2022/06/14 by John Stevens
#Social network #email #teaching.
paper · doi:10.5526/esj111
Social network analysis largely concentrates on one-point-in-time network data. I demonstrate the suitability of social network techniques (developed in Stevens (2010)) to compare education-based social network data. This paper uses university email networks, and concentrates on structures arising when users choose to contact, reply to, or copy other members of the network into communications, through the cc email attachment. Staff and students use e-mail differently. While social connection features in the e-mails of most users, staff devote a higher proportion of their e-mail to research, teaching and administrative functions. Social contacts and learning feature more prominently in the e-mails of undergraduates, and postgraduate student e-mails have characteristics lying between these groups. The email activity between staff and students mainly relates to teaching and learning.