Course Space: The Observatory of Course Selection for Interdisciplinary Departments

Abstract

University departments designed for interdisciplinary fields such as social informatics inevitably have curricula covering broad disciplinary areas. Such curricula generally allow students to choose from a wide variety of electives. In this research, we developed a system that visualises selected courses by applying methodologies from the network sciences. The proposed system includes functionality supporting user visualisation as follows: (1) a filter-by-grade function that filters out nodes on student network graphs; (2) a visualisation of student attributes function that shows student attributes by colouring nodes on student network graphs; and (3) a cross-filter function that filters out nodes on two connected networks (student and course networks). We conducted an empirical study involving approximately 100 students majoring in social informatics, with visualisations analysed by curriculum designers. We found that student network visualisations indicate that the student major affects course selection and that clusters form in course network graphs, clearly illustrating course selection in an interdisciplinary curriculum.