Notes from Focus Group feedback drop-ins May 2011

Please bear in mind that these notes are a summary of the opinions of some of our focus group members. We have not attempted to verify their statements. Our intention is merely to show our source data – EAT-PDP project team

Notes from the EAT-PDP focus group drop in meetings held in the Templeman Library on 9^th and 11^th May 2011

Twelve focus group members attended.

Generally feedback about the application was positive and many of the group said they had found the exercise useful and could envisage sending a link to their on-line portfolios to employers – if they were sure that employer accepted e-folios.

Homepage and getting started

Many commented that the home page was confusing and too busy. It wasn’t clear how you got started or the order in which you should do things. Many quoted the example of Facebook as being a good model of how you create a new account and begin to add content. It was felt that a linear walk through initiated by a ‘Start Here’ button would be preferable so that at the end of this sequence you had already created a default profile for yourself – which anyway is editable. A common remark was that the interface was not sufficiently intuitive.  Another website cited as a good model for this type of application was the Reed employment on-line CV creator.

Another common suggestion was that links to video tutorials be provided. This seems particularly relevant as the University of Kent branded version of the software makes no mention of Mahara and therefore makes it difficult for users to locate video tutorials (and other resources) on the web.

PDP

There seemed to be a lot of general confusion as to what personal development planning was and whether the focus group members felt they needed to be engaged with it. The impression was that not much emphasis had been put on PDP during the students’ time at Kent. Once the concept was explained there was some recognition that they did this sort of thing anyway but few immediately saw additional benefit from using myFolio to monitor and plan PDP. With a bit of additional prompting and suggestions from Steve and I some did agree that the software might help but it is probably fair to say that the PDP side of Mahara is not well advanced yet.

Views and granting access

Most members of the group had failed to create a view or make it visible to EAT-PDP project team members. A mitigating factor may be that this is a busy period for students with exams and thesis deadlines looming. Had we been able to get the project started a little earlier (not possible because of the timing of the JISC funding bids) focus group members might have found more time to explore myFolio. It is fair criticism that there is not a great deal of on-line help available – especially as many people prefer to watch video tutorials rather than read a manual. Although the User Guide is well written and clear it also assumes that a user will work his or her way sequentially through the guide. This is not the way everyone learns.  There are no headings or chapters either to encourage users to jump to a particular subject they wanted to learn more about –eg Views or granting Access.

Where Views had been created they varied in complexity but most were fairly basic in design.

After a re-cap of the subject at the drop-in meetings those who had not created views did so.

It seems that more emphasis needs to be given on the versatility of the View facility and this is tied in with an understanding of the concept of controlling access to the views. Although most had an understanding that you could create a view to show to a prospective employer it did not seem well understood that multiple views could be created and that access could be fine-tuned so that for instance work could be submitted just to a tutor or views might be created just for friends to look at and offer a critique.

Although we had covered the concept of granting and controlling access in our introductory session it again seemed to have escaped the attention of most users. There were fears that they were immediately exposing themselves to anyone on the world wide web if they created a view. Obviously as this is a central tenet of the usefulness of Mahara it does need to be emphasised to new users.

Layout and themes

Those who had done most work within myFolio commented that the options for formatting content and the restricted number of themes and inability to customise themes were disappointing.  Again some of this criticism may be down to the insufficient time spent exploring the software and the lack of tutorials readily available to our group but it is fair to say that there are not many themes yet available and there are some limitations in formatting. Users wanted to be able to re-size blocks (with automatic appearance of scroll bars when appropriate) and to group artefacts together horizontally or vertically with annotations.

A glance at the e-folios of other myFolio users who have been using the software for much longer does seem to suggest that there are more options for layout variations that might be at first obvious but at very least we can take from this the message that we need to provide better and more accessible help if time pressed students are to get the best from the software.

Blogging

No one in the group had tried blogging within myFolio. In part this may have been once more down to the pressures on the users’ time as exams approach but discussion also suggested that the users were not ‘on board’ with the benefits of blogging to the blogger. In the main the users saw blogging as an extension of the more traditional forms of publishing where a person with something to say, from a specialized, expert or unusual  perspective  wrote a short article which would be read by others interested in either that person or the subject covered. Comments included ‘ I am not a good enough writer’, ‘No-one would be interested in what I have to say’, ‘I would not have the time to prepare something to sufficient standard that it would be worth publishing it’, ‘it seems a bit pushy, a bit like showing off to think I could start blogging’.

Discussions at the drop-in tried to lead the participants round to seeing blogging as being a part of personal development. It was suggested it could be viewed as a journal where one reflected on things good and bad throughout the year and that it then formed a ‘body of work’ which would help to show paths of progress, gaps still to be filled etc. It also allowed others who might have had or be having similar experiences to comment and offer support or advice. Ability to create several blogs and control who had access to them was stressed.

Other comments and observations

Apparently no option for printing

Only one cover letter can be created

What is the difference between a wall and a blog?

A facility to manage job applications would be very useful. Envisage something that would allow a user to create a new entry when a job was advertised with links to details, date by which application was required, reminder alarms etc. Ability to record which view/cover letter was sent,  then add interview dates, outcomes, feedback etc.

Should social networking be a part of the personal development/e-folio process?

Templates to format resumes etc

Do students need to be taught how to self-reflect?

It appears that students are not introduced to blogging outside of IT. Should blogging be part of the curriculum? Be interesting to know what other HEIs do – if anything.

Participants felt that it would have been useful to have been introduced to myFolio at the beginning of their studies. It is also a tool which should be ‘pushed’ during the Work Placement introductory talks. There would be much more take-up if myFolio was seen as an integral tool to course studies/ careers advice.

It would be more useful if a wizard helped users to create default profiles to edit rather than left them to create one from scratch.

PDP doesn’t seem to be the immediate appeal of Mahara.  The idea of PDP seemed to produce some blank stares. The impression left was that PDP had not been sufficiently emphasised to the students in this group and trying to get them to engage with it for the first time during the exam period was a bit of a non-starter. The challenge now is to get them to engage with PDP during the recess when they may well have the time but might not have the inclination.