SPLASH

Amy Waldron - Project ManagerHesan Yousif - Client Manager

University of Sussex

Aims

• Create student personal homepages in a social software portal

• Use portal/mash-up technology

• Make homepages customisable

• Get students and lecturers using the system for teaching, learning and social purposes

Audience• University students

– Freshers– Undergraduates (18-21)– Postgraduates– Distance Learners– Placements– Mature students– Subject groups– Interest groups– Student Union groups

• Staff– Lecturers and other teaching and learning staff– Support staff – internal communications– All staff – social and communication

• “University Communities”

Approach

• User consultation and requirements definition• Technical analysis• Mock-up site• Feedback and Usability Testing• Beta Launch• Further development• Launch revised site• The future…….

Findings & Issues• Findings

– Staff are surprisingly keen!– Students need guidance from academic champions to

use social software for learning

• Issues– You need a lot of resources to keep a site ‘alive’– Speed of the site caused damaging disillusionment at

a key point– Developing in an environment we hadn’t used before

Think about all your users!

• Involvement of staff and other University units was key to the take up of the software product but we didn’t fully realise this in our planning at the beginning

• The collegiate environment can be problematic for communication

The big SPLASH lesson: