JISC

Smirkboard was a project developed under the JISC e-learning tools group of projects. It was developed as a single system largely because we wanted to assure ourselves of the robustness of any components invoked before embarking.  However, now that it has been in use successfully on 2 iterations of a master’s course, as well as being used as a repository for learning materials on the East of England Resource Network project we now recognize further modifications necessary to it.

Principal of these is the ability to link to other systems for its user data.  The weakness of monolithic systems with their own user permissioning information is that it leads to the proliferation of data, usernames and passwords etc.  The JISC call to be a demonstrator of a toolkit is thus an ideal opportunity for us to make Smirkboard link into another data source.  In our case, Question Mark Perception.

Methodology

At the beginning we followed a typical waterfall methodology (requirements, system design, unit design etc), but in two ways this proved to be lacking. These were:

• the system design proved much more complicated than we had imagined (the challenge of incorporating external data sources for our system and the consequences this had for its internal data structure) and
• the new interface required to accommodate this and other requirements (for instance the ability to have more than one discussion over the same presentation)

Therefore, approximately half way through the project we switched to a much more iterative design methodology. I produced a complete visual basic mockup of the final application which Derek Chassay then went on to implement. This proved to be essential in that mere verbal exchanges about how the interface might look or what functionality should be provided could become bogged down in minutiae – whereas the visual basic prototype gave a much more holistic idea of the eventual destination of the project.

Report available electronically only. Read the final report below.