The Pareto Principle in virtual communities of learning

In virtual learning communities, becomes evident the need to generate methods of analysing social networks to investigate participation and the exchange of knowledge. Big data, and more specifically educational data mining and learning analytics, allows deepening the study of the learning process in these virtual contexts. In this article, the objective is to analyse the applicability and the validity of the Pareto principle in the field of online education. This classical principle, also called the 20/80 rule, describes the causes and effects of certain variables and proportions. Its fulfilment has been demonstrated in very diverse fields. Based on reticular analysis for the detection of communication patterns and generation of knowledge in online learning communities, and using the Pareto Principle, the article studies the correlation between academic results and the exchange of knowledge. From a sample of 184 members of the university community (between students and teaching staff) and 1354 messages, the correspondence is established by analysing, on the one hand, the qualifications and, on the other hand, the participation and monitoring of the interactions produced in the communication spaces made available to students in the classroom. Some of the results obtained are summarized in the following points: • Difficulty in predicting grades obtained from classroom activity. • The Forum is shown as an essential element of activity in the classroom. • The reading of messages in the Forum is concentrated in the first days of the course activity. • Exists a relationship between the obtained qualification and the monitoring of classroom communication spaces. • High qualifications do not correspond to the level of participation. •Pareto Principle has been applied to learning communities.•The Forum is the space with the most significant number of reading messages.•Message reading is concentrated in a few days.•Exists a correlation between grades and interaction.•High qualifications don't depend only on the activity in the virtual classroom.