I've been around here about a month or so and my main problem is the complicated home page of this website. This means I keep discovering things I am missing (good or bad thing? maybe).
eg I visit forums a lot but there's no forums link on the main page. I usually end up clicking on an email to find them, although I have found my way there from the main page via another page.
eg I just found the resources section with wikis and mindmaps etc of previous discussions
eg I only just found this board
I'm sure there's a lot more going on here in Scope than the current forum I'm following (or not following much at the moment as I'm still not sure about online facilitation), but its hard to find things here. I'm sure a much more simplified layout would help many users of this site.
I nearly gave up when I first visited this site, but persevered as Tia wants me to contribute to her discussion next month so it was important to get acquainted with it and I have found it quite useful so far.
Are there any plans to reorganise the site - or at least the homepage?
Feedback! I love feedback!
Just last night I was checking the calendar and thinking it's time to schedule a discussion about SCoPE. But perhaps the way to go is just start here and now!
So thanks so much Corinne, for popping into the suggestion box with your ideas for organizing the site. We really need to try to make this work for everyone. And by we I mean us -- thankfully we can decide these things as a group.
We've had quite a growth spurt here in SCoPE, and in addition to our regular monthly seminars, new special interest groups and projects are spawning so the organization will only get more complex. This feedback is very important, and I'd like to gather more members here to discuss ways to simplify the interface.
I've noticed a few trends in the way SCoPE members interact with the site, and I think your method of accessing forums by clicking through email is common. As you've suggested, this means the convenience of being taken directly and efficiently to the place where you want to read or contribute is at the expense of discovering other activities and resources. Efficiency is good. But so is exploration.
To start, it would be great to hear suggestions for a simplified home page. I'm sure that discussion help us understand how to best organize other group spaces.
This will be a nice lead in to a upcoming presentation on the use of Moodle for online communities at Moodle Moot , where I can hopefully gather more feedback for other moodlers, and pull it back into this discussion.
Also, I'm currently working on a screencast that will provide a tour of SCoPE -- the main activities, resources, features, and layout. I hope to have that done in the next week or so.
So thanks again for initiating this discussion, Corinne! It's time to round up more people to figure out how to improve our SCoPE experience.
Just last night I was checking the calendar and thinking it's time to schedule a discussion about SCoPE. But perhaps the way to go is just start here and now!
So thanks so much Corinne, for popping into the suggestion box with your ideas for organizing the site. We really need to try to make this work for everyone. And by we I mean us -- thankfully we can decide these things as a group.
We've had quite a growth spurt here in SCoPE, and in addition to our regular monthly seminars, new special interest groups and projects are spawning so the organization will only get more complex. This feedback is very important, and I'd like to gather more members here to discuss ways to simplify the interface.
I've noticed a few trends in the way SCoPE members interact with the site, and I think your method of accessing forums by clicking through email is common. As you've suggested, this means the convenience of being taken directly and efficiently to the place where you want to read or contribute is at the expense of discovering other activities and resources. Efficiency is good. But so is exploration.
To start, it would be great to hear suggestions for a simplified home page. I'm sure that discussion help us understand how to best organize other group spaces.
This will be a nice lead in to a upcoming presentation on the use of Moodle for online communities at Moodle Moot , where I can hopefully gather more feedback for other moodlers, and pull it back into this discussion.
Also, I'm currently working on a screencast that will provide a tour of SCoPE -- the main activities, resources, features, and layout. I hope to have that done in the next week or so.
So thanks again for initiating this discussion, Corinne! It's time to round up more people to figure out how to improve our SCoPE experience.
My ideas as a starter for discussion (move post to more appropriate place eg if we setup a new board/seminar/sig for this).
I think there should be a section for new users including:
faqs (new users section)
current seminars
past seminars
calendar of events
SIGs
resources
general discussions (Kaleidoscope)
etc
The main body of the page should just introduce scope, point newbies at the new users section mentioned above and state the current and next seminar and/or any current items taking place.
I think there should be a section for new users including:
- what is scope and who is this site for? camtasia could be used to provide a video tour of scope.
- what is a SIG and how do I join one?
- how do i take part in seminars?
- what online tools do we use on scope (and beyond)? (mindmaps, wikis etc)
- where do i find past discussions and their outcomes, mindmaps, wikis etc?
- are there any other sections of scope i should know about?
faqs (new users section)
current seminars
past seminars
calendar of events
SIGs
resources
general discussions (Kaleidoscope)
etc
The main body of the page should just introduce scope, point newbies at the new users section mentioned above and state the current and next seminar and/or any current items taking place.
I'm fiddling with some of Corinne's ideas so we can see what is being suggested here. (Again, I can't thank you enough! Working together to make SCoPE a better place is my biggest interest)
i feel a mindmap coming on, lol
From Re: SCoPE main page by angua- on Friday 23 March 2007 21:27:00:
i feel a mindmap coming on, lol
It's funny, isn't it? I often find other people's mind maps completely baffling - and assume, therefore, that they'd also be similarly confused by mine.
That said, I didn't bother to look at the mindmap that was set up in the "Learning the Art of Online Facilitation" discussion, as I assumed that it wouldn't mean much to me (or, I'd want to adjust it to my way of thinking, which probably wouldn't suit others!) However, I've just looked & realise that what people have done is to draw out the keypoints from the discussion, but not to generate new ideas - though I@m sure that they have developed new links as a result.
As you can guess, I'm very sceptical of group mind maps for anything other than something very straightforward, one that doesn't have too many points that are really open to different interpretations.
I have great admiration for those that can work together on mindmaps for complex ideas!
i feel a mindmap coming on, lol
It's funny, isn't it? I often find other people's mind maps completely baffling - and assume, therefore, that they'd also be similarly confused by mine.
That said, I didn't bother to look at the mindmap that was set up in the "Learning the Art of Online Facilitation" discussion, as I assumed that it wouldn't mean much to me (or, I'd want to adjust it to my way of thinking, which probably wouldn't suit others!) However, I've just looked & realise that what people have done is to draw out the keypoints from the discussion, but not to generate new ideas - though I@m sure that they have developed new links as a result.
As you can guess, I'm very sceptical of group mind maps for anything other than something very straightforward, one that doesn't have too many points that are really open to different interpretations.
I have great admiration for those that can work together on mindmaps for complex ideas!
I'm still baffled by on fac, their mind map baffles me further, but I like making my own mindmaps when exploring new ideas, or even for planning teaching a new part of the curriculum.
I recently made 3 about marketing ideas for IndustryPlayer which seemed well received by our development team, mainly because I kept them simple.
I recently made 3 about marketing ideas for IndustryPlayer which seemed well received by our development team, mainly because I kept them simple.