iSchool: Needs and Usability Assessment

Engineering Pathway

2007-09-25T00:19:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone,

I have been talking with a few people about possibly working on the Engineering Pathways project. I was just wondering if anyone else in the class had any interest in working on this project? The more people the merrier... Thanks.

-Stefanie
slr@me.berkeley.edu

Engineering Pathway
Engineering Pathway is a major NSF-funded project of the UC and other organizations aimed at creating access to high-quality teaching and learning resources in engineering for both K-12 and university level education. More details about current plans and the possibilities for a 214 project will be posted. This is an opportunity to be involved in a real project with real-world effects. It's particularly appropriate for students with a background in engineering, but others are welcome as well. The plan is to put together a group of IS214 students to work on user needs and evaluation. There are likely to be 2 to 3 possible projects related to this:

A major thrust of the project right now is extending participation in engineering -- working with groups that are seeking to bring under-represented groups into engineering. This includes women and various specific minority groups, and people with disabilities. We may coordinate one or more of these projects with a group of students at another university, allowing for the possibility of experience in distance collaboration.
Last year's 214 project considered EP's use by faculty and students in universities and colleges. This year we will focus on teachers in K-12 education. Especially appropriate for students with a background in engineeering and/or in K-12 education, specifically math, science, and engineering.

coupons!!

2007-09-20T16:04:00.000-07:00

It’s interesting to consider how people save money. Do they clip coupons from magazines and newspapers? Do they seek out online promotions? How are the right coupons matched with the right people? Depending on the product, it might be the case that most users are willing to pay full retail to save the effort.

Presently, there exist websites (i.e. fatwallet.com, retailmenot.com, slickdeals.com, etc.) catered to solving this problem. However, they typically employ only a social ranking algorithm to bump up and down popular coupons and present them to the users, without each individual users’ preferences and interests in mind. I suspect it’d be more useful to instead create a personalized coupon listing for the user based on implicit and/or explicit user profiling techniques, and then using collaborative filtering for coupon recommendation.

Seva Foundation

2007-09-20T06:22:00.000-07:00

Seva Foundation Global Staff Information Networking Project

Background: Seva Foundation works in Southeast Asia, Africa, the Middle East, the United States, Mexico and Central America on health and development projects designed to combat poverty and injustice.

Seva has program offices and local staff in Nepal, Cambodia, Tibet, Guatemala, Mexico and program partners in India, Tanzania, Egypt and other countries. A main focus at the Seva Foundation is to build local staff and partner capacity to address health and development problems. One method for building capacity is to democratize the information sharing across Seva's staff and partner network. For several years, Seva staff has expressed a desire to communicate more regularly and share information over the internet, including program information, reports, photographs, draft publications, budgets, newsletters, grant proposals, etc. They would like to learn from each other’s programs and projects, lessons learned and new approaches to solving problems. In addition staff would like to provide feedback to each other on a regular basis, and work on joint projects, where a similar action research question is being explored in very different programs in two regional offices.
Students would be asked to research the following questions:
A) What are the specific technology and communications needs in each office and across the network? Which needs are common?

B) What are other international organizations doing to share information globally? What has and has not worked for them to date?

C) What are the available technologies that could allow Seva staff to network over the internet given local internet and infrastructure conditions? How can they share documents, photographs and write/talk to each other regularly?

D) What resources would be necessary to implement this project? What will it cost? Where might we apply for funding?

Project Description: Needs Assessment and recommendations for Seva’s international peer-to-peer community learning network.

Timeline: September-December 2007

Final Product: A well-developed proposal for an internet-based e-learning system along with a well-researched list of possible funders

Methods:

Interviews with Seva Foundation Staff in Berkeley regarding general needs and ideas
Creation of a needs assessment survey to be filled out by all Seva staff
Interviews with Seva Foundation consultants who have worked on technology in Seva’s global offices in the past.
Interaction with 8-10 global staff who will be present at global networking meetings at Seva (Oct 27^th – November 5th). Working with Seva Berkeley staff, students will present preliminary findings to Global staff based on survey. They may also conduct follow up interviews with Global staff as time permits.

