THIS IS A DRAFT
- In the last few weeks, we held two technology design meetings (in Toronto, and San Francisco) to come up with a high-level roadmap for the new site. We will post an update on overall timeline on the blog next week, but wanted to get feedback on the basic design, and the bigger ideas behind it, from a few core members of the community, to make sure we are on track, and not forgetting any major features you will need.
Big Picture -> From Courses to Peer Learning
- The long-term goal is to support true peer learning, study groups organized by anyone, on any topic. We are taking the first steps in that direction with the prototype, but we have a long way to go ...
- We are planning to start hosting prototype courses in late April, and complete migration to the new site by July. The roadmap is here: https://github.com/p2pu/lernanta/wiki/Lernanta%27s-Roadmap
- The current site only supports one type of peer learning - in a course that had a clear separation between the role of the organizer and the participants. The new site will support more flexible models. It will still be possible to run a fairly traditional "course", in fact users of the current site could run their "courses" in virtually the exact same way on the new site, but the new site will also allow (and increasingly encourage) more self-organized groups of learners to work together.
- There are some changes to terminology, which are intended to clarify how things work, break down hierarchies, and encourage peer learning, but don't get hung up on the names for now.
Tasks, Study Groups, and Schools
- The main concepts that drive the new site are "tasks", "study groups", and "schools".
- Tasks are the basic building block of what users can work on (together or alone) at P2PU. Tasks can take many forms:
- A writing assignment that contains a list of readings, and a question to answer in a blog post. Participants post links to their blog posts as replies to the question.
- A discussion topic, in which one person kicks off with a question, and the group posts answers. Discussions are threaded, so you can reply to a specific reply.
- A collaborative project, in which users together edit one document to come up with a solution to a problem.
- Study groups are communities of people who commit to working through a set of tasks together. Users can "join" a study group to work together, or they can "follow" to keep tabs on what is going on without getting actively involved ... at least for now. Study groups can take many forms:
- They can decide to work on a long list of tasks, or very few;
- Study groups can be small, with just a few people, or very large with hundreds of users;
- They can be completely peer organized, or instructor led like a traditional course.
- Schools are collections of study groups, tasks, and users. We are not proposing any major changes to the way we had conceptualized schools in the past, but we will provide a much more user-friendly and engaging home for schools.
- A home page that contains the School logo and a primary color (more options for customization in the future).
- A map of all the people who are part of the school community.
- A list of study groups and tasks. Study groups related to schools will also contain the school logo and color.
- If schools have assessments that lead to badges, we will show them on the schools home page.
Two Specific Questions
There are two issues that would be great to get more detailed feedback on.
Sign-up / Join a study group: The current sign-up process is an inherently negative experience, and further stresses the hierarchical difference between the organizer and participants. We would like to make it a more positive activity, that builds social ties between peer learners, and intend to standardize the sign-up task across all study groups. All users will be asked to share why they want to join a group, and what they intend to get out of it, which is publicly visible to all other users in the group.
- How to give feedback -- Ideally, on the lighthouse task tracker directly.
Sign-up process
Completion of tasks and study groups
Wireframes:
http://p2pu.lighthouseapp.com/projects/71002/tickets/41-prepare-wireframes#ticket-41-5
Study Group Page
Notes:
- The study group page only has a minimum of predefined fields for certain types of information (e.g. intended start date). All other information (estimated pace, commitment, amount of work, ...) can be included in the general text description of the course. We will monitor the type of content users include, and will consider adding separate fields for frequently used content in the future.
- Association with a particular school is indicated by use of School's primary color, and dispaly of School logo on study group home page
Additional features:
- Group host can make tasks "active" (triggers optional notification email)
The Wall
- All study group participants can post to the wall
- Followers can not comment, but they can write direct messages to the group host.
