Student CI Results Summary

This is a summary of contextual inquiries completed around content management.  We'll use participants initials in order to protect their privacy.

Persona Information

Berkeley Student #1

• Currently looking for internships - nothing particular, she'll take anything
• Sophmore, business intended.  She's applied to Haas business school and is waiting to find out if she gets in (Junior & Senior program)
• Lived in  San Diego previous to coming to school.  Her family is still there
• Spends a lot time with the ABA (Asian Business Association)
• Works at ETS in room 44 (equipment checkout)

Berkeley Student #2

Context of Work

Berkeley Student #1

• Works in multiple places, either in the Student Learning Center, her bedroom or Dwinelle 44 in a quiet corner (where she works for ETS)
• Has her won laptop that she doesn't always carry with her.  She carries a backpack with her "class folder" in it.
• Student Learning Center - on campus, lots of people, loud, hard to find a table, hard to find power plug-in, big windows.
  • She likes to meet friends there for lunch and study.  Normally a place to get tutored.  But it's open to all students and convenient for her.
  • Usually she is sitting alone since friends have different schedules
  • A place to get tutored (notice in pics the signs on the columns for tutor stop)
  • Carried backpack with folder for all classes
• Home in bedroom - she has a small desk and her bed.
  • She normally studies on her bed.
  • She'll have here "course folder" out plus any class notes and her ppt from lecture if there is one (note that if she gets the ppt ahead of class she prints in notes format and take notes in class directly on the ppt)
  • She also has stuffed animals all around her while studying
• When she studies she typically has text book & notes for class out.
• She typically types all her homework into the computer.
• Refers to syllabus often to see what's due, etc.
• Although she doesn't always have it on when she studies.  It can be so distracting because of IM

Computer Technology Use

Berkeley Student #1

• She uses Facebook & MySpace to stay in touch with friends
  • Social aspect is good and bad - she heard hiring companies are checking out the sites.
  • Can make things private which is nice.
• Shops on-line for convenience of not having to go to the store
  • Especially since there is free shipping now, and sometimes discounts for using it.
• Loves her Nokia 895
  • 5 pixel camera is better than her camera
  • spends 50% of her time on phone - mostly text messaging
  • she doesn't use to get on the internet much - says it's the keys and screen are too small.

What makes a good class / Instructor / GSI(TA)

Use Cases / Activities

Berkeley Student #1

• Print ppts ahead of lecture in notes format for taking notes in class.  Use the ppts to study for exams, etc.
• See class schedule at a glance
• See finals, exams & other due dates on a planner
• See syllabus in-line in LMS.  But also need to be able to print.
• Email instructor & TA (together & separately)
• Read email from instructor & TA
• Read announcement
• Instructor:  has students post discussion responses in word so she can print them and take them home to mark up.  Printable discussion?
• Discussion responses:  student turns in, instructor prints & grades with feedback (she likes to do this on hard copy), students takes feedback and revises, instructor regrades.

Pain Points / Opportunities

Berkeley Student #1

• Tried to use discussion (legacy discussion I think) in S & SE Asian class for weekly question responses for participation grade.  After students had difficulty & thought it was too difficult they switched to something else (Yee wasn't sure what it was)
• For one class [not sure which] students were supposed to post word docs for the instructor [we think they were supposed to be uploaded to dropbox but Yee wasn't sure - part of the problem].  The instructor wanted word so she could print them all out, take them home and mark them up.  Students couldn't figure out where to upload them because there were so many choices.  They ended up emailing attachments rather than using bSpace.
• Instructor & TA Office hours usually aren't as convenient times for her (she typically emails them instead -- instructor if small class & TA if large)
• TAs offer help but then aren't really available.  She needed help after not doing well on a midterm and couldn't get any help from TA.
• She gets a lot of email from bSpace because of notification.  She tends not even to read them because there are so many.
  • She didn't know about preferences so we showed her the daily digest option.
• Too many tabs.  She'd like to just see the tabs from current semester.  She never accesses previous semester courses [DO: this is probably different for higher level courses]
  • We showed her how to remove classes from her tabs.
• It's sometimes hard to find class websites.  She has to know a lot of different URLS.  Schedule.berkeley.edu usually links to them but not always, especially when it's a homegrown system.
• Particular complaints about bSpace:
  • No back button (in browser)
  • Irrelevant tabs displaying (previous semester's classes)
  • Hard to upload documents - "I couldn't figure out how to upload it because there were so many options" [DO:  this seems to be related to the idea that all her course sites are set up differently - different tools and different organization]
  • Too many similar things - assignments, resources, dropbox.  Basically she has trouble knowing what is/should be used for what activities.

Goals

Berkeley Student #1

• See her friends as much as possible
• Get into Haas business school

Time Wasters

Berkeley Student #1

Course & Schedule Management

Berkeley Student #1

Collaboration 

Berkeley Student #1

Communication 

Berkeley Student #1

Other