*Contact Information

* Seva Foundation – www.seva.org - (510) 845-7382

Project Contacts – Julie Rinard (jrinard@seva.org) and Carrie Libeu (clibeu@seva.org)

Fun Project

2007-09-18T22:12:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in class today, I am currently not on a project team, but am looking to work on a project that is fun, lighthearted, yet serious... maybe something relating to a product or website such as the iphone, online dating, etc...

If anyone is interested in working on a project of this type or would like to brainstorm ideas, please contact me at: slr@me.berkeley.edu

Thanks!

Project Idea - UCWise (update)

2007-09-18T12:02:00.000-07:00

What's changing?
In meeting with one of the professors, Nate Titterton, currently using the system, I discovered that a new "UCWise 2" system is being designed right now. This system will hopefully replace the existing UCWise system within a year.

What does this mean?
This means the focus of the project will shift from simply suggesting improvements for the old system to a focus on building the new system to be better from the very start. This will probably involve review of the existing system to see what aspects are positive and should be maintained, but it also allows us to deviate widely from the existing design flaws as we help guide the design of the new system from the inception.

I am excited. This makes an interesting and tangible problem even more immediate and impactful.

If you are interested in working with the project, you can contact me at eomer@eecs

Emergency Situation Reports

2007-09-17T14:57:00.000-07:00

Elisa Oreglia and I are developing a project within the ISD Clinic class to research the use and effectiveness of situation reports, or "sitreps," in humanitarian emergency response.

Context
A sitrep is a type of document, usually authored in Word, commonly used by humanitarian NGOs (non-governmental organizations). It aims to give a concise and accurate account of the situation on the ground in a developing emergency situation. Recent research (and personal experience) indicates that these documents can be difficult to work with, poorly suited for information sharing within or across organizations, and even ineffective at their primary goal of delivering vital, timely information to decision-makers.

Project Description
The SitRep Project aims to document and analyze the current procedures and processes associated with the creation, distribution, and use of emergency sitreps, ideally within 3-5 NGOs involved in emergency response. The initial goal is to identify problems and opportunities in the current process, the format of the information being collected, and the systems used to collect and analyze that data.

You can see some more information about the project, along with some of the background research, at our wiki: http://sitrepwiki.nickrabinowitz.com

We're envisioning this research as a year-long project, so the portion covered within the first semester is likely to include developing a research plan and conducting initial user research.

If you're interested, let me know, either by comment or by email: nrabinow@ischool.berkeley.edu

Phoebe A Hearst Museum of Anthropology

2007-09-13T13:43:00.000-07:00

A group of iSchool students did a final project last spring called Delphi aimed at developing a web-based browser for access to the Hearst Museum's collection and improving the collection's visibility. A member of last year's project team who took 214 suggested that continuing this work would make a good 214 project. The museum staff is enthusiastic about continuing this project; they have been working on web-based access as a high priority. We will consult further with them about what they need and what's possible.

This was a really great project, and I'd love to help further it. If your interest is piqued, please leave a comment here or email me: alana@ischool.berkeley....

Project Idea - UCWise

2007-09-12T20:17:00.000-07:00

What is UCWISE?
UCWise is a teaching system used in introductory level computer science classes. It is a web-based, interactive, collaborative teaching and grading system. Specifically, it is a system developed at UC Berkeley employing the preexisting WISE (web-based inquiry science environment) system.

Current Project Space
Student side
A couple of usability experiments have been done on the student side of the system, and some improvements have been made based on the recommendations; however, there is still much that can be done to improve the student experience. One advantage to this project space is that there is a large pool of potential participants readily accessible on campus. Additionally, there are large bodies of sample data and survey data that has been collected as part of the course reviews over multiple years of use. One disadvantage is that evaluation methods involving interviews with users will likely fall under university CPHS review.

Instructor Side
No usability evaluations have been conducted on the instructor side of the system. There is a relatively small set of users on that side - specifically three professors and a handful of teaching assistants and graders. Happily, the professors involved are specifically studying the educational merits of the system and will be exceptionally helpful in providing interviews and data to improve the system.

Interesting Aspects
Particularly interesting in this project space is that the professors in charge of the system are interested in migrating to a new solution sometime in the not-too-distant future, at least on the instructor side; hence, methods such as a competitor analysis would be extremely helpful to them.

