@incollection{, author = {Nistor, Nicolae; Dascălu, Mihai; Stavarache, Lucia Larise; Serafin, Yvonne; Trăuşan-Matu, Ştefan}, title = {Informal Learning in Online Knowledge Communities: Predicting Community Response to Visitor Inquiries}, editor = {Conole, Gráinne; Klobucar, Tomaž; Rensing, Christoph; Konert, Johannes; Lavoué, Élise}, booktitle = {Design for Teaching and Learning in a Networked World : 10th European conference on Technology Enhanced Learning, EC-TEL 2015, Toledo, Spain, September 15-18, 2015, Proc}, series = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science}, journal = {}, address = {New York}, publisher = {Springer}, edition = {1}, year = {2015}, isbn = {978-3-319-24257-6 (Print) ; 978-3-319-24258-3 (eBook)}, volume = {9307}, number = {}, pages = {447-452}, url = {}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-319-24258-3}, keywords = {}, abstract = {Informal learning in online knowledge communities (OKCs) comprises visitor inquiries on specific topics. Learning can occur only if the OKC adequately respond. This study aims to predict OKC response, using a social learning analytics approach based on computational linguistics and Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism. Observing the blog topic (cooking vs. politics & economics) and the visitor inquiry format (off-topic vs. on-topic), a field experiment with a 2 × 2 factorial design was conducted on a sample of <em>N </em>= 68 blogger communities with a total of 25,303 members. For the entire sample, the community response was influenced only by the inquiry format. In a separate examination of experimental groups, only for one examined topic (cooking) this remained true, while for the other (politics & economics) the community response only depended on the previously established dialog quality. The findings suggest identification criteria for responsive communities, which can support OKC integration in learning environments.}, note = {}, institution = {Universität der Bundeswehr München, Fakultät für Humanwissenschaften, Department für Bildungswissenschaft, Professur: Nistor, Nicolae}, }