Immediately after posting Evaluating Event Impact Through Social Media Follower Histories, With Possible Relevance to cMOOC Learning Analytics, I took the dog out for a walk to ponder the practicalities of constructing follower (or friend) acquisition charts for accounts with only a low number of followers, or friends, as might be the case for folk taking a MOOC or who have attended a particular event. One aim I had in mind was to probe the extent to which a MOOC may help developing social ties between folk taking a MOOC, whether MOOC participants know each other prior taking the MOOC, or whether they come to develop social links after taking the MOOC. Another aim was simply to see whether we could identify from changes in velocity or makeup of follower acquisition curves whether particular events led either to growth in follower numbers or community development between followers.

To recap…