Survey of commuters’ response to traveler information

2007-09-12T15:41:00.001-07:00

Survey of commuters’ response to traveler information

I'd like to conduct a survey to collect commuters’ general opinion regarding freeway information and control field elements. The survey will cover, in particular, commuter awareness, preferred channels, and perceptions of usefulness, information clarity, and accuracy.

(1) Changeable Message Signs (CMS, fixed or portable) - These display travel times and/or incident information

(2) 511 System - Traveler information

(3) Ramp Metering

--The scope of the survey could (and probably should) be narrowed down to just one of these three elements.--

I'd like these surveys to provide a basic assessment of the benefits and effectiveness of various ITS (Intelligent Transportation Systems) information and control field elements from commuters’ perspective, and also to compare and contrast the benefits of those field elements to commuters.

*An operation assessment of current practice and gaps has already been completed.

*A review of best practices and literature should be complete in the next week or so.

*The results of this survey will be part of a model and final report that will be created by CCIT staff the project moves along.

We have data from a previous survey with a very similar objective that we could analyze (both the survey and the results).

This project is new, so it doesn't have a web page description yet, but this link will take you to the CCIT current project site, where you can get an idea of what going on.
http://www.calccit.org/projects/current.html

Please let me know if you are interested in working on this. Also, please let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks!

Virginia

Suggested project ideas

2007-09-11T15:14:00.000-07:00

Please add your comments underneath each post if you are interested in participating in a project. Once we figure out who is interested, Nancy and I will arrange initial meetings with the project contacts.

WebAccess

2007-09-11T15:10:00.000-07:00

WebAccess is meeting each Friday morning in September, from 8:30 - 10
in 2195 Hearst, Room 200C. We will be working with the CalMail Team
on September 7, the College of Engineering on September 14, and
Career Compass from Human Resources (mapping all staff positions to
new descriptions) on September 28. On September 21, we'll be
reviewing the proposed e-Accessibility policy and guidelines for all
the UCs (see http://www.ucop.edu/irc/itaccessibility/welcome.html,
under "Policy Initiatives") that Shel Waggener, our Berkeley CIO, has
been instrumental in forming. Your students are more than welcome to
come. They just need to let Lucy and Caroline know beforehand. We
review sites by running them through Lucy's screen reader and use
that analysis to make suggestions to improve sites from a
low-vision/blind/color-deficiency perspective and also as a portal to
discuss ways to improve the site from the perspective of other
disabilities, e.g., repetitive stress injuries/motor skills,
cognitive and learning disabilities.

Open Knowledge and the Public Interest (OKAPI)

2007-09-11T15:09:00.000-07:00

Open Knowledge and the Public Interest (OKAPI) is a new UC Berkeley program sponsored by the Chief Information Officer. The mission of Open Knowledge and the Public Interest (OKAPI) is to promote public access to UC Berkeley's research knowledge, educational resources, and community of scholars. We are looking for a graduate student to assist in strategic planning for this program.

This can be a paid (50% time plus fee remission, salary depends on experience) or unpaid (class units) graduate research position and we will gladly accommodate related class requirements and research interests. This position starts ASAP (early September) and ends on December 20, 2007, coinciding with the Fall 2007 semester.

The OKAPI Program Developer will

· Survey potential stakeholders (email questionnaires and follow-up analysis), including campus partners, organizations, and end users, to clarify needs/opportunities and obtain feedback on strategy,

· Conduct literature review to identify key issues facing field,

· Conduct competition analysis, summarizing what our colleagues are doing and how we fit in,

· Research and describe funding opportunities, and

· Package above info into a report to share with program leaders, potential partners and funders.

Applicants should have

· Background and strong interest in open content, technology and/or education,

· Experience developing business and/or project planning documents,

· Excellent oral and written communications skills,

· Strong research and analytical skills, and

· Relevant coursework and/or work experience.

We have a strong preference for students in School of Information, Management of Technology program, or other relevant UC Berkeley graduate program.

To apply for this position, please send cover letter and resume to OKAPI Program Manager Noah Wittman ( wittman@berkeley.edu). Please feel free to contact Noah for questions or more information.

