77,434 research outputs found
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Communication aspects of virtual learning environments: perspectives of early adopters
Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) are increasingly used in higher education to support communication and collaboration among students. However, there is little research into the effectiveness of VLE communication tools, and how they might be improved. This paper reports findings from interviews with teaching staff at UK universities who were early adopters of VLEs. The interviews revealed how these staff used VLE communication tools, what benefits and problems they experienced, and how VLEs might be improved to provide better support for collaborative learning
What is Usability? A Characterization based on ISO 9241-11 and ISO/IEC 25010
According to Brooke* "Usability does not exist in any absolute sense; it can
only be defined with reference to particular contexts." That is, one cannot
speak of usability without specifying what that particular usability is
characterized by. Driven by the feedback of a reviewer at an international
conference, I explore in which way one can precisely specify the kind of
usability they are investigating in a given setting. Finally, I come up with a
formalism that defines usability as a quintuple comprising the elements level
of usability metrics, product, users, goals and context of use. Providing
concrete values for these elements then constitutes the investigated type of
usability. The use of this formalism is demonstrated in two case studies.
* J. Brooke. SUS: A "quick and dirty" usability scale. In P. W. Jordan, B.
Thomas, B. A. Weerdmeester, and A. L. McClelland, editors, Usability Evaluation
in Industry. Taylor and Francis, 1996.Comment: Technical Report; Department of Computer Science, Technische
Universit\"at Chemnitz; also available from
https://www.tu-chemnitz.de/informatik/service/ib/2015.php.e
Do You Need a New Donor Management System? A Step-by-step Decision Making Workbook
Workbook provides guidance when considering a switch to a new donor management system. Worksheets and questionnaires help you assess your needs, compare them with what you have, and pinpoint the benefits and costs of migrating to a new system. Includes resources for more information
Interaction Design: Foundations, Experiments
Interaction Design: Foundations, Experiments is the result of a series of projects, experiments and curricula aimed at investigating the foundations of interaction design in particular and design research in general.
The first part of the book - Foundations - deals with foundational theoretical issues in interaction design. An analysis of two categorical mistakes -the empirical and interactive fallacies- forms a background to a discussion of interaction design as act design and of computational technology as material in design.
The second part of the book - Experiments - describes a range of design methods, programs and examples that have been used to probe foundational issues through systematic questioning of what is given. Based on experimental design work such as Slow Technology, Abstract Information Displays, Design for Sound Hiders, Zero Expression Fashion, and IT+Textiles, this section also explores how design experiments can play a central role when developing new design theory
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Human Factors and Innovation with Mobile Devices
Advancements in technology are a significant driving force in educational innovation, but a strong focus on technology means that human aspects and implications may not be given the attention they deserve. This chapter examines usability issues surrounding the use of mobile devices in learning. A key aim is to empower educators and learners to take control of personal devices and realise their potential in relation to teaching and learning. The background section reviews the development of usability studies and explores why mobile device usability presents specific new challenges. The impact of changing requirements in education, and new visions for ways of thinking and competences that learners should be acquiring, are also examined. Finally, the chapter provides a set of concepts that can inform conversations between educators and learners, mobile system engineers, developers, support staff, and others
Designing electronic collaborative learning environments
Electronic collaborative learning environments for learning and working are in vogue. Designers design them according to their own constructivist interpretations of what collaborative learning is and what it should achieve. Educators employ them with different educational approaches and in diverse situations to achieve different ends. Students use them, sometimes very enthusiastically, but often in a perfunctory way. Finally, researchers study them and—as is usually the case when apples and oranges are compared—find no conclusive evidence as to whether or not they work, where they do or do not work, when they do or do not work and, most importantly, why, they do or do not work. This contribution presents an affordance framework for such collaborative learning environments; an interaction design procedure for designing, developing, and implementing them; and an educational affordance approach to the use of tasks in those environments. It also presents the results of three projects dealing with these three issues
A Content-Analysis Approach for Exploring Usability Problems in a Collaborative Virtual Environment
As Virtual Reality (VR) products are becoming more widely available in the consumer market, improving the usability of these devices and environments is crucial. In this paper, we are going to introduce a framework for the usability evaluation of collaborative 3D virtual environments based on a large-scale usability study of a mixedmodality collaborative VR system. We first review previous literature about important usability issues related to collaborative 3D virtual environments, supplemented with our research in which we conducted 122 interviews after participants solved a collaborative virtual reality task. Then, building on the literature review and our results, we extend previous usability frameworks. We identified twelve different usability problems, and based on the causes of the problems, we grouped them into three main categories: VR environment-, device interaction-, and task-specific problems. The framework can be used to guide the usability evaluation of collaborative VR environments
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