Overview of the SMS, Q&A and Course Evaluation contrib tools in Sakai

1. SMSQ&ACourse Evaluations Stephen Marquard stephen.marquard@uct.ac.zahttp://twitter.com/stephenmarquard Centre for Educational Technology, University of Cape Town June 2010

2. 3 Sakai contrib tools SMSMobile messaging from Sakai Q&AQuestions and Answers Course EvaluationsOnline course evaluations and surveys 2 11th Sakai Conference - June 15-17, 2010

3. SMS 11th Sakai Conference - June 15-17, 2010 3 Wth Sakai U 2 can snd txt msgs to grps of ppl! W00t!

4. SMS Overview What is it? SMS provides mobile text messaging in Sakai, including a tool for sending messages, and a “switchboard” for handing incoming messages to tools or scripts. Where do I find it? http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/SMS/ https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/sms/ http://jira.sakaiproject.org/browse/SMS More information? Screenshots on Confluence. Ask questions on the sakai-dev list, or contact UCT. 4 11th Sakai Conference - June 15-17, 2010

5. Outgoing SMS 11th Sakai Conference - June 15-17, 2010 5 In the SMS Messages tool, Write message (with context and sender) Select recipients by one or more of: Users with a role (e.g. Student) Users in a group (e.g. Tutorial 1) Users by name List of mobile numbers c. Calculate cost / credits d. Send e. View delivery status See more screenshots at http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/SMS/SMS+Messages+Screenshots

6. Incoming SMS Examples 11th Sakai Conference - June 15-17, 2010 6 Placement offers: “UCT Health Sciences offers you a place in MBChB for 2010: SMS ‘offer studentnumber accept/decline’ to #####” (200+ responses in 10 minutes). Q&A: What new use of Vula are you considering? SMS your answer to##### R 3461 I would like to use Vula for surveys Q&A: Ask a question about Vula: SMS your question to#####: Q smsdemoHow can I use Vula for surveys? Other possible uses for incoming SMS: Chat, Polls, Glossaries, etc.

7. Incoming SMS Any tool/service can accept incoming articles by registering a command prefix with the SMS service. Either implement ShortMessageCommand or configure a REST endpoint for incoming messages. Example code:https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/qna/trunk/impl/src/java/org/sakaiproject/qna/logic/impl/sms/QuestionSmsCommand.java Example REST registration: see http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/SMS/Incoming+SMS 11th Sakai Conference - June 15-17, 2010 7

8. Deployment considerations Service provider You need a service provider with an SMPP gateway (e.g. http://www.clickatell.com). What destination networks / countries are supported, and at what cost per message? Mobile numbers Populate user numbers in the user profile, or implement a provider (e.g. for LDAP lookup or some external source). Privacy and defaults Opt-in or opt-out, private or visible. Cost and accounting model Who incurs costs for sending messages? Prepaid or postpaid? Default implementation supports a prepaid model, with credit allocation per site. 11th Sakai Conference - June 15-17, 2010 8

9. SMS: Privacy Our approach at UCT (Vula = our Sakai): Student, staff and third party cell numbers in Vula come from Peoplesoft, SAP HR, Third Party system Default My Workspace / Profile settings: Allow Vula users to send SMS messages to my cellphone: Yes Hide my cellphone number from other Vula users: Yes Users can opt out (0.5% so far) People sending messages see only the username, not the user’s cell number Use SMS wisely Otherwise people will opt out which makes it less useful for everyone.

10. Q&A 11th Sakai Conference - June 15-17, 2010 10

11. Q&A Overview What is it? A tool which supports question-driven interaction (optionally anonymous) with web, email and SMS workflows (comparisons: Yahoo Answers, StackOverflow, Purdue Hotseat). Where do I find it?http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/QNA/Home https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/qna/ More information? “A question is worth a thousand answers” (Paris Sakai conference presentation):http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/download/attachments/39616558/paris-sakai-qna.pdf Ask questions on the sakai-dev list, or contact UCT. 11 11th Sakai Conference - June 15-17, 2010

12. Why questions? Many students ask the same question Students will ask a question online which they wouldn’t or couldn’t ask face-to-face Students may ask a question differently (or at all) if they can ask it anonymously Students answer each other’s questions The student questions and answers provide a window into student thought processes, their difficulties, confusions, misconceptions and successes. Questions and answers provide academic support, peer support, and diagnostic insights.

13. Supported workflows Instructor-led: Student asks question > instructor responds privately (by email), and/or publicly (in the site) Collaborative: Student asks question > peers respond > (optional) instructor / TA provides or nominates a definitive answer Questions may be moderated, i.e. only become visible in the site once reviewed by an instructor / TA Site members may be allowed to ask questions anonymously

14. Tool demo Set up tool “personality” and workflow through Options and Permissions View, ask and respond to questions Create and organise categories and reorganize questions across categories

16. View questions and ask a new one

17. Viewing responses

18. Respond to a question (instructor)

19. Add an answer (student)

20. Organise questions

21. SMS support Q&A is minimally SMS-enabled Supports asking questions by SMS, receiving answers and/or retrieving answers Not really exposed in UI yet (except for Options)

22. Course Evaluation 11th Sakai Conference - June 15-17, 2010 22

23. Course Evaluation Overview What is it? A tool for delivering course evaluations or surveys. Where do I find it? http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/EVALSYS/Home https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/evaluation/ More information? Ask on the evaluation@collab.sakaiproject.org mailing list. UCT screencast (instructor-managed evaluations) http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/EVALSYS/Course+Evaluations+video+tutorial 23 11th Sakai Conference - June 15-17, 2010

24. Caveats How you might implement this depends heavily on institutional processes and policy. Evaluation System is a complex tool which has support for different institutional models of delivering evaluations. The information in Confluence is not up-to-date. No 2 sites run the tool in exactly the same way. Ask on the evaluations list! 11th Sakai Conference - June 15-17, 2010 24

25. Generic issues and concerns Response rates may be lower (dependent on lecturer involvement and feedback) … but students give more written feedback online than in paper-based evaluations Moving from paper to online does not lead to less favourable ratings (U. Michigan) The set of respondents is representative of the course cohort by race, gender, final course mark: lower response rates do not skew results (IPD, UCT) Online evaluation is popular with students and provides more opportunities for student feedback Different opinions and strategies about incentives What happens to the results?

27. The questions

28. Start and end dates

29. How to encourage students to respond

30. What to do with the results(subject to Department or Faculty processes or guidelines)

33. Every student evaluates all tutors individually

35. UCT evaluation structure About the course About you (About all lectures/tutors) Lecturer 1 questions Lecturer question a Lecturer question b, … Lecturer 2 questions Lecturer question a Lecturer question b, … Tutor 1 questions Tutor question a Tutor question b, … Tutor 2 questions Tutor question a Tutor question b, … General questions Lecturer questions repeated for each assigned lecturer [respond to all, select one, select many] Tutor questions repeated for each assigned tutor [respond to all, select one, select many]

36. UCT: selecting the Lecturers to Evaluate

37. UCT: The Student’s View