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VisEN: Motivating Learner Engagement Through Explorable Visual Narratives

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Design for Teaching and Learning in a Networked World (EC-TEL 2015)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 9307))

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Abstract

Visualizations are increasingly being used to present student interactions and progress with online learning environments as motivations for student engagement with course content. Specifically, visualizations supporting data exploration and peer comparisons have yielded positive results in engagement. In addition, visual narratives have recently started to be used in learning environments to engage learners. This paper introduces VisEN, a visualization framework for semi-automatically constructing explorable visual narratives. VisEN was used during two successive academic years to construct individualized explorable visual narratives for undergraduate learners participating in an online Information Management course. The narratives presented engagement scores, time spent on activities and peer comparisons. This research evaluates the impact the explorable visual narratives had on student course engagement. This paper shows that the explorable visual narratives encouraged the majority of students (that were engaging poorly with course content) to engage with assigned tasks, and subsequently these students improved their engagement levels.

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Acknowledgements

This research is supported by the Science Foundation Ireland through the CNGL program (Grant 12/CE/I2267) in the ADAPT Center (www.adaptcentre.ie) at Trinity College Dublin.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Adapt Center, School of Computer Science and Statistics, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Bilal Yousuf & Owen Conlan

Authors
  1. Bilal Yousuf
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  2. Owen Conlan
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Bilal Yousuf .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bath Spa, Bath, UK

    Gráinne Conole

  2. Jožef Stefan Institute, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Tomaž Klobučar

  3. Technische Universität Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany

    Christoph Rensing

  4. Technische Universität Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany

    Johannes Konert

  5. IAE Lyon, Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3, Lyon, France

    Elise Lavoué

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Yousuf, B., Conlan, O. (2015). VisEN: Motivating Learner Engagement Through Explorable Visual Narratives. In: Conole, G., Klobučar, T., Rensing, C., Konert, J., Lavoué, E. (eds) Design for Teaching and Learning in a Networked World. EC-TEL 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9307. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24258-3_27

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-24258-3_27

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-24257-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-24258-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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