long time catch up

It's been a long time since I posted anything, but the system is now ready to be put into operation. The intention was to develop a prototype that can later be worked on and developed, and that is what I intend to do until someone takes over. there is now an application for adding data to an underlying database, there is error checking on the web form as it is input. There are new images, I've re-worded the procrastination option finally with a smooth "cooling off". the slider couldn't be implemented yet so radio buttons are there in place, and there's a Dundee logo at the top. there's also a thank you page that is shown as soon as the data is saved to a file.

There's also a basic description of what ILS spaces are, and I've re-worded much of the form.

When I install the application to more pc's I'm going to do many things. I'm going to hide the base files, add some password protection if possible and continue to improve the security on the Application.

Right now the way to view data is through the phpMyAdmin page, and if I had time I was going to write another small application for viewing the data, but again I believe phpmyadmin to be suitable for now. This week and probably the week after I'll be installing the data gathering tools to PC's, setting up fancy ways to get people looking at the feedback form, and tomorrow /today I have a demonstration with many of the people that have been involved in the project, to present my work.

my list of small worries about the form just now are:

Having the ILS logo at the top next to Dundee logo?

Auto-deleting files once added to database? problem if recording files fails.

info about where results will be posted on the thank you screen

not sure on order of questions

Other activity text too drastic?

Thursday boost :D

after the trawling trying to get Javascript working yesterday in Firefox and IE it's a relief today to find that one small semicolon was causing all the trouble, and only Chrome was good enough to pick it up and correct it for me - silly do gooders!

Once that was done I amended the Date stamp in the post page to make it more familiar in the DD/MM/YYYY HH:MM:SS form(if that makes sense)

I also have the tokenising working, but I think I may be taking it too far with the urlEncode, I mean the only time I'll use it in HTML will be at the other end, so that validation may change.

and finally I Wrote C# Appliation that allows reading of files, will be used to add to central database. Tomorrow I'm going to start by doing parsing with the emails, then the big stuff, and if that all goes fine i'll start on the database.

I decided to collect emails seperate from everything else, so that they remain truly anonymous and aren't linked to any perticular set of responses. Problem i see is making it all secure later on, but I'll get it.

Monday frustration

I've discovered that Internet explorer doesn't like my javascript, so I've spent the day trying to work out why. I think i've sourced it to the way that IE includes javascript files, but so far i've had no luck in getting it to behave :(

aside from that I've got everything in the form posting through now, and It's validated too with hidden location fields and a timedate stamp. so far on the list of things to do I have the following

Fix Javascript for IE

improve colour scheme

write to file

write to Database/read from database

install on multiple laptops

re-word procrastination

add ILS logo

new photos

add Jquery slider

modify to highlight current question

Tomorrow I'll be focusing all my attention on designing the storage mechanism. From saving files to reading them, and the extent to which i want human involvement.

Designing some data gathering

An Interesting problem has come up this morning, I knew about it earlier but it's getting close to when I'll need it so I'll detail it here

As far as gathering the data in each individual area, that's fairly sorted now, but the problem that will come once we have the data strewn about 10 different places is going to be getting them all to the one place.

I'm storing the responses in a text file at the moment, and plan to parse the data from files into a single database, but to avoid duplicating responses, I'll have to delete the files once they're in the database. this means whoever's gathering data has to do more, so I'm considering writing a small file that will be used just to collect the different files then replace the file with a blank one. This is all bells and whistles though, I could collect the data in any number of ways from manual input to some fancy web service.

Aside from that, I've been looking into using Jquery for a slider. It's either that or some good old fashioned radio buttons for those without javascript

Another problem that's appeared which makes no sense to me is that the javascript doesn't work in internet explorer, so i'm going to write some noScript alternative.

Once I'm happy that my form is posting to a file in the correct way i'm going to compile a list of small tasks to complete on the form and just go through them one by one, then get a few people to do their best to break everything :)

Friday Catch up

Just a quick update on what i've been upto this week. I've learned I must do the app in either php or asp so that i can pass information between pages, so after choosing php it's just been a case of posting data from the form to another page and displaying it. Haven't got Jquery working yet so for now the slider is radio buttons. Going to work on it some more over the weekend, but the basic questions all seem set now, it's just using little selling tricks to make them more appealing. I've removed the cat and philosoph quotes from the page for now, until i find something that fits the smooth flow better. will update on monday what i do over the weekend.

