Virtual
Communities of
Learning and Care
Data Mining
Research Overview
 Virtual Communities of Learning and Care
(VCLC) project
 Virtual environments to promote positive youth
development
 Enable users to become active creators of
computational projects and participants in
virtual communities
 Complement and augment face-to-face
psychoeducational programs for children and
teenagers
Zora City
Stored Data
 Conversations
 Objects
 Houses
 Values (Definitions)
 Messages
 Profiles
How do we analysis so much data?
Lines of Chat per User
Objects per User
 The users who
create many objects
are not necessarily
the users who chat
the most
 Some use it more to
build, others use it
more to network
socially
Lines of Chat vs. Objects
Lines of Chat vs. Objects
(cont)
Zora Lines of Chat vs. Objects
1200
1000
Objects
800
600
y = -0.0037x
2
+ 3.2174x + 179.1
400
200
0
0
20
40
60
80
Lines of Chat
100
120
140
160
Data Clustering
 Technique for grouping objects based on
similarity
 The data in each cluster share a common
trait
 Apply statistical analysis on clusters
based on distance, size, etc.
So what?
 Use clustering for
standard social
networking analysis,
degrees of separation
 Innovative techniques
using conversation
topics, object types,
etc.
Implications
 Virtual communities as a source of
positive youth development
 Ability to more objectively measure
development and social interactions
between citizens in the virtual community
 Application of computer science
techniques to the Child Development
field