Pattern Discovery Tool

The Pattern Discovery Tool, developed by the Collide research group (Harrer, Vetter, Thür, & Brauckmann, 2005), was applied to the task of searching for patterns of user actions in e-discussion logs.

In ARGUNAUT we used this tool by feeding in "Sequences of actions" (units comprised of sequential user actions logged by the discussion tool). The generated PROLOG rule defining a sequence of such actions includes a temporal element of order (first action, second action, etc.), and referencing information (for users and objects). Our approach is to pre-define possible action sequences which we think may be meaningful, i.e. representing specific theoretical or pedagogical phenomena, and to look for such sequences in XML logs of discussions. (Hever et al., submitted).