Tuesday update

I've been spending the last 2 days making the javascript code work, there's a problem with getting it to work in Internet Explorer, but I'll give a more detailed report tomorrow

Thursday update

not much to report today, just been connecting the feedback form to a post page, so now data can be sent between the pages. all that's left to do tomorrow is write to file in an appropriate way and I can call the prototype complete!

An interesting dilemma

Today, I was working again on the form JavaScript. Getting rid of the check boxes is more difficult than I originally thought. the problem is that i need to represent the activities in some way. I thought of using an array, to pass to the post page, however this requires php and I'm trying to find a way round this for reasons I'll go into in a moment.

Eventually I opted to have an activity hidden element for each activity, then a small piece of JavaScript that updates the inner HTML whenever a choice is altered. this would be bad design if there were many check boxes, but with only 6, there's no point over-engineering the site right now.

I don't want to use php, because if we're using the laptops like standalone stations it seems to me that there's no sense running an entire server on each one, and there must be a more efficient way to collect the data. It seems that JavaScript can be used to write to the server, so I'm going to pursue that route.

Aside from that not much to report. Tomorrow I'm going to add the last of the questions and get working on posting to the server.

Tuesday summary

Today I was coding from 9till 5, integrating the forms together. I copied the code from my Javascript form into the Css form and began making everything work from there. My main trouble was with getting rid of the check boxes and having the images themselves as the checkboxes. the problem is I need to store the array for activities and pass it through to the post page. progress is good so far and i'm going to spend some more time on the problem tonight.

Tomorrow I'm going to work on creating the Slider, which is apparently very easy in Jquery so I'll be looking into that.

Monday review/plan for the week

I've decided to try doing these blogs at the end of each day instead of the beginning, so that there can be one every day and not 2 on Friday. This morning began with a meeting with Lorraine and Janet over in the user centre. I showed them the prototype I've been working on for the past week and they seemed happy about it.

There were many new things to think about that we hadn't really considered in depth before. for example copyright on the images we use in the grid. The solution round that one is to get some new images, I know plenty of photographers so i'm thinking of getting one in for an hour. another was the granularity of the persons course. Is computing too vague, or do we need to include every degree in the University?

I spent the rest of the day working on the forms. I intend to have all the methods of posting data to the file sorted by wednesday, then I can concentrate on the look and feel of the application for the next few days. I'll need to learn a bit about passing arrays in php, but aside from that it should be fairly straightforward. by the end of this week I want the form finalised to the point that we just need to think about wording.

Thursday/Friday catch-up

I neglected to write my Friday blogs and the week review, So I'll do it today instead

Thursday
On thursday I spent the morning working on the forms some more,
At the meeting with Janet and Marianne I showed the form design so far, and we came up with a fantastic idea. The Idea is to use some ol laptops that aren't being used anymore in each of the learning spaces to gather data while students are there. We decided to have a prototype ready for Monday in the user centre so my focus on Friday would turn to posting to a file.

The problems that started to appear were that my code is getting more and more complex and beginning to look a bit cluttered, so I'll need to do some refactoring when I begin to combine the 3 forms.

Friday
On Friday I spent the whole day writing php code that can write responses from the form into a text file. the reason was not to have structured data, but just to show I could post to a file.
I found this to be much more of a hassle than I assumed, becausi I had to first set up an XAMPP server configuration on my laptop, and my laptop didn't like that I had another installation from a while ago, but i still managed it. The forms still need some time, hopefully i can work on them on Monday.

Overall for the week I spent most of my time on the implementation rather than the design, which i was very happy about. we now have a solid start that can only be improved over time.

Complex != Cool

Since I was meeting Ramanee Pieres yesterday I decided to look up her page on the School of computing website, and what i found as astonishing. Ramanee has ben involved with 24 publications spanning across at least 10 years. To add to that the subjects she was involved in were close to the kind of computing I'm interested in. one paper that caught my eye was "The effects of simulating human conversational style in a computer-based interview", which you have to remember was written in the year 2000, before social networking was around. So I went across to find out about the SMS facilities of the University and we ended up talking for a good 30-40 minutes about user centered design, social networking and some general ways to make my forms more effective in capturing an audience, which is a primary goal.

