Seeing Clearly: Telescope Assembly Instruction Redesign

The ME telescopes are over 60 lb mounts that must be secured to permanent piers that have been cemented onto the roof of COAS. The astronomy students have to learn to assemble these telescopes during their labs each semester. We have been working in tandem with the astronomy department to simplify their assembly manuals for the ME, Mx, and Mx+ telescopes. Feedback from ERAU students indicated that they were struggling to clearly understand the assembly process and reported the current instruction set to be cumbersome to use. Through a review of human factors and educational literature, a set of best practices was developed to create a template for a new instruction set that breaks down each step and pairs it with two images per page. The language was simplified into bulleted direct command statements rather than paragraphs. Once the ME manual was completed, we ran a pilot study where two teaching assistants and a professor walked through the manual during assembly. Currently we are making the necessary changes based on the pilot. The next steps will be to conduct a full usability study with naïve students and to apply the template to the other telescope models

Redesigning for Efficiency: Adding a Homepage to Canvas Courses

With the increase in online learning, learning management systems (LMS) such as Canvas are increasing in importance for disseminating information from professors to students. An initial focus group was conducted to assess students’ perceptions of their current Canvas course organization. Results indicate that students report a lack of consistency and clear organization, which leads to significant time searching for information and frustration. In an effort to help students create a clear mental model of a Canvas course, we developed a template homepage that contains a main navigation menu including an FAQ, Course Resources, Start Here, Grades, and Syllabus link. The homepage also includes a course overview schedule made with links to individual modules and assignment due dates. We are currently evaluating the new design in terms of efficiency and student perceptions. Our hypothesis is that the homepage design will help students get to the information they want faster and provide a better overview of the course than the traditional home page design