- Change batucada default, and allow private messages between registered users regardles of follow status
Broadcast Feature (replaced by Wall)
- The course creator can force "overwrite" notification settings in wall posts and force notification
- Notification emails contain a message that they are "special" messages to make it clear to users that we are respecting their notification settings
Tasks Index box
Study Group States
- Study groups have three states: "under development" or "active" or "complete"
- If it is "under development" it only shows up in the host's profile
- The only states that are displayed on the home page are "under development" or "complete" ("active" is not shown, it's obvious if the course is active)
- Sign up has two states: "open" or "closed"
- If "closed", the "participate" button disappears
- Message shows "this study group is full, make your own, here is how"
- Logic:
- If it is "open" and not "under development"(active or complete) it shows up in the study group lists
- You can always follow a study group
Add Task
- A button and process for adding additional tasks to the study group
- Visible to study group creator only
Ideas parked for future releases:
- The ability to track study group completion per user. This was repeatedly brought up as an important feature, but it introduces a lot of complexity (arbitration processes, definition of what constitutes a "completed" study group, and if not done right it could re-enforce hierarchy between host and participants ... )
- Allow tagging of study group by group participants
- Show badges linked to tasks in this group
- Track which tasks users are working on
- What path did users take?
- How long did they take on specific tasks?
- Some way to duplicate a study group
- Duplication triggers a notifcation for followers
- Comment from Stian: I like the "duplicate" idea (similar to how Connexions implements it? Clones the course into a new draft in your workspace). In the course list, you should be able to list "all courses", or "courses open for sign up".
Task page
Notes:
- Keep organization of study group separate from the learning activities
- Use same sidebar (as much as possible) as for study group home page
Ideas parked for future releases:
- Ability to mark tasks as "completed" on a per user basis. Similar to completion of study groups, this introduces a lot of complexity. We are experimenting with completion of "badges" and will use the lessons learned there to add to tasks overall.
- Tagging of tasks
- Connect tasks to badges (either outside in OSQA or tasks can be badge challenges themselves in the future)
- In the future, tasks can be duplicated (for new study groups)
Sign-up task
Notes:
- Focused on building community, rather than negative selection
- Provides a motivation hurdle that re-enforces positive peer learning behavior
- Standard sign-up question(s) for all study groups
User stories/ Activities
- User clicks "Participate" button
- Immediately sees profile filled in (ideally with the possibility to edit in place, or in pop-up window so not taken away from sign-up)
- Save button should read "Update profile" so users know they are updating their sitewide information.
- Add link to edit full profile.
- Adds further answer to the sign-up questions
- Group host:
- Reviews answers, and either "Accepts", "Decline", or "Comments"
- Decline prompts email:
- The study group is full
- You are registered as a follower, so you will get updates and notifications about what is happening
- If there is enough interest, we will try to put together another study group.
- If that is something you can help with, contact Alison (// we don't have that feature right now //)
- Accept prompts email:
- You have been signed-up for the study group.
- Check out the profiles of other people who are in the group (link)
- We will send you a notification when the first activity kicks off
Ideas parked for future releases:
- Let people specifiy if they can be co-hosts, experts, etc (use example from research club) http://research-club.org/events/classes/propose-class inspiration under "How do you want to learn / teach?"
- Followers can duplicate study groups, and all followers get a notification
- Allow study groups without "accept/decline" feature. Users fill out sign-up task and are automatically added to the group.
User Profile (additional to default)
Notifications
- Users can choose to receive notifications from the wall separately from other study group notifications (two checkboxes)
- Both are set to "on" by default
- Emails contain links to unsubscribe
- Notification settings page contains text explaining that they might still receive urgent notifications from the host
Schools home page
Notes:
- Study groups are associated to Schools
- For first release, select primary color for school that appears across school home page and all study group pages associated to the school
- When a study group is created, select association with a particular school from drop-down (use tagging instead of categories for schools association)
Parked for future releases:
- Ability to associate tasks (separate from study groups) to Schools
- Ability to decline association of a study group with a School (Schools can control what is part of the School)
List / Browse Study Groups
Notes:
- No search in first version of site
- List all available study groups that allow sign-up
- Allow filtering for all study groups (under development, complete, etc.)
Default Use Case
User:
- Identify topic of interest
- Show available study groups
- Give option to create new study group
Notes:
- Need to articulate that anyone can start a study group (not only "experts")
- Need to figure out a way to get involved in tasks, not just study groups
Still missing:
- P2PU home page (logged in users, not-logged in user)
- Integration with other external tools (OSQA, uservoice)
Other design changes:
Other tickets to add to lighthouse
- Move edit buttons close to the thing they are editing.
https://cacoo.com/diagrams/o37hflfZsbenu9c4
https://cacoo.com/diagrams/VN2dVQLrYaP3eXyC
https://cacoo.com/diagrams/aFzm2VaZgoG3o37r