The SMS functions appear fairly simple, to send a mass text I'll need a list of numbers and a message, and to recieve It's a case of setting up a prefix code and an address to forward the message on to.

I spent the next few hours working on my 3 forms before my 3:30 meeting with Lorraine. I printed the 3 forms in their current states to let her see where I was with each one. She seemed pleased with the progress so far and even liked the idea of a funny picture or graphic at the end of each page. Unfortunately Ramanee will be away the next few weeks, so I'll be spending the time developing the web application.

Today though I have a meeting with Janet and Marianne Kenley, who's in charge of all the space in Dundee campus. I'm going to continue worming on forms until the meeting, focusing on Javascript. The problem i see today is The voi between practical ideas and complicated code, but I will persist!

Basking in the warm glow of Javascript

Yesterday I started on 3 sample forms for the Thursday meeting. I decided one woul be HTML only, another would Implement Javascript for some dynamic content, and the 3rd would implement some smooth looking CSS stylesheet, with the intention of mixing and matching the 3 to endup with an accessible Form which also has the potential of being flashy.

The problem Iwas coming up with was striking a balance between something that looks great, and something that has clear code. I've ended up with tables inside tables an layout problems. I wanted to have a fade effect in the Javascript form, but the code required for this was massive in the online example!

Today I plan to go see Ramanee pieres in the morning to find out about SMS services in the university, then I'm going to prepare some more information for Lorraine for this afternoons meeting, with screenshots of what the web section might look like and details about SMS messages.

Development Begins

I began yesterday by meeting Lorraine Walsh and Janet Hughes to show what I did last week and the results i found. I decided to use agile cards so we can prioritise all the tasks so far. From the meeting a number of ideas and points came up:

linking into a mobile map being developed by the university
talking to marianne about spaces in the university
careful of the line between gathering data and allowing others to gather data
tinyURL as a link
2 forms? one for how good, another for detail
hosted in university
how to get many people to give opinions

we also came up with some ideas for the form:
Subject Area, not course
anonymous
where they are
choices for what they are doing?
identify set of things

grid idea

where I am in library
what would make it better
get back to them: Email
top 10popular areas
top spots this week
rate my ILS
fact finding fun

Lorraine kept the cars to decide how much value to give to each of the cards.
one thing that came out of the meeting was we definately need to develop a web application at some point in order to get feedback, so I got started on that yesterday and today.

Once the meeting was done Janet and I tried to arrange a meeting with Marianne Kenley, who is in charge of all the space available about dundee university, and looked into where the application ould be stored. It definately has to be stored on university servers, but in estates and buildings, Library facilities? where?

Either way I looked into the facilitie ICS uses and It's going to have to be done in php it seems. I have less experience in this language, but nothing a few chapters of php for dummies wont solve.

Today I'm making some example forms with ideas for javascript and non-javascript elements.

the challenge i see is keeping the format interesting, and finding the tools i need for specific ideas to be implemented.

Week 1 Summary

So here we are. First week down and now we have a map to match the endless directions we can take this project.

On Monday we had a morning meeting with Janet and Lorraine so i could get a sense of where i should focus along with what the main needs of the project are. In the afternoon I visited some of the places on campus.

On Tuesday I visited the rest of the spaces and focused on the question of how much they're used, and what they're used for.

On Wednesday I know vaguely what they were used for and how, but I didn't know the all important why, which is at the heart of everything we do, so I phoned around a few places asking the reasons they went where they went. I wrote down the main ideas that had come up and where their strengths lie

On Thursday I investigated further into the way these applications could be created, and how difficult they are to set up. I wrote some of the pros and cons of each

On Friday(today) I felt like i was getting too bogged down in implementation, so I took an hour to summarise what Janet and Lorraine really wanted. I used this summary to define conscisely the what and why of the system:

"An application focused on gathering data about why and how the informal learning spaces in Dundee University are used from the students' point of view. The code needs to be understandable because this is a prototype that someone else might take over."

