@inproceedings{f26032ed5e8941e1bae7c6cf2537eb92,
title = "The assessment of the points reward mechanism in online course forum",
abstract = "Massive open online course is now a popular choice for online learning. Different variants of MOOC platforms have different targets of students. For example, MOOC platforms such as Coursera and edX aim at students all over the world, while some local MOOC providers cooperate with local universities and credits earned on these platforms are acknowledged by those universities. Students usually learn by watching videos and doing online quizzes. Course forum is also an important component of MOOC. It is a good place for opinions sharing and discussion. Both students and TAs participate in course forums. However, students' participation in course forums sometimes is not totally voluntary. In some courses, students' participation in course forums is rewarded with extra points. This paper focuses on the points reward mechanism in online course forums. We analyze students and TAs' posting behavior and the contents of their posts. We find that the points reward mechanism can motivate students to write more posts, but students are also likely to write {"}spam posts{"}, only to make themselves look like an active participator to earn the extra points. And the points reward mechanism has limited impacts on students' academic performance. It also leads to a high percentage of {"}spam posts{"}. This paper talks about the problems of the points reward mechanism and presents some suggestions for future MOOC forums.",
keywords = "Forum, MOOC, Massive open online course, Participation",
author = "Yunping Feng and Di Chen and Haopeng Chen and Chengcheng Wan and Puzhao Xi",
note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2016 IEEE.; 4th IEEE International Conference on Progress in Informatics and Computing, PIC 2016 ; Conference date: 23-12-2016 Through 25-12-2016",
year = "2017",
month = jun,
day = "15",
doi = "10.1109/PIC.2016.7949593",
language = "英语",
series = "PIC 2016 - Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE International Conference on Progress in Informatics and Computing",
publisher = "Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.",
pages = "722--727",
editor = "Yinglin Wang and Yaoru Sun",
booktitle = "PIC 2016 - Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE International Conference on Progress in Informatics and Computing",
address = "美国",
}