A New Algorithm for Balancing Group Population in Collaborative Leaning Sessions

Proper group formation is essential in conducting a productive collaborative learning session. It specifies the internal structure that the collaborating groups should have based on roles. The Group formation is a dynamic and a challenging component. In some cases, more than one group formation is made during a single session and more than one role a single participant undertakes. Group population is another essential process that follows group formation. Group population is concerned with the process of assigning participants to groups and roles. There are several group population methods that are used in Computer Support for Collaborative Learning environment. The main challenge in group population is the partial filling situation. Partial filling is happened when some participants fail to attend their assigned groups at the start of a session. Partial filling could be caused by various reasons. It could be caused by human’s mistakes or by technical faults. In this paper, a correction algorithm is described to balance back the groups’ participation levels. This algorithm is based on three main phases: Group Elimination, External Transfer, and Internal Transfer phase. The algorithms of these phases are fully described in this paper.

@article{Turani2015,
  title     = {A New Algorithm for Balancing Group Population in Collaborative Leaning Sessions},
  journal   = {International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications},
  volume    = {6},
  number    = {9},
  year      = {2015},
  publisher = {The Science and Information Organization},
  author    = {Aiman Turani and Jawad Alkhatib},
  doi       = {10.14569/IJACSA.2015.060911},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.14569/IJACSA.2015.060911}
}