RFID study

2007-09-11T15:07:00.000-07:00

Currently, there is a lack of research documenting how laypeople understand how RFID functions and its risk. Makela et. al. (http://portal.acm.org/ft_gateway.cfm?id=1240774&type=pdf) performed an exploration using an RF-enabled cell phone prototype to determine if everyday users could decipher how to use a cell phone reader to extract information from tags embedded in paper posters. They found that users appeared to lack mental models of how RFID worked, and thus struggled with the simple task of using the reader to activate the tag.

As the usage of RFID in consumer products increases every year, RFID will move from being an industrial supply chain technology to becoming ubiquitous, something that most people will encounter in some form every day. While many RFID applications will involve little personal risk to users, others will pose some degree of risk because they increase the user's exposure to privacy or security threats such as location tracking, identity theft, and others. Some of these risks will derive from a lack of proper application security, and others will generate from the amount of information output by RFID tags and readers that will later aggregated and used by other parties. In a world where RFID is ubiquitous, it is important that individual users have a basic understanding how RFID works, the risks it poses, and how to either minimize those risks or opt out of these systems entirely, if desired. With this knowledge, individuals will retain the agency to make personal choices as to how much risk they wish they are willing to accept in trade for the benefits they believe RFID-enabled products provide them. (cite articles about tech & public education, and risk assessment & personal decision-making)

In order to investigate current popular understandings of RFID and its risks, we propose examining a real-world application of RFID currently in the hands of many American citizens: the e-Passport. The e-Passport was first released to the public in early 2007, and due to the requirements of Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, a record number of US citizens have applied for passports in the past year. We intend to recruit a diverse set of e-Passport holders and assess the their general understanding of and attitudes about RFID, and evaluate their understanding of the intent and use of the e-Passport and its risks. Our goal is to contribute to general research about user understandings of RFID and its risks, as well as present design implications for future RFID projects that focus on user identification or contain personally identifiable information that is subject to privacy and security risks.

Climate project

2007-09-11T15:04:00.000-07:00

President Clinton launched the Clinton Foundation’s Climate Initiative (CCI) in August 2006 with the mission of applying the Foundation’s business-oriented approach to the fight against climate change in practical, measurable and significant ways. In its first phase, CCI is working with the C40 Large Cities Climate Leadership Group, an association of large cities dedicated to tackling climate change—to develop and implement a range of actions that will accelerate greenhouse gas emissions reductions.

CCI is creating a purchasing consortium to lower the price of energy saving products and mobilizing experts from around the world to provide technical assistance in developing greenhouse gas emission reduction projects. In addition, CCI seeks to create and deploy common measurement and information flow tools that will allow cities to establish a baseline on their greenhouse gas emissions, track the effectiveness of their emissions reduction programs, and share what works and does not work with each other. Greenhouse gas emissions inventories will inform where and how cities direct their mitigation activities. Common measurement systems also will allow cities to relate the emissions reductions, energy savings, cost savings, and other cobenefits of projects in foreign cities to expected benefits in their own local contexts. Our online information network will include real-time mechanisms for technical experts and policymakers in different cities to access data and to engage one another in dialogue about best practices.

The Climate Project is an online suite of websites to be developed over the next three years in partnership with Microsoft, ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability, and the Center for Neighborhood Technology using the knowledge base that ICLEI has acquired in developing its online Harmonized Emissions Analysis Tool (HEAT) and the desktop Clean Air and Climate Protection Software. The Climate Project is being built from the ground up, will be deployed into cities around the world, and will become the international standard for cities in their climate change accounting, mitigation, and communication efforts.

The online application will enable cities to do the following:
· Implement a common measurement system for emissions reductions
· Perform analyses of potential projects and estimate their effect on reducing emissions
· Generate structured and custom reports for users based on inventory and measures data
· Access data from around the world and engage other cities in dialogue about best practices in real time.

The Climate Project is developing the software iteratively and is planning up to three test cycles with a small number of cities this fall. Cities completed a first user survey this summer. The user tests are not yet fully structured and so this is an opportune time for a team of usability assessment students to get involved.

We'll see

2007-08-16T09:19:00.000-07:00

We've tried several different methods of maintaining communication within a class -- this is another experiment, to see if this will be useful.

Welcome to i214

2007-08-15T22:55:00.000-07:00

During the semester, we will be experimenting with posting links and updates to the class blog. Check back as the semester continues for updates.