[DG: Teaching & Learning] Students taking on academic networking

[Clay Fenlason]

I think what will prove to be one of the more significant aspects of
Sakai 3 is academic networking: the support of relationships in
academic success, their shaping influence or how they introduce new
connections. We've underplayed this in the development work to date in
part, I think, because it might be dismissed as faddish, and in part
because it doesn't speak directly to what many schools experience as
immediate need.  The community will buy into it when they see it in
action, not before, or so I think the feeling runs.  All the same, we
know that social networks have mattered a great deal in academia for a
long time, and the question of how to support this technologically
will I think prove to be seminal for Sakai, though we can't yet see
the details clearly.

CARET undertook a JISC-funded user research project on this question
last Fall, and while that effort is still driving toward developed
design thinking, we at Georgia Tech are pursuing this in the context
of a class of undergraduates. We have a project-based usability course
run each term, where the class of some 25 students divide into
functional teams to tackle a particular challenge put forward by a
real-world client. I've persuaded the instructor that the challenge
for the next few months should be academic networking, and I'll be
serving as the client for the exercise.  We can't duplicate CARET's
extensive user research in this brief period, but will rather be using
it as an input and launching point for running focus groups, creating
personae and design concepts, and eventually some paper prototypes.

It's a difficult period for budgets and resources, but then all the
more reason to turn to collaboration in a learning context to help
inform development. This is the kind of thing Sakai was made for, and
I'm looking forward to it.  It's a shame we won't have results in time
for the Boston conference, but I'll be sure to share what we have as
we go.

-- 
Clay