Comments on: UNC's Sakai Evaluation Results http://mfeldstein.com/uncs-sakai-evaluation-results/ What We Are Learning About Online Learning...Online Fri, 18 May 2012 06:39:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Bruce http://mfeldstein.com/uncs-sakai-evaluation-results/#comment-1587 Bruce Wed, 26 May 2010 19:58:37 +0000 http://mfeldstein.com/?p=1166#comment-1587 Thanks Nate, Michael. On the "usability is in the eye of the beholder" point, I came across a quite nice discussion of this over at the Moodle site ... http://docs.moodle.org/en/Usability ... in particular the "Avoid the word "intuitive"" section. Thanks Nate, Michael.

On the “usability is in the eye of the beholder” point, I came across a quite nice discussion of this over at the Moodle site …

http://docs.moodle.org/en/Usability

… in particular the “Avoid the word “intuitive”" section.

]]> By: Michael Feldstein http://mfeldstein.com/uncs-sakai-evaluation-results/#comment-1586 Michael Feldstein Wed, 26 May 2010 19:42:32 +0000 http://mfeldstein.com/?p=1166#comment-1586 Nate is right; there's just been a lot of concerted effort on this over time. I would add that the Sakai community does have an unusually rich talent pool of usability experts. Two of the Foundation Board members---past board member Mara Hancock from UC Berkeley and current board member Jutta Treveranus from University of Toronto---run usability teams at their respective schools and have brought resources in to help improve the system. Going forward, the Sakai 3 effort is *very* usability-focused. Keep in mind, though, that usability means different things to different people. For faculty that are used to one platform, usability means anything that works like what they already know. But that's a poor measure. You want to know (a) how easy is it for new users to learn from scratch, and (b) once you know how to use it, how many clicks do you need to make for common tasks? How hard is it to make a major mistake (like delete your entire course, for example)? And so on. Nate is right; there’s just been a lot of concerted effort on this over time.

I would add that the Sakai community does have an unusually rich talent pool of usability experts. Two of the Foundation Board members—past board member Mara Hancock from UC Berkeley and current board member Jutta Treveranus from University of Toronto—run usability teams at their respective schools and have brought resources in to help improve the system. Going forward, the Sakai 3 effort is *very* usability-focused.

Keep in mind, though, that usability means different things to different people. For faculty that are used to one platform, usability means anything that works like what they already know. But that’s a poor measure. You want to know (a) how easy is it for new users to learn from scratch, and (b) once you know how to use it, how many clicks do you need to make for common tasks? How hard is it to make a major mistake (like delete your entire course, for example)? And so on.

]]> By: Nate Angell http://mfeldstein.com/uncs-sakai-evaluation-results/#comment-1585 Nate Angell Wed, 26 May 2010 19:29:08 +0000 http://mfeldstein.com/?p=1166#comment-1585 Bruce: Briefly, I think Sakai 2 usability has improved substantially due to the maturity of the product—once basic functionality was achieved and Sakai started to be used deeply and widely, more resources were turned to usability, finding solutions based on real user experience. The year-old Sakai development process and Product Council were also formed to provide more formal frameworks and stewardship for Sakai, with usability being one of the goals. http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/MGT/How+Sakai+Development+Works http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/MGT/Sakai+Product+Council As for Sakai 3, one benefit for usability is that the project as a whole is following a more user-centered design approach unlike the more classic developer/ment-led design of Sakai 2. The following links may give you some insight to the activities underway: You might find the work of the 3akai UX group interesting: http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/3AK/Sakai+3+Home As well as the work of the Sakai Teaching & Learning Working Group around Sakai 3 Learning Capabilities: http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/3AK/Teaching+and+Learning+Capabilities http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=21954623 When it comes to formal Sakai 3 user testing, you can see some documentation here: http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/3AK/Sakai+3+User+Testing Bruce: Briefly, I think Sakai 2 usability has improved substantially
due to the maturity of the product—once basic functionality was
achieved and Sakai started to be used deeply and widely, more
resources were turned to usability, finding solutions based on real
user experience. The year-old Sakai development process and Product
Council were also formed to provide more formal frameworks and
stewardship for Sakai, with usability being one of the goals.
http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/MGT/How+Sakai+Development+Works
http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/MGT/Sakai+Product+Council

