Evaluation of the Uppsala University ROLE Prototype

This report presents an evaluation of a prototype of a personal learning environment, the ROLE prototype testbed at Uppsala University. The foci of the evaluation was the usability of the system and providing feedback to the ROLE project on the users’ impression of how well the system functioned as a personal learning environment. Two HCI researchers conducted the usability evaluation in the spring of 2012. The context of the evaluation was a course in Social Media and Web 2.0 at Uppsala University, and a survey was used for the assessment. The survey consisted of 28 questions and was answered by 16 of approximately 20 students attending the course (~80%). The report contains results from the analysis of data and some interesting results are that the students felt like they were part of a team while working with the system, and that the advanced inter-widget communication introduced in the system did not create conceptual difficulties for them. Furthermore, the best predictor for the value of the system seem to be how well it supports collaboration between peers. This implies that in online education it is important to focus on supporting collaboration.ROL