Actors who are central in a contact with other in the network the most central of prominent are known as stars they are well positioned to give and receive information from and to many other and to be aware of activities across the network as a whole moreover they are likely to receive this information sooner than those on the periphery where exposure to information is important as is suggested for collaborative learning centrally located individuals are the ones best positioned to receive the benefits of such collaboration at the other end of the scale are noncentral or isolated individuals the isolate does not maintain connections with other and thus does not receive communications from other in the network relatively isolated individuals who maintain few links with others may still receive information but depending on who they rely on for that connection they may receive the information later than others isolates can be expected to benefit least from collaborative activities
Examining the relative positions of class members can show who is reading and perhaps also influencing class interaction and information exchange these class members could prove to be key information disseminators ( e.g. early posters to a webboard ) and instructors may want to pay attention to the veracity of the information they are disseminating isolates may need encouragement to participate since they are not benefiting from the information circulating the class and neither is the class benefiting from potentially useful information they possess
Network positions were compared using Stephenson and zelen’s information centrality measure which calculates centrality based on all possible paths paths and takes into consideration the weight of the relation using the ucinet network analysis package symmetrized data were used based on the average of the estimates of estimates of interaction by each member of the pair the tables of network centrality given next present the ordered position of each class member according to their individual informationcentrality and show their relative distance from the mean centrality
( 0.5 or 1 standard deviation from the mean )
Similarities and differences across relations
Do the four relations describe similar structures or do they capture different aspects of student interaction? In general there appears to be similarity between the collaborative work and exchanging advice networks but a similarity that develops over time and that movers with each time period into a structure associated with the teams
Collaborative work connects the most pairs with nearly all pairs connected during each time exchanging advice also connects a high proportion of class members during times 1 and 2 but fewer pairs during time 3 these densities along with correlations between the collaborative work and exchanging advice network that increase dramatically over time ( from 0.55 in time 1 to 0.69 in time 2 to 0.92 in time 3 ) suggest that interaction for these relations are converging along with the convergence on team affiliation that is as teams from the pairs who maintain these relations becomes more