As for Sakai 3, one benefit for usability is that the project as a
whole is following a more user-centered design approach unlike the
more classic developer/ment-led design of Sakai 2. The following links
may give you some insight to the activities underway:

You might find the work of the 3akai UX group interesting:
http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/3AK/Sakai+3+Home

As well as the work of the Sakai Teaching & Learning Working Group
around Sakai 3 Learning Capabilities:
http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/3AK/Teaching+and+Learning+Capabilities
http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=21954623

When it comes to formal Sakai 3 user testing, you can see some
documentation here:
http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/3AK/Sakai+3+User+Testing

]]> By: Bruce http://mfeldstein.com/uncs-sakai-evaluation-results/#comment-1584 Bruce Wed, 26 May 2010 14:38:41 +0000 http://mfeldstein.com/?p=1166#comment-1584 On the usability question, this indeed is crucial. Do you have any opinions about why Sakai's usability has improved? Is there something in particular the community has done in terms of process or structure to address this? Also, am I correct that formal usability testing is a part of the Sakai 3 process? On the usability question, this indeed is crucial. Do you have any opinions about why Sakai’s usability has improved? Is there something in particular the community has done in terms of process or structure to address this?

Also, am I correct that formal usability testing is a part of the Sakai 3 process?

]]> By: Academic Study of Blackboard vs. Sakai at UNC School of Medicine http://mfeldstein.com/uncs-sakai-evaluation-results/#comment-1583 Academic Study of Blackboard vs. Sakai at UNC School of Medicine Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:50:17 +0000 http://mfeldstein.com/?p=1166#comment-1583 [...] Since the entire UNC system is currently evaluating a move from Blackboard to Sakai (I wrote a post recently about their evaluation results to-date), it looks like the School of Medicine’s [...] [...] Since the entire UNC system is currently evaluating a move from Blackboard to Sakai (I wrote a post recently about their evaluation results to-date), it looks like the School of Medicine’s [...]

]]> By: Michael Korcuska http://mfeldstein.com/uncs-sakai-evaluation-results/#comment-1582 Michael Korcuska Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:30:20 +0000 http://mfeldstein.com/?p=1166#comment-1582 Good summary of an excellent summary of a thorough pilot. Lots of credit to the UNC Sakai team and especially Kim Eke. They've clearly done a great job. I'm sure this work will pay dividends in a smooth transition to Sakai (:-)). Good summary of an excellent summary of a thorough pilot. Lots of credit to the UNC Sakai team and especially Kim Eke. They’ve clearly done a great job. I’m sure this work will pay dividends in a smooth transition to Sakai (:-)).

]]> By: Nate Angell http://mfeldstein.com/uncs-sakai-evaluation-results/#comment-1581 Nate Angell Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:29:17 +0000 http://mfeldstein.com/?p=1166#comment-1581 I thought UNC's report was a valuable read as well, and showed how Sakai can perform well in a rigorous adoption process like UNC followed. The report also covered the value of using commercial vendor support for Sakai. The only thing missing from the report was mention of the specific Sakai commercial affiliate UNC used during its pilot evaluation phase. A hint is in the screenshot of UNC's Sakai instance in the report, which reveals it to be rSmart ;) The team at rSmart likes to think a significant part of the success of UNC's pilot can be attributed to our assistance with Sakai configuration, training, hosting and support. I don't post this just to toot rSmart's horn, but to make sure others looking at UNC's success with Sakai know all the ingredients that stood behind it. I thought UNC’s report was a valuable read as well, and showed how Sakai can perform well in a rigorous adoption process like UNC followed. The report also covered the value of using commercial vendor support for Sakai.

The only thing missing from the report was mention of the specific Sakai commercial affiliate UNC used during its pilot evaluation phase. A hint is in the screenshot of UNC’s Sakai instance in the report, which reveals it to be rSmart ;) The team at rSmart likes to think a significant part of the success of UNC’s pilot can be attributed to our assistance with Sakai configuration, training, hosting and support. I don’t post this just to toot rSmart’s horn, but to make sure others looking at UNC’s success with Sakai know all the ingredients that stood behind it.

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