CSCL Discussion Support with Emphasizing Feature of Main Sentence

Abstract

In this paper the authors propose a method and a system to support CSCL discussion with use of a developed function to emphasize the main sentence of each utterance. Generally, CSCL discussion environment has a difficulty to read huge volume of many utterances. The authors propose a function to provide two parts of input text fields, one is for main sentence of conclusion of an utterance, the other is for details or justifications of the utterance. At the time of representation, the proposing system first shows a list of main sentences. When members want to see details of an utterance, he or she clicks a link attached to the target main sentence. With use of the proposed function, a member of CSCL discussion will become easy to grasp a big picture of a discussion. It is expected to provide deep understanding of discussion and prompt to write meaningful utterances on CSCL. In order to verify an effect of the proposing system, the authors conducted a controlled experiment. The result shows that members of a target group tend to use various types of utterance roles rather than ones of a control group. From this result, the proposing system is thought to provides a CSCL environment for deeper understanding of discussion and utterances.