BoF Help Files & Documentation

12 members in attendence. (Rita Povolka (Indiana University) is also a contact who could not be at the conference.)

IU repository including data about docs resides on a server @ IU. The Sakai KB has been exported & formatted as static Help pages as we know it. KB@iu.edu. IU have a DB of their own. Context sensitive help menus can be developed.

The docs come as a weird combo of needs. We really need two types of docs: "how do I?" & "why do I?" Rutgers includes a "what's this" link for select new features.

There exists a need to have a template that is wiki-like that we can create a tool description that still allows for user & community contribution. Warnings, pedagogy, user feedback, analytics, collection & reporting (JIRA?) should be included. Consider the variety of medium. A review and update system to existing content.

Look into the End-User Confluence page & the BoF, too, for more information.

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Amber D. Evans

Strategy to Support Users: Custom Docs & Help

Mathieu Plourde
Univ of Del. Running Sakai & WebCT.

Workflow
Users call center. Ticket created in Remedy & sent to LMS team. Frequent requests sent to Tech Writer to create/update documentation.

Types of Content

• Help files
• Support Videos
• Pedagogy

Help files on another server so only it needs to be reset & not the whole Sakai instance. (Aside: Brilliant!) Areas for full docs, a tech writer on staff, and plethora of videos. Pedagogy area included, too. FAQ also created (VT has the KB at http://answers.vt.edu/).

Karen Campbell (Rutgers)
50,000 users. Very small staff. Users & docs are as self-reliant as possible. Although not pedagogy focused, they are in need of some teaching or tool use for teaching.

FAQ provides basic help. Tool groupings help them decide which communication tools to use. Within Help, there are giant buttons they cannot miss; there is a tools overview page. Additional instructional tips are provided alongside.

Updates are done throughout the year w/all fixes often, but an overhaul happens w/each upgrade. Docs Coordinator (her) proofs docs & manages check in/out. Long-term goals include more videos, examples, & pedagogical content. Example sites is a challenge but desired. It would be nice to have ways to track use and helpfulness (analytics); it really is necessary, but currently missing.

Finding the student resources for employment isn't too hard b/c every student can have a site of their own and they have same or similar knowledge of creation tasks.

Indiana University
Portal page of OnCourse shows a Getting Started, Training for Faculty & Students, Enhancement Process ... And Help.

The Help tool is a little different than normal Sakai help. The pages are in XML and can be collated in any order or collection, but for consistency it appears as any other static page. 500 pages are OnCourse related in the repository & undergoes updates easily & effectively.

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Amber D. Evans

Motivating Non-Sci. Students Using Sakai-based Strategies.

Lafuze & Newbrough
The science of the brain and addiction can be very difficult to understand due to the complex concepts & language. Her goal was to share the science concepts of brains & addictions, but in a way that would be non-threatening. This course has been taught online for the lst 10 years averaging between 30-50 students per course.

Placement of the mainly used tools is placed within the site info area. (This is similar to VT practice where we encourage faculty to use that space to provide a "roadmap" to students, letting them know what tools & when they wil be used.) She provides a link from that main page to a recorded message directed at the students, introducing them to the content, context, and the important people of the course.

She has "the Holodeck" which is the Forums tool, but creatively designed in a way to allow students to interact with historical people (e.g., Marie Curie). (Aside: Man, this instructor completely rocks! She has a Star Trek "What is the Holodeck" video, complete w/short clips from the classic 60's series & everything!) Within the Forums, she invites her students to engage with each other & discussions within based on topics. Guests also partake bringing knowledge of chemistry & chemistry & biology

-- I apologize for typos or errors. This was sent from my mobile phone. -- Amber D. Evans

Thur. Keynote TWSIA Winner

TWSIA Winner: Andrea
Using constructivism, she provided guided instruction through their learning of forensic science across great distances. Providing them with defined temporary roles allowed them to experience different situations & the requisite decision-making skills both individually & as a team. The necessary interactions also allowed students the flexibility to choose how they would communicate, as long as it was within Interact (Sakai). This allowed her to "peek" in and observe their process and progress.

An Evalution Rubric was used to assess both the student work & the quality of the course. The "surprise" by many of the stuents themselves was how willing & enthusiastic they each were to share their specific knowledge & skills w/group members, creating a true community within.

TWSIA Winner: Edith Sheffer
Edith's live, face-to-face course focused on interactions, having her students workly closely & intensely with European history & Sakai providing the platform.

Capitalizing on the wiki, students kept and created wiki pages for their own "historical avatar." each student drew an identity at random; to whom they were born and where. All were born in 1900, but life circumstances were different. Students then had to construct a childhood. Based on the history lectures in class, they had to discuss their avatar's life choices.

This open platform inspired authorship, imagination, curiosity, and understanding. Students averaged 1121 words per post = 4.5 pages every week for 9 weeks ON THEIR OWN. They went beyond basic research. They became attached to their avatar, too. They built a life that required introspection, reflection, & evaluation to create lasting learning.

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Amber D. Evans

Eval. Testing Tools @ UI: Process & Results

This short 30-minute session highlighted the UI experience of trying to select an assessment tool replacement. There is a shared Google doc w/all the data comparison between types and functions between Mneme & Samigo held @ http://tinyurl.com/n249w8 & PDF @ http://tinyurl.com/nzthgn. Save yourself some time & check it out if you're also shoping around.

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Amber D. Evans

Sakai Boston '09 opens w/Vijay Kumar

A nice perk of the early registration to the 10th annual Sakai confrence in Boston this year was the inclusion of the book, Opening up Education. Keynote speaker for the conference, Vijay Kumar, opened his speech with reminders of the growth of and the emerging embracement of open education initatives not only in higher ed, but also in K-12. This is developing a new breed of educators and learners. Addressing and communicating with these potential audiences requires us to consider the Value Potential (think Rogers' benefits consideration) and their Readiness (how can these impact education & how can we align education priorities with the open ed initiative)?

Kumar showed slides voicing speaking users' experience with the use of open ed, Proessor Richard Hall commented on the high quality of OCW material; Kunte Adejumo, a student, complimented the ease of accesibility and supplemental learning opportunity. Carnegie Mellon's OLI has led & provided a framework for others to quickly build open learning online courses. Consider the implications of this kind of technology & education adoption for countries like India ...

The open vision included elements of focusing on Blended Learning & Boundary-less Education. Focus on LIFELONG learning, not just "schooling." Consider remote control of hardware & experience as seen in MIT's iLabs, Queensland, DUT (China), and others in the iLabs Consortium. Access to expensive labs & materials would dramatically alter economic-based education and create a larger community. It allows faculty to establish their own understanding of what should be taught (as relevant a priori to their course) and what is taught. An instructor can point students to OCW and know her students will have the requisite knowledge needed before she gets too far underway. (Side note: One of the "coolest" tools in all of this was the Spoken Lecture Browser. Check it out.)

Issues & Barriers to Adoption
Where does one find content? Once content is found, is it truly relevant and/or appropriate? How does one order and make sense of the materials & knowledge within the provided OCW? Standards can certainly help, but the most profound changes come elsewhere. Vijay makes the case for addressing the Organizational Cultural factors: Scarcity vs. Abundance, Sense-making (digital disorder & pedagogy), Accountability & Accreditation.

Kumar closes with the quote from Charles M. Vest, "We are seeing the emergence of a meta-university ..." and "If we don't see you in the future, we'll see you in the pasture."

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Amber D. Evans