What they say

After a sample campus wide survey it's clear that instructors have some things to say about iLearn - good and bad - most agree that it is a much needed tool, but that it is a frustrating one at that. That features are counter intuitive, "buggy" and overall frustrating are reoccuring commentary from faculty members. Out of 28 surveyed instructor participants, half use iLearn every day. Every surveyed iLearn-using faculty member distributes course material (I'm stating the obvious here). Next semester uploading and "maintaining" course material will be a much easier process, as files will be stored per user/ or through the DIVA database rather than getting dropped per unique course. Aside from obvious UI issues, one module that is high in demand evident per wishlist and restated per survey is the Attendence feature (an activity module that is being needs assessed by the iLearn Team). Development of existing solution (from external contributing Moodle developer) is also in the works if I understand things correctly. It's still a very buggy module looking at comments from current users. While developers are working out technical issues, I thought I'd redevelop an intuitive, customizable interface for such a module. And at least in theory, it'd work just fine.

Final P + P & Hypothesis 1

Instructors find it difficult to design courses on iLearn as a result of the current interface. The purpose of this study was to identify deficiencies and provide recommendations to facilitate better use.

If instructors are provided with easy to use features, more courses could be managed online. If user experience design becomes an integral part of the development process, the Learning Management System would eventually be utilized to its potential by professors, instructors and students.

User testing

Basic usability test: Give the user a task, then observe the first thing a user does. Observe the steps taken to complete the task. How easy and straightforward was it for the user? How many errors did the user make? What are the user's expectations? How satisfied is the user at the end -- did it meet user's needs? Usability is important; if it's not intuitive and logical, if there are too many steps and too many deficiencies, the user will likely give up and leave.

Usability Surveys

Surveys are not the best form of measurement when it comes to usability -- they do not measure the true nature of human interaction. But surveys do complement user observations and generally measure frequency, satisfaction and anticipation of future needs. "Surveys are notoriously ineffective for generatin new ideas and approaches" - The Role of Online Surveys in the Usability Assessment Process

Microsoft plugins to Moodle

Microsoft's Live@edu announced their collaborative efforts with Moodle today. New plugins are made available: shared workspaces, storage, instant messaging, calendar, search and email. Live@edu is a free education portal that also may function as a freestanding LMS (Learning Management System). Nice to see Microsoft finally embracing such a thing as open source web development.

Panel of experts

Kevin Kelly; online teaching and learning coordinator, Cristian Alvarado; Technology Consultant & Angie Portacio; graphic and web designer, all at Academic Tech., SF State

Joshua Singer -- SF State DAI Faculty & Assistant Professor -- Graphic Designer and UED extraordinaire

PERT Chart

* PERT chart modeled off time-line.. ehem no comment.