Principles in Patterns (PiP) : User Acceptance Testing of Course and Class Approval Online Pilot (C-CAP)

The PiP Evaluation Plan documents four distinct evaluative strands, the first of which entails an evaluation of the PiP system pilot (WP7:37 – Systems & tool evaluation). Phase 1 of this evaluative strand focused on the heuristic evaluation of the PiP Course and Class Approval Online Pilot system (C-CAP) and was completed in December 2011. Phase 2 of the evaluation is broadly concerned with "user acceptance testing". This entails exploring the extent to which C-CAP functionality meets users' expectations within specific curriculum design tasks, as well as eliciting data on C-CAP's overall usability and its ability to support academics in improving the quality of curricula. The general evaluative approach adopted therefore employs a combination of standard Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) approaches and specially designed data collection instruments, including protocol analysis, stimulated recall and pre- and post-test questionnaire instruments. This brief report summarises the methodology deployed, presents the results of the evaluation and discusses their implications for the further development of C-CAP

Comparison of Moodle and ATutor LMSs

E-learning is a technology that plays an important role in modern education and training. Its great importance lies in the fact that it makes learning content readily available at any place at any time. This paper examines and evaluates two of current systems Moodle and ATutor. The main aim of this paper is to identify the aspects of theese LMS systems, examine their functional features, modules, standards, hardware and software requirements, and compare them

Web Processing Services for Forestry and Environmental Applications

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.Nowadays spatial processing on the web is becoming a requirement for more and more web applications. The use of processes helps to find solutions to a wide range of spatial problems and extends the common functionality of Web GIS. There are many open source technologies that can be implemented in each component of a Web GIS application. Forestry and environmental problems, with their strong territorial implications, are especially suitable to be analyzed applying these technologies. In order to create an application with spatial processes, we propose a framework with a layered service-based architecture. It is layered because its structure is divided in a set of functional layers: the user layer (geoportal or client), the service layer (inside the server) and the data layer (spatial database). The access and processing of spatial data is accomplished through adequate service standards of OGC (Open Geospatial Consortium): Web Map Services (WMS), Web Feature Services (WFS), Web Coverage Services (WCS) and Web Processing Services (WPS). We implement a complete forestry – related application from scratch that offers access, visualization, querying and processing of spatial data and an active user interaction. The key of the application is WPS. Additionally, other processing solutions (like making queries with the spatial database) are discussed. In brief, this work presents an overview of the current technology and possible solutions for integrating spatial processes on the web and proposes some guidelines to implement them in a fully working system

An Experimental Study Exploring the Influence of Different Representation of Requirements on Idea Generation

This research aims to understand the influence of different representations of requirements on idea generation concerning the quantity, addressment, sketch detail, novelty, and variety of conceptual sketches. To solve design problems, engineers use the needs, desires, and wishes of stakeholders. The requirements document the targets of a project because it contains constraints and design criteria. Also, requirements can be used to track project progress. In essence, specifications are the raison d\u27être of any engineering project. While there is research studying the effect of requirements on the conceptual sketch, little study has focused on the impact of different requirement representations (contextual) on solution development. An experimental study was conducted with 52 undergraduate mechanical engineering students in their fourth year. Two design problems were formulated with three different representations: a problem statement with embedded requirements (Problem Statement), a problem statement and a traditional requirement list (Traditional), and a problem statement with contextualized scrum stories (Contextual). For each design problem, each student received different representations of requirements. They were given 15 minutes each to read and sketch concept solutions. These were then analyzed using quantity, addressment, sketch detail, novelty, and variety. It was found that the use of contextualized scrum story representations had a statistically significant impact on the conceptual sketch in terms of novelty of solution fragments and requirements addressed. Further, there was no significant change in variety, sketch detail, or quantity. The contextualized representation did positively affect all metrics but the sketch detail. Another finding was that there was no relationship between the amount of sketch generated (quantity) and addressment, novelty, variety, or sketch detail. Therefore, it is recommended that requirements be molded as scrum stories in projects. Also, this study has shown that implementation of the agile process in hardware development is not hindered by the contextual representation of requirements