Luis Borges Gouveia, Feliz Gouveia, Nuno Fernandes

UX at UFPUV: Put people using Sakai for their context

Agenda

• The context• Initial setting• Activity• Current setting• The future

UFP location

• Portugal• in Europe...

UFP location

• Portugal• in Europe...

Established in24 june of 1128

UFP location

• Portugal• in Europe...• in south europe• near Spain

UFP location

• Portugal• in Europe...• in south europe• near Spain

• Porto• has near

1.2 million people

UFP location

• Porto is in the north of Portugal

• 2nd portuguese biggest economic center

• Also known from its FCP football team and Port wine

University Fernando Pessoa

• Small university – 5.000 students, 260 full-time academic staff,

140 supporting staff

• A young institution (started 1989/90, less than 20 years)

• Three faculties: – Health Sciences – Science and Technology – Social Sciences

• 20 undergraduate, and 30 graduate courses – (including bologna offers, MSc and PhD programs,

post-doctoral offers )

A bit of history

UFP e-learning initiative

UFPUV pilot project

UFPUV project

UFPUV

December 2004

June 2003

October 2005

Setember 2006

Choice of platform and technology

Virtual University

Use and platform integration

Sakai 1.0 Sakai 2.x

Efforts to spread the word

• Creating a brand (UFP UFP-UV)• Create some promotion material & engaging in internal

marketing efforts• Promote users workshops with any teachers that want to

use UFPUV• Promote presentations with people from the university

board being present• Continue to do it when possible in innovative ways...

Some marketing

A Blog ufpuv.blogspot.com & a Wiki page elearning.ufp.pt/wiki

Stickies for students to place everywhere!

A number of openevents, workshopsand tutorials

Posters to place around the university

Use of banners and buttons on university sitesCreate a logo for elearning.ufp.pt

Evolution of the pilot

start Dec-04 Feb-05 May-05 July-05 Sept-05

Courses 2 10 50 67 72 85

Projects 2 5 12 34 43 58

total 4 15 62 101 115 143

Instructors 1 5 18 35 70 105

Students 25 80 400 550 700 938

total 26 85 418 585 770 1043

What results?

• Version 1.0 was easy to run and use– Limited set of tools, but communication with students

and resource sharing were priority– Assignments was the winner

• Reliable, stable for simple use• Major problems:

– I18N, character support, WebDAV issues

What was asked?

• Continuation of the project• Integration with SIS, LDAP• More tools

– Test & Quizzes, Discussion tools– Group work, Grading tools

• Training, and e and b-learning strategies

The “production” phase

• Moving to Sakai 2.0, CentOS, MySQL• 2 “clustered” Tomcat, new hardware• LDAP authentication• Course and student providers• Hiring technical and support staff• Getting physical space

Hardware...

Decisions

• LDAP for University members, providers for other users (partner Institutions)

• UFP specific roles for the providers• Creation of course sites (upon instructor request);

free creation of project sites;• Daily sync with SIS, but students are not droped

from Sakai

Decisions (1)

• Course names are provided by UFP• There should be no “recycling” of course sites

(between terms)• Members cannot unjoin sites• No site archival yet; instructors should unpublish

sites

Evaluation so far (2.3.x)• What was learned from support and meetings:

– Need for content presentation (SCORM ?)– Site statistics, summary calendar, what’s new, and to

do list tools– Need for Test & Quizzes tool (now we have)

• Group support and resource management

Usage patterns• Announcements, Assignements and Resources

heavily used• Calendar used• Chat not used, Discussion little used• T&Q starting to be reliable • Drop Box used in different (unexpected) ways

Current usage numbers• Around 40% of instructors

• Around 60% of the students

– Over 2600 students use UFPUV in one or more courses

– 200 courses with regular usage

• Around 20% of the UFP administrative staff also use Sakai

Access patterns (sample from 01/06 to 08/06)

# Users # Sessions

1354 10

867 20

311 50

82 100

18 200

5604 users, 61740 sessions

Access patterns report from use

-- valueMaximum simultaneous users (online

evaluation)255

Tools available (default) 22-12

Tools available (for choice) 28

Non available hours per week (including support window)

Less than 1h

Day with less accesses saturday

Usage patterns (daily use) (sample from 01/05 to 07/05)

Usage patterns (2006/07)

Usage patterns (2006/07)

Usage patterns (2006/07)

Some current year stats

• Unique users with UFPUV login:– First semester: 3335 (223 instructor, 3112 student)– Second semester: 3882 (289 instructor, 3593 student)

• Total user covered for academic year 2006/07: 87%– 4322 (313 instructor, 4009 student)– from 4961 (355 instructor, 4083 student)

Some current year stats

Created sites:first semester: 199second semester: 211total for 2006/07: 411

Assignments created:first semester: 139second semester: 152Total for 2006/07: 291

On-line tests (T&Q):first semester: 96second semester: 111Total for 2006/07: 207

Submited assignments:first semester: 1658second semester: 1636Total for 2006/07: 3294

On-line tests submissions (T&Q):first semester: 3877second semester: 2581Total for 2006/07: 6458

Requested features

• Group work, group assignments• Student progress tracking• Content sequencing and delivery• ePortfolios (to come)• Communication tools• Gradebook settings

What’s next?• Great pressure for a simple T&Q tool

– Surveys are often mentioned

• Translating to portuguese• Provide easier creation of ad-hoc sites (all

students of a course, all instructors of a Dept)• Bologna support, e-portfolios ?• Real usage in blended learning

Some remarks

• UX at UFP– “Part of a major plan” of levering each university actor

efforts

• Provide clear value for all– An institutional portal for e-learning facilities– A mediation platform for teaching staff (managing

information)– A one shop stop for students (managing time)– A collaborative tool for administrative staff

Future directions

• Use of Sakai to support e-learning and b-learning initiatives (both at distance and local)

Getting positive experiencies

• Distance education is a challenge and places new demands, both for facilitators and learners

• Schrum e Hong (2002) propose seven dimensions to be considered when dealing with distance learning environments (to get positive experiencies...): – (1) tool access; – (2) technology experience; – (3) learning preferences / strategies; – (4) own learning study competences (as self-learning); – (5) goals and orientations; – (6) human factors and lifestyle; – (7) personal characteristics.

Future directions

• New tools to support distance learning settings– Enhanced (learning) experiencies– Allow communication between students

• Track activity synchronisation • Track time synchronisation

– Reporting distance activity

Future directions

Future directions

...and we want to do it with SAKAI