Virtual Communities of Learning and Care

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Virtual Communities of Learning and Care

• Data Mining

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Research Overview

• Virtual Communities of Learning and Care (VCLC)
  project
• Virtual environments to promote positive youth
  development
• Enable users to become active creators of
  computational projects and participants in
  virtual communities
• Complement and augment face-to-face
  psychoeducational programs for children and
  teenagers

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Zora City
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Stored Data

• Conversations
• Objects
• Houses
• Values (Definitions)
• Messages
• Profiles
• How do we analysis so much data?

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Lines of Chat per User
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Objects per User

• The users who create many objects are not
  necessarily the users who chat the most
• Some use it more to build, others use it more to
  network socially

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Lines of Chat vs. Objects
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Lines of Chat vs. Objects (cont)
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Data Clustering

• Technique for grouping objects based on
  similarity
• The data in each cluster share a common trait
• Apply statistical analysis on clusters based on
  distance, size, etc.

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So what?

• Use clustering for standard social networking
  analysis, degrees of separation
• Innovative techniques using conversation topics,
  object types, etc.

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Implications

• Virtual communities as a source of positive youth
  development
• Ability to more objectively measure development
  and social interactions between citizens in the
  virtual community
• Application of computer science techniques to the
  Child Development field