Improvement ideas

Below are some of the improvements of the TT-Centre that came out of the questionnaire answers.

Please feel free to make comments and add new ideas.

NEW! Oct 8th. Feedback from transnational seminar Nantes 07/10/08.

General:

• make information more visual:

add graphs, charts

This is something I can do on my own. My idea is to have a main resource page where graphs show the number of resources for some of the main parameters such as language, type context etc.

In the homepage the most visited and the most recent resources can also be shown, this would make the homepage a bit more dynamic.

Deborah: In a similar French website, they have developed 'cartographies' according to the categorisation of each resource from a technological, pedagogical activity and pedagogical situation point of view. Maybe we could use the information in the ID cards (improving the relevance of the keywords?) to do something similar? This would probably need a thorough review of all the resources to categorise them. See http://unit-tice.emn.fr/article.php3?id_article=312

Spyros: Although I don't speak French, the site was interesting (it needs Flash which is almost standard nowadays) but as you said it would need the thorough review of the resources - I am not sure how much time we can spend for this work but I think it will be necessary whatever we decide to do.

• Web 2.0:

RSS feed

An RSS feed which whould be updated when a new resource is added or when a resource has been updated.

forum

Is the existing rate/comment system enough or do we want to have a forum on other eLearning subjects?

Spyros: As decided during the Bremen partner meeting no other forum will be used in the TLCentre.

Mashup??

Mashup is a web application that combines data from more than one source into a single integrated tool (Wikipedia)

Do we have data from different sources?

Deborah: for me, the mashup is a solution to integrate the TLCentre, the wiki and the upcoming Vlog and to add other functions such as an agenda of events. But it concerns more the overall eLene environment than just the TLCentre.

Spyros: are the WIKI pages searchable or we could just refer to the page of the WIKI?

• more interactivity:

game leading to resources

Maybe a labyrinth where once solved the user is led to a resource (this would be just for fun)

user defined scenarios

Are parts of scenarios predefined and the user can make their own combinations?

Could you give me examples of scenarios?

• personal page:

what info should be included?

Deborah: a page where users can:

- bookmark their favourite resources

Spyros: on the ID page of each resource the user can add the resource to the favourites, a list of all the favourites is also available under MyTLC-> My Favourites

- write a short profile about themselves,

Spyros: done, together with the possibility to upload a photo

And where

- the resources they have input are listed

Spyros: available under My TLC -> My resources

• help user solve eLearning problem:

where to start?

could we define some eLearning problems and find out which of our resources can help with the problem solving?

Deborah: I suggest partners preprare this before the Bremen meeting and we work concretely on this on 16/04.

Homepage

Deborah: Is there any way of integrating the TLCentre homepage directly in the wiki?

Spyros: this is something Matteo and Marco can do. Of course then the display area will be limited and there will be two different menus: on top for the wiki and below for the TT-Centre which can be confusing.

Menu system:

• improve menu:

drop down menu:

Spyros: implemented - I have to check on Matteo with colours and other css details.

Do we need other menu points? What?

Deborah: just ensure that the menu meets minimum WAI standards for accessiblity.

Search facilities:

• search on intended end user

Spyros: implemented

• search on eLearning criteria

What criteria would be useful?

What other search options might be interesting for the users?

If you were new to the TT-Centre what kind of search would you like to make?

Keywords:

Deborah: Improve our list of proposed keywords, updating them with reference to Web 2.0

What about social taxonomies, to be more Web 2.0? There could then be info on the homepage as to the most popular keywords.

Spyros: the list is there just as a guide, users can enter any word they like.

Most popular keyword? this requires an exrended search which might make the page load slower as the keywords are only saved as a text (not each word seperately) to allow users to input their own words)

Updated the list with some suggestions of Madgalena.

Does enyone else have suggestions for keywors?

Resources:

• more resources (eLene-EE), keep existing resources up to date

What incentive can we give users to add more resources?

• make ID card shorter

Tab system

Spyros: tab system in ID cards is implemented with the following tabs:

- ID card

- Screenshots

- Attachments

- Comments

• user comments/experience, demonstrations, screenshots

Spyros: Comments are implemented.

Who can make demostrations?

Can we have multimedia files connected to resources?

Spyros: yes, who can create multimedia files for resources?

• find TT-Centre users that are experts in a particular resource

Should a user name resources where they are experts? maybe something for the personal page?

• some other information on resources

year of creation: Is this important? do we have this information for our resources?

Help function:

Deborah: make the help function contextual so that if people have problems, questions, when inputting a resource, they can access the information without leaving the input form.

If we're shortening the ID card, it might be useful for everything to be done in one step - entering the data about ther esource, uploading files and images and making relations.

Spyros: Help function - I will work on that

New resource (all in one): having images and other documents added at the same time would make the creation very slow as everything has to be uploaded and I don't really want to do this for technical reasons, the database is locked while a new reasource is being created. Maybe as a compromise once the basic information is entered and saved a second step would lead to an uploading form for the images and documents, without having to go to the "update resource" page.

Adding Relationships: this can probably be done for the first of the relations - if more than one relations exist these should be added later.

Relationships:

Deborah: a lot of the new web applications make relationships automatically. Can we do this based on things such as keywords, the person who has input them etc? In addition to our LOM system of user-defined relationships.

Spyros: do you mean displaying resources with the same keywords or added by the same user?

Scenarios:

• connect scenarios to resources

How can we define which resources are useful to which scenarios?

• user defined scenarios/interactivity

Give user some predefined options?

Have to sort resources to scenarios (see comment above)

• focus of scenarios should be ICT not the TT-Centre

more scenarios: Do we have the time to create more scenarios (preferably ICT scenarios)?

• make scenarios searchable

What search criteria should be used?