See GA Dashboard: Forum OKRs

OKRs

Counts of:

Posts (thread) created
Responses created
Comments created
Search

Possible Metrics

number of forums responses
number of users responding to a post
number of responses per topic
number of users posting (e.g. relative to the number of active)
number of posts read (relative to the number of users reading and number of users active)
forums posts read to completion (per student?)
are learners reading/posting through inline discussions or the discussions tab?
Discussion metrics by course
# of courses with active discussion forums

Existing Events

posted
upvoted
searched

Possible New Events / Modifications to existing events

thread is followed
thread is viewed
distinguishing between discussion tab vs. inline discussions?
distinguishing between mobile and non-mobile

General Questions

What percentage of courses use the edX forums?

If use another platform, why?
If no forum at all, why?

How do courses use forums?

What are the main types of activities on the forum? “thread intent” (instructor-specified discussion activities, student support, ask a question about the content, introductions, etc.)

% breakdowns of thread intent by course

Do course staff closely guide forum setup and organize interaction -- or do they let students take charge?
How often do students initiate threads vs. course staff?
Do course staff pin threads/use the forum Categories?
Does this differ by country/partner/subject?

Why do students go to the forum?

Do they post a question, participate in an activity, meet other students, jump in on a topic to discuss, or just browse?
Do they search for answers?
Do they follow frequently?
Do they upvote/pin frequently?
Do they revisit conversations?

If they asked a question, how do they find out there was a response?
How many responses do they read?

Do they flag posts?

What kind of posts appear on the forum?

Post length?
Number of responses/comments?
Tied to the courseware?
In categories?

How often do students visit the course forum?

How is this correlated to completion?

If a student is frustrated, do they find what they are looking for on the forum?

How often do students search? Do they need to change their search string?
How often do students post the same question?
How soon are questions answered? How do students know their question was answered?

How is forum performance? Is it fast to load/post/search?

User Feedback

Do students find the forum easy to navigate? Easy to compose a post in? Informative?
Do course staff find the forum easy to manage? Easy to organize? Conducive?
Does student usage of the forum meet course team intent?
What are the top requested features?

Basic Metrics

Adoption: How many courses on edX use forums?

Number of forums
Number of currently live forums
Breakdown by partner/geolocation

Activity: How much content is there on the forum, and how often is it visited?

Number of posts/pins/votes/views

aggregate and per course
breakdown of threads/responses/comments

% active students who visited the forum at least once.

% repeat visitors.
% posters vs. just viewers

Number of times each post was viewed / revisited by students

Editing: How easy is it to author a post?

Average number of times a post is edited.
Average time spent composing a post / editing a response

Organization: How do course staff organize the forum?

Number of discussion components.

Average number of threads per component

Number of course staff created categories
Number of pinned threads

Curation, Search, and Navigation:

% of students voting. % of staff pinning
% of forum users/sessions ordering threads by “top voted”
% of forum users/sessions who search. % of “successful” searches.
Number of times students/staff click “Load all responses” in a thread, “Load more” in the left-hand thread nav, or change their nav filter.

Performance:

How long does it take to load a discussion thread? the entire forum?

Retention:

% of dropout from forum users vs. all active students last week
% of forum users from verified active users vs. all active users

Advanced Analytics

Correlation of forum activity with completion? Distribution of forum usage beyond the first intro exercise
Distribution of forum “depth” (number of responses and comments)
% posts/views from discussion components vs. the forum.
% breakdown of threads by category (instructor-specified activities, platform support, content questions, introductions)
Number of searches. Distribution of subsequent threads viewed. % subsequent posts/answers
Distribution of post length / thread depth -- per course

breakdown by subject/intent

Examples -- Interesting examples of how courses use forums.

Active Innovations forum: https://courses.edx.org/courses/course-v1:MITx+uINOV8x+2T2015/discussion/forum
Many topics discussion:
https://courses.edx.org/courses/course-v1:UTAx+CSE1309x+2016T1/discussion/forum
Fewer topics; many discussion posts/replies/comments:
https://courses.edx.org/courses/course-v1:Catalystx+IL5x+2016_T1/discussion/forum
Superheroes has a nice integration of edx and google groups:
https://courses.edx.org/courses/course-v1:SmithsonianX+POPX1.4x+2T2016/f508f160c0294f04aadf1da849d714a2/
...

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