
A Learning Module is a series of activities, including curated material such as weblinks, videos and other audio-visual material and prompts that initiate productive admin-member and member-member dialogue. It may also include a writing project and rubric, and knowledge or information surveys.
5.2.1 Before You Start
A Learning Module is a hybrid work which crosses the legacy educational practices of lesson plan, syllabus and textbook. Unlike a lesson plan which is mainly written for a teacher’s design purposes, a learning module has both teacher and learner sides.
Unlike a syllabus, a learning module contains content as well as an outline of coverage. And unlike a textbook which typically summarizes and transmits content for learners to remember, a learning module curates a variety of digital media and web content (links, embedded media etc.). It establishes a dialogue with and between learners, positioning them as active seekers and producers of knowledge.
The Learning Module architecture is agnostic about pedagogy. You could create in the same design as conventional learning management systems or MOOCs. You could, for instance, deliver video lectures as Updates into learners’ activity streams in the Community app, then check what students have remembered with CGScholar Knowledge Surveys.
However, this would be to squander the affordances of CGScholar as a social learning space, and the potentials of “reflexive pedagogy.” In an ideal Learning Module, you will create some or all of:
For examples of Learning Modules, visit the CGScholar Bookstore:
5.2.2 Starting a New Learning Module
There are three ways to start to create a Learning Module:
1. You can start to create a new Learning Module at Works => New. You might decide to Share this directly to your personal profile page or a community where you admin at About This Work => Info => Share.
2. You might look for Publisher who will either publish it directly or arrange a peer-reviewed project for you. Go to About This Work => Publish.
3. If you are part of a publishing project where participants are creating Learning Modules, you will receive a request from an admin via the CGScholar notifications and email to create a peer-reviewed Learning Module. Take the link in the request and you will reach a blank Learning Module.
5.2.3 Formatting a Learning Module
Go to About This Work => Structure. When you go to create a new element, you will find the following different kinds of element that are possible in a Learning Module:
How to use the Structure tool to create a learning module:
Some recommendations when writing Updates:
5.3.1 Getting Started with a Survey in CGScholar
5.3.2 Creating a Survey
Fill out information about your survey. Select Knowledge or Information Survey.
5.3.3 Creating Survey Items
5.3.4 Navigating and Arranging Items
5.3.5 Sharing and Adapting Surveys
5.4.1 Creating a Project for a Learning Module
Before adding a Project to a Learning Module, you need to create that Project. To do that, you need admin access to the Publisher app within CGScholar.
5.4.2 Adding a Project and a Survey
Go to the Right (admin) Side element in the Learning Module where you want the Project and/or the Survey to be.
Surveys are delivered into your activity stream. Just open the link, complete the survey, and submit.
You may wish to survey the members of your class or knowledge community at the beginning of a Learning Module or unit of work to find out demographics, opinions, attitudes, and and then at the end about their experience of using CGScholar.
Reference
Andres, Lesley. 2012. Designing and Doing Survey Research. Thousand Oaks CA: Sage.
Surveys are delivered into your activity stream. Just open the link, complete the survey, and submit.
[Preview Survey] to see a sample post-course survey.
Research Questions
One of the advantages of CGScholar compared to traditional learning management systems is the granular and semantically well-specified nature of its data. To analyze with data mining methods beyond those available in the Analytics app in CGScholar, create a data dump.
Analyze the patterns of classroom discourse in a digital discussion space.
Methods
Research Questions
Process
Methods
Research Question
Process