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Collaborative learning tools play important roles in communications and knowledge building, among learners in a virtual learning environment. They demand appropriate grouping algorithms as well as facilitating learners’ participations mechanisms. This paper has utilized some information retrieval techniquesto investigate the relevance of discussion posts to their containing forums, and extract learners’ most frequent topics. Trying to explore students online interactions, researchers have applied social network analysis, which has led to a new representation of social networking. They have proposed a new grouping algorithm based on the provided representation of social relationships. The mentioned approaches have been evaluated in some academic courses in Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and ELearning Center, University of Tehran. The results have revealed some considerable improvements in comparison to the traditional approaches. Research outcomes may help tutors to create and guide groups of learners more effectively.

Keywords: Web-based learning, ELearning, collaborative learning, forums, grouping algorithms, social network, social relationships

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