We have a meeting with Lorraine on Monday to present what i've found about all the different possibilities, which I'm going to present with agile cards. these are as follows

(cards to be typed)

putting Ideas together

yesterday i was looking more into each application Idea and some of the pros and cons of each, I tried to focus on just getting a few down. I had and am still having trouble picturing the way in which twitter could be used though I know it has potential. The facebook application would essentially be the same as a web site/application.

Today I'm going to spend some time looking over notes from the monday meeting, so i can think more on the lines of what lorraine an Janet want, and review my ideas for applications to see how i can tweak them, and hopefully come up with something for twitter.

I'm going to use the agile card method of working out effort/value and look at the possibility of a webcam or some data gathering method. the only problem i imagine right now is not being ableto come up with ideas, but i'll cross that bridge when I come to it. I'm going to also put up all my notes of pros/cons today.

Formulating Ideas

Ok, now that we have a bit of practical data I can begin to see where we can go with this. yesterday i began to come up with a few ideas on where to go and looked into some similar applications.

Facebook is a natural homeground for dealing with people, and from what i gather the application runs inside facebook itself, so If the application isn't too big this is perfect.

Twitter is another web 2.0 hit, there's lots of potential and i need to spend time today on some of the ways we can go with it

There's also the possibility of a web-based application, a little creative javascript to make some sliders and find out how much students are enjoying areas, then simply ask them to complete the short form at certain times of the day.

The Idea of raising awareness by sending out SMS messages could work, but If awareness isn't a problem like it seemed before, then there's perhaps a more effective way to spend time

Either way so far a web application definately looks like it's where the project's headed.

Today I'll be looking for other alternatives, mobile applications and will write up a pro's/cons list of a few things.

The problem to consider today is again how doable an application is, and how appropriate it is.

visiting Dundee's ILS's part 2

So yesterday I was out again visiting all the places I didn't havetime for on Monday.

The dental school cafe was closed, as was the Top of the tower cafe.

visited:

Main Library
at least 50 people, probably more
11:00
lots of space, quiet, can be comfy or on tables, all kinds of desks
multiple levels for different needs. Clear why it's the main study location choice. plenty plugs, books everywhere, space

Library Cafe
4 people
11:42
feels relaxed, lots of light, high chairs
cafe, no plugs, computers, Vending machines, coffee machine, part of main lib so lots of books

Scrymgeour quiet area(lower ground floor foyer)
2 ppl
12:23
quiet study area, nice vibe, paintings work very well. but right now builders are making the name an ironic one. Again it reflects the course.
has cameras, plugs, law books.

DUSA
6 ppl
13:00
very informal, main student pub so more designed for socialising than study. a few spots with plugs, but definately not a common study area,but then that's not the union's aim.
Pool tables, Arcade machines, restaurant/bar, vending machines, attatched to a shop, sofas, big tv's.
I didn't spend a great deal of time in DUSA, because I kind of knew it wasn't a popular study area. the kind of learning here is all discussions and reflection after an exam. the only way i can think of off hand to use this place is to promote discussion of topics beforehand. Could use to get students to discuss topics in which it helps to be open and relaxed about, because such moods are assosciated with union type venues.

Overall:
In the Scrymgeour building i found again that mainly law students used it. I talked to a number of staff members which I'll get on to in a moment but the feeling i got in the library and library cafe is that they're the place for everyone whose department doesn't have a designated ILS. My old flatmate who'se a psychology student mainly stuies in the library, and has never complained about it. I began to think about the areas being appropriate for different needs. Because DUSA is the student union, it was difficult to concentrate and focus on my Javascript. This also happened in the matthew building foyer and the Dalhousie foyer. however it was far easier in the law library, main library and yesterday in the matthew library. the Fulton was tough to work in because it seemed like a common room more than anything.

As well as visiting the ILS's, I also talked to some staff and Students to find out what areas they knew and used, the condition, and how busy they were

A member of staff from the Fulton said the fulton is usually very busy. Mostly level 3-5, and msc students. Most students are engineers, but there are others. needs updated, many seats burst.

One art student said they usually use the studios they're given but occassionally use the matthew building foyer

Another Art student said she never reallyuses the foyer and mostly studies at home, around town or in her studio.

Today I'm looking at what direction to possibly take this project in, and what the good and bad points of each are. though It's taken me all day to complete this blog so the next will be in a few hours.

