The chapter presents ReaderBench, a multi-lingual and flexible environment that integrates text mining technologies for assessing a wide range of learners' productions and for supporting teachers in several ways. ReaderBench offers three main functionalities in analyzing texts: cohesionbased assessment, reading strategies identification, and textual complexity evaluation. All of these have been object to empirical validations. ReaderBench may be used during an entire educational scenario, starting from the initial complexity assessment of the reading materials, the assignment of texts to learners, the detection of reading strategies reflected in one's self-explanations, and comprehension evaluation fostering learner's self-regulation process.

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The broad use of computer-supported collaborative-learning (CSCL) environments (e.g., instant messenger-chats, forums, blogs in online communities, and massive open online courses) calls for automated tools to support tutors in the time-consuming process of analyzing collaborative conversations. In this article, the authors propose and validate the cohesion network analysis (CNA) model, housed within the ReaderBench platform. CNA, grounded in theories of cohesion, dialogism, and polyphony, is similar to social network analysis (SNA), but it also considers text content and discourse structure and, uniquely, uses automated cohesion indices to generate the underlying discourse representation. Thus, CNA enhances the power of SNA by explicitly considering semantic cohesion while modeling interactions between participants. The primary purpose of this article is to describe CNA analysis and to provide a proof of concept, by using ten chat conversations in which multiple participants debated the advantages of CSCL technologies. Each participant's contributions were human-scored on the basis of their relevance in terms of covering the central concepts of the conversation. SNA metrics, applied to the CNA sociogram, were then used to assess the quality of each member's degree of participation. The results revealed that the CNA indices were strongly correlated to the human evaluations of the conversations. Furthermore, a stepwise regression analysis indicated that the CNA indices collectively predicted 54% of the variance in the human ratings of participation. The results provide promising support for the use of automated computational assessments of collaborative participation and of individuals' degrees of active involvement in CSCL environments.

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Dascalu, M., Trausan-Matu, S., McNamara, D.S., & Dessus, P. (2015). ReaderBench – Automated Evaluation of Collaboration based on Cohesion and Dialogism. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 10(4), 395–423. doi: 10.1007/s11412-015-9226-yAs Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) gains a broader usage, the need for automated tools capable of supporting tutors in the time-consuming process of analyzing conversations becomes more pressing. Moreover, collaboration, which presumes the intertwining of ideas or points of view among participants, is a central element of dialogue performed in CSCL environments. Therefore, starting from dialogism and a cohesion-based model of discourse, we propose and validate two computational models for assessing collaboration. The first model is based on a cohesion graph and can be perceived as a longitudinal analysis of the ongoing conversation, thus accounting for collaboration from a social knowledge-building perspective. In the second approach, collaboration is regarded from a dialogical perspective as the intertwining or synergy of voices pertaining to different speakers, therefore enabling a transversal analysis of subsequent discussion slices.This study is part of the RAGE project. The RAGE project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 644187. This publication reflects only the author's view. The European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains

International audienceComputer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) technologies play an increasing role simultaneously with the appearance of the Social Web. The polyphonic analysis method based on Bakhtin’s dialogical model reflects the multi-voiced nature of a CSCL conversation and the related learning processes. We propose the extension of the model and the previous applications of the polyphonic method to both collaborative CSCL chats and individual metacognitive essays performed by the same learners. The model allows a tight correlation between collaboration and textual complexity, all integrated in an implemented system, which uses Natural Language Processing techniques

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