Rethinking the Competency Portfolio System

Rethinking the Competency

Portfolio System

Will: Lord of PHPSupreme Chancellor of SQL

Frances“The Hammer”Goddess of CSSPrescriber of Will’s Paxil

Jake: Ambassador of Human EmpathyTechnophobia Minister

May 5th, 2005 Rethinking Competency Portfolios

2

Olin Competency Portfolios(or how good intentions went astray)

• Demonstrate student competencies

• Allow students to showcase their work to employers and graduate schools

• Help intra-Olin communication of “cool stuff”

• Knowledge management


3

The reality• Students don’t like it.

– Must enter each entry 3 times

– All entries look the same, ugly

• Students don’t contribute to it.

• Enforcement impossible.


4

Our Goals

• Empower students.

• To make the portfolio system easy to use.– Motivating students is essential to make the

system easy to use.• Assign grades. (boo)• Make it fun enough for students to do it

voluntary/Make it a procrastination diversion.• Make it valuable to the students.


5

Surprisingly, we turned to personasfor guidance

• Jenny Shannon –bread and butter Olinite– Apathetic about her

portfolio– No HTML skills, no

desire to learn– bioE

Often she’s sober


6

2nd Persona

• Liam Doyle –Power User

– Wants to use portfolio to display l337 H4X0R skills

– WoW fiend, level 52 warlock


7

3rd Persona

• Michael Huffman –junior professor– Wants to view advisee’s

portfolios– Familiar with HTML and web– Not interested in taking time

to explain to less e-competent colleagues

– Single and searching


8

4th persona

• Frank Lin – backbone of Olin’s administration– Wants to view and present

aggregate portfolio data – Wants to create user accounts

and access for ABET, others– Nickname in college lacrosse:

‘whack-a-mole’


9

Personas do things in ‘scenarios’

• Jenny– Login, create an entry, attach a file, make it public

• Liam– Editing existing entries, more complex formatting and

privacy options• Michael

– Searching the portfolio library by class, subject, advisees, etc.

• Frank– Viewing aggregate data, creating accounts


10

What we learned:It’s the wrong interaction

Old Portfolio System New Portfolio System


11

The Manila Folder

• Bureaucratic• Minimalism

conveyed a lack of concern for quality

• Either the same as everyone else, or too much effort

• Dump your files here.


12

The book model(It’s all about ownership)

• Students are the authors of their portfolios.

• They can change content and the layout.

• They pick the cover.• They set the tone.


13

How can portfolios be integrated into the lives of Olin Students?

• Provide varying levels of commitmentand effort(should take as little or as much time as you want)

– As little as possible for some• Quick and easy to begin• Use tools students already know• Take as little time as possible

– Powerful and flexible for others• Customizable visual appearance, layout

– Make it a valuable as a marketing tool


14

Implementing low activation energy

• One click to make a new entry.• Default full layouts provided.

(Pick one of five flavors to start from)• Fill out as much or as little you want.


15

Implementing Customization

• Easy initial customization – pick favorite default layout template

• CSS/HTML controlled– First dabbling is changing colors

• Change layout properties

• Write your own tags.

• Hack the code with  marks.


16

Implementing Marketing Value

• Make portfolios polished enough that students will want to show them employers.– Default templates will be professional and

functional.

• Give portfolios personality (not clones)


17

Implementing More Value - Managing Access

• Externally accessible!• Manage access

– Students don’t want employers to see everything.

• Make it easy for external people to use– Individual Generic access accounts -> access

one portfolio (put on resume)– Specific access account -> access multiple

portfolios


18

Unimplemented Features

• Searching • Faculty Pages

– Basic Layout Designed

• Staff Pages– Identical to Faculty Layout but no advisee links

• Guest Users• Annual Reports• CV and Resume Uploading


19

Implemented Interaction Flow


20

Responding to Lo-Fi prototype

• Novel browsing technique:

• Scenarios didn’t match personas well– Profs care about advisees and aggregate

data, not own courses

• Manually filling out CV a bad idea

• Preview pane unclear

• Search functionality unclear


21

Responding To Heuristic• Created separate Profile Manager• Added Google-style quick searching• Feedback Added When

– Updating or Deleting Entries– Uploading Files

• Warning for unsaved changes to entries• Awkward Phrasing/Order for Mass-Editing• Previous/Next Entry Links include the title of the

entry• Consistent Use of Buttons for Style Sheet

controls


22

Responding To Usability Study• Result of Tests:

– Mass-editing organized by functionality and creation of a “style manager” page to add symmetry

• Related Corrections:– Lack of User Feedback Added Messages

• Highlight entries that were changed in mass-edits + display message on success

– Index Page Had Too Much Content at the Top• Added “Welcome” on first login, but removed all large-font

static messages– Users attempt to use the links in the preview plane

and navigated away from page• Removed links from toolbar shown in preview plane

DEMO!


24

Lessons Learned

• Limit Information Overload

• When interacting with users, be prepared for anything.

• Don’t be ego involved in the design – controlled apathy is your friend (see Jake)

• The system should provide more feedback to the user than you think it should


25

Questions?

Date post:	22-Jan-2016
Category:	Documents
Upload:	talor
View:	21 times
Download:	0 times

Rethinking the Competency Portfolio System

Documents