I'll also contact some more people for views on the ILS areas.

the main problems i think will be knowing which projects are both appropriate and doable in the 9 weeks i'll have left.

visiting Dundee's ILS's part 1

Yesterday, after my morning meeting my main task was to visit some of the informal learning spaces around campus. To do this I took round a checklist of things to note, then spent 20 minutes at each place learning a bit of javascript and making notes, the checklist was:

The area name
How many people were there at the time
Time I went(because it could be different at other times)
The general feel of the place
Facilities(plugs, vending machines e.t.c)
Extra notes

I didn't visit the library or DUSA, because i wanted to cover all the places i've not been to before. The Chaplaincy cafe was closed for summer, and I was informed by some helpful art students that the Crawford cantina is closed for good now. I couldn't find the dental school cafe and ran out of time for one of the Scrymgeour areas, but I'm going there today.

so far:

Matthew building foyer/lowered seats

3 ppl

13:10

Chilled out, binsin center of areas, vending machines, plugs, IT suite adjoining

A lecturer in the building said it was very busy during tem-time. Used by many IMD and art students depending on the project. very informal, relaxed area.

---

Matthew building library

5 here

14:00

quiet, not many plugs, nice view

plugs, toilets, no vending machines, very much a working library, quiet atmosphere with plenty of space

lots of interesting books, mainly aimed at artists.

---

Fulton Cafe

0 ppl

3:50

Feel of a school room. Plenty of seats, only a few sockets though. Quite old in terms of layout style

Plenty of chairs and tables, vending machines, tea + coffee staion.

If you need a socket for laptop not great, otherwise a bit dingy, like an old school room. There's a separator between staff seats and student seats, doesn't scream of open attitude to pupils and perhaps needs some updating.

---

scrimgeour main lib

4 ppl

16:20

plenty of space, good facilities, relaxed

toilets, plugs, lamps forthe evening

---

Overall I got the sense that each area was popular with certain group of students and almost reflected them. The matthew foyer/lowered seats is quite an arty place that's very informal and I was told it's very busy and popular throughout the year.

The Fulton on the other hand was very rustic, organised, classic and almost felt like a school lunchroom. It seemed to be shared by staff and students and didn't have many plugs. I thought perhaps this was because engineering students work more from paper, but i would've thought they use laptops too!

If this is the case then awareness may not be the issue, but actually getting students to try out these areas outside their normal route, the matthew building areas are harder to find, and may be more effort to get to than computing students want for informal spaces.

today I plan to visit the 2 library areas, the tower cafe over lunch, the lower ground foyer of the Scrymgeour, the Dental school student cafe and a few levels of DUSA.
I'm going to focus on the potential for different directions today, how some ideas may get us more information about the spaces or how they may improve the spaces we have.


my problem yesterday was trying to imagine what the places are like during term-time, and how the students felt about the areas. to get round this I'll spend some time trying to talk to staff to find out the usage, and to find out some student views i can call a few people.

Informal Learning Spaces

I've just embarked on a project into informal learning spaces. over the next 10 weeks I'll be researching and implementing ideas about informal learning spaces throughout Dundee University campus. but first of all what is an informal learning space?

An informal learning space is any area outside a classroom, where people informally learn. In the case of Dundee this can be the library café, the Seminar rooms at Ninewells hospital, or even the local coffee shops around Dundee.

At this stage I'm looking at the scope of the project and all the possible directions it can be taken. I had a meeting this morning with Janet Hughes and Lorraine Walsh to discuss the main goals, so far I believe the goals of the project to be as follows:

find out the level of awareness of ILS, possibly do something to increase this
find out what students are doing when there
find out how students are using the spaces

these goals pose many questions that can be looked at, for example what is it about successful ILS that less popular areas are missing. does this differ between different student groups and different times of the year?

there seem to be 2 sides to this investigation - what the students say, and what actually happens. one avenue we could explore is counting the number of students in each area across time.

A few of the technology ideas we came up with were perhaps to use a twitter application, sms, face book, a web application, a phone application, rss feeds. these could be used to gather the data or perhaps raise awareness of areas. to begin with though the emphasis is on data gathering, and seeing where this can go.