Discussion Board Analytics
Goals
- Use Natural Language Processing tools to identify discussion themes
- Develop student and faculty facing reports of discussion activity
- Use data reports on discussion participation to improve course design
Findings
Natural Language Processing – Presto Discussion Analytics
The Presto Canvas Discussion Analytics LTI, developed by Northwestern Information Technology, integrates with Canvas and performs keyword extraction for keywords, places, and people mentioned in the discussion as well as sentiment analysis. It also collects statistics on participation by user and time, as well as performs a reading level analysis of the text.
Presto was deployed in the Fall 2015 courses in the Master of Science in Global Health program: MSGH 405, 408, 417, 427, and 452. A summary of the findings appears below.
| 405 | 408 | 417 | 427 | 452 | Overall Average | |
| Average Posts Per Student | 38.96 | 60.73 | 35.42 | 13.04 | 50.53 | 39.736 |
| Average Word Count Per Post | 241.75 | 76.59 | 365.38 | 114.76 | 216.13 | 202.922 |
| Average Reading Level | 12.167 | 10.309 | 12.052 | 11.15 | 11.629 | 11.4614 |
Glossary Terms
Prior to the first term of the MSGH program, MSGH faculty collaborated to create a glossary of terms they wanted students to become familiar with throughout their time in the MSGH program. The following tables show which terms from the glossary were used within each course’s discussions.
Most-Used Glossary Terms – Overall
| Term | Mentions |
| Nutrition | 451 |
| Public Health | 300 |
| Control | 263 |
| Mortality | 262 |
| Obesity | 168 |
| Prevalence | 156 |
| Infectious Disease | 137 |
| Burden of Disease | 126 |
| Epidemic | 117 |
| Incidence | 117 |
Unused Glossary Terms
| Ecological Amplifier |
| Genotypic Differentiation |
| Gross Happiness Indicators |
| Leveraging of Resources |
| Vaccine Preventable Diseases |
Most Used Glossary Terms by Course
| 405 | 408 | 417 | 427 | 452 | |||||
| Mortality | 138 | Control | 72 | Control | 85 | Nutrition | 21 | Nutrition | 243 |
| Public Health | 126 | Incidence | 69 | Public Health | 82 | Public Health | 18 | Obesity | 69 |
| Nutrition | 97 | Prevalence | 64 | Nutrition | 62 | Partnerships | 18 | Partnerships | 51 |
| Control | 77 | Epidemiology | 63 | Mortality | 42 | Mortality | 17 | Public Health | 48 |
| Infectious Disease | 77 | Epidemic | 48 | Burden of Disease | 36 | Infectious Disease | 9 | Mortality | 32 |
| Burden of Disease | 77 | Outbreak | 46 | Social Determinants of Health | 32 | Control | 6 | Control | 23 |
| Obesity | 54 | Pandemic | 38 | Chronic Disease | 32 | Immunization | 6 | Diabetes | 20 |
| DALYs | 53 | Mortality | 33 | Diabetes | 31 | Body Mass Index (BMI) | 5 | Prevalence | 18 |
| Prevalence | 42 | Distribution | 29 | Prevalence | 29 | Neglected Tropical Disease | 5 | Epidemiology | 18 |
| Morbidity | 38 | Nutrition | 28 | Indicators | 28 | 5 Words With | 3 | Indicators | 17 |
Count of Countries Mentioned
Foundations of Global Health (MSGH 405) is an overview course and provides an introduction to worldwide health issues; the map on this page shows the frequency of mentions of various countries on the course discussion board.
Organizations Mentioned
The Presto Discussion Analytics tool pulls the names of organizations from the discussion. The following organizations were mentioned most frequently in MSGH 405.
| Organization | Mentions |
| World Health Organization | 397 |
| United Nations | 99 |
| Lancet | 94 |
| NAMI | 35 |
| CDC | 22 |
| New York Times | 22 |
Next steps
- Use Presto to see which course resources and authors students are citing most in the discussions.
- Collaborate with faculty and learning designers to create useful discussion analytics reports on request.