DESPRO: A method based on roles to provide collaboration analysis support adapted to the participants in CSCL situations

Collaboration analysis methods should be adapted to the needs of their users to be more effective. This paper presents DESPRO, a method that guides learning designers and teachers through the steps needed to provide support adapted to the participants in CSCL situations, based on a semi-automatic process of role detection. DESPRO is supported by a structured characterization of participatory roles defined by means of social network analysis metrics, and on a framework that guides the definition of the roles to be identified and supported. This paper describes the method and its application in a case study to identify and provide support to the roles played by the teacher and the students in a university course. The case study shows how the method defines a flexible approach to meet the desired goal of providing support adapted to the needs of different users (i.e., roles) in CSCL settings. •We propose DESPRO, a method for the semi-automatic adaptive support to roles.•We have defined taxonomy of participatory CSCL teachers' and students' roles.•We have characterized these roles as combinations of ranges of SNA indexes.•The method uses the characterization to identify roles' emergence in an activity.•We report the findings of a case study that served to validate DESPRO.