PP654 UniSa Freney - Final Report Feb 2010.pdf - Office for ...

estructure within the lead institution. These issues are discussed more thoroughly inthe Analysis of Critical Factors section.Alterations to the ApproachAs stated above, limitations on current methods for cross-institutional authenticationlimited the anticipated external trials.Although login access was eventually established for two external institutions, thetechnical issues with authentication were not resolved early enough for formal trials tobe conducted in these institutions. Another reason for not pursuing trials in otherinstitutions was that there were intermittent problems with the system that, while notrendering the system unusable, did create some frustration to users, and work-aroundsolutions had to be developed and communicated to the users (staff participating intrials).Thus to minimise risk during formative stages of development it was appropriate tomanage trials internally. The possibility of this outcome was discussed with a seniorALTC staff member to seek approval and advice, which was to aim for the externaltrials if it was feasible.As mentioned previously, another compromise was the decision not to include audiorecording functionality due to technical difficulties involved. However, CAFAS Excelretains this functionality so academics wanting to experiment with this can still do so.Other compromises relate to minor problems with the graphical user interface that wereidentified by the testers during trials of the system, but due to lack of resources andtime constraints, not all of these issues could be addressed. Any issues that werecritical were addressed promptly to ensure that the system was operable. However,those that remain continue to cause minor frustration or confusion to users. Theseissues have been logged on the Bug Reports page of the public access website toclearly identify any limitations of the system so that they can be addressed by futuredevelopers of the system. A list of work-around solutions and proposed improvementsthat were identified by the testers, but were unable to be addressed during this project,are listed on the Enhancement Requests page of the website. The system’s opensourcelicence, and provision of source code via the project website, ensures thatfuture developments are facilitated as much as possible.It became necessary to complete the programming tasks in discrete phases to facilitatestaged testing of the system. For example, the Assignment Management Section (inwhich the academic designs the feedback form) was completed as a priority so thatfeedback on the design of the graphics user interface could be obtained beforeproceeding with the subsequent Assessment Section of the system. This ensured thatfeedback could feed into the development cycle enabling the programmer to addresscriticisms in subsequent iterations of the software.During some trials in which non-critical functionality was not working properly, pop-upmessages were used to warn users of the limitation and describe an alternate workaroundsolution, to ensure that users would not be confounded. These messages wereprogressively removed as problematic aspects of the system were developed andperfected. This was an advantage of the web based approach as it avoided the needfor users to install new versions of software; every time they logged into CAFASOnline, they were automatically accessing the most current version.Computer Aided Feedback & Assessment System (CAFAS) 23