Integrating Social Question-Answer sites in learning management system

Abstract

Learning Management System (LMS) has been widely used for delivering course materials or training to learners in most educational institutions. To provide collaborative learning activities, LMSs, such as Moodle and Claroline, provide students discussion forums. With discussion forums, students participate in discussions as if they were in real classrooms. However, traditional discussion forums have two main drawbacks: knowledge cannot be accumulated and students have no social contacts. As a result, students cannot review the topics in forums after the end of a semester. What's more, students interact only with classmates in a course, which is bad for knowledge sharing. In this paper, we integrate social social Question and Answer sites (Q&A sites) in LMS to achieve better interaction and collaboration. Unlike traditional forum or BBS, a Q&A forum is a social network. Users in a Q&A sites achieve knowledge by following other users, following experts, following topics. They post questions, give answers and vote for or against answers. Users can also participate in discussion after they graduate from school. With these benefits, social Q&A site is meaningful for knowledge sharing and accumulation. © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014.