Restructuring Linear Discussions in Mind Maps by Crowdsourcing

Abstract

With the rapid growth of the Internet, mobile computing and e-learning, more and more communication is happening online. With a large number of participants in e.g. MOOCs, discussions in linear structures can quickly become complex. Drawbacks of linear discussions motivate our approach to structure such discussions in mind maps. To control the restructuring process, we have created a series of user tasks that can be executed with the help of crowdsourcing. A two-stage study supported the conception and evaluation of suitable tasks. In addition, the study assesses the tasks’ potential for crowdsourcing and whether users need to know the entire discussion to process the tasks. The results indicate that all tasks are suitable for a crowdsourced approach.