Collaboration and Social Networking in Higher Education

This paper presents an exploratory analysis of the experience of educational innovation in the configuration of a social learning network in a subject for the Education degree course at the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain). This innovation is based on the premise of student-centered teaching (independent learning, self-regulated, authentic and breaking boundaries between formal and informal areas) enriched with collaborative activities. The study aims to analyze the intensity and relevance of the student's contributions in this collaborative framework. We used learning analytics tools with two types of techniques: social network analysis (SNA) and information extraction, to measure the intensity, centrality and relevance of collaboration among students. The results obtained allow us to confirm: 1) The consistency and coherence between the pedagogical approach and the option of using a social network in university education; 2) A dense network with a high level of interaction, a moderate degree of centrality and a low centralization index (structure moves away from star), with a group with the capacity to influence the rest (degree of betweenness); 3) High level of relevance to the content analyzed; 4) The usefulness of learning analytics techniques to guide teacher decision-making.