PARQR: Augmenting the Piazza Online Forum to Better Support Degree Seeking Online Masters Students

Abstract

We introduce PARQR, a tool for online education forums that reduces duplicate posts by 40% in a degree seeking online masters program at a top university. Instead of performing a standard keyword search, PARQR monitors questions as students compose them and continuously suggests relevant posts. In testing, PARQR correctly recommends a relevant post, if one exists, 73.5% of the time. We discuss PARQR's design, initial experimental results comparing different semesters with and without PARQR, and interviews we conducted with teaching instructors regarding their experience with PARQR.