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<a href="index.html">Amanda Bassett</a>
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<h1>University Consulting</h1>
<h2>Research to improve an academic data visualization tool</h2>
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<h2>Overview</h2>
<p><strong>Format: </strong>Semester-long group project</p>
<p><strong>The Challenge: </strong>Help a University client gather up-to-date course descriptions that will appear in a course information data visualization tool.</p>
<p><strong>Roles: </strong>Interviewer, Editor, Consultant</p>
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<h2>Process</h2>
<p>My team conducted a series of interviews with several offices on campus to learn about the differences in course description creation and management. I conducted interviews and took notes for my teammates when they were interviewing. My team met after each interview to go over the key takeaways from the sessions.</p>
<p>Based on our notes from these debrief sessions, my team constructed an <strong>affinity wall</strong> to determine our interviewees' main paint points and common threads within the interview data. We grouped quotes and observations that we had collected throughout the semester into a hierarchy. We then created a second level to our hierarchy to determine overarching themes within our data.</p>
<img src="imgs/index_photo4.jpg" alt="Affinity Wall">
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<h2>Findings</h2>
<p>From the affinity wall exercise, we discovered that there were three key themes that consistently appeared across our interviews.</p>
<blockquote>"That sounds cool! I'd be interested in learning more about that."</blockquote><br>
<p><strong>Communication breakdown</strong> between our client's office and individual colleges led to <strong>confusion and lack of awareness</strong> regarding the data visualization tool. Despite the fact that the tool was a University-wide initiative to bring transparency to course evaluation data, the representatives from smaller colleges that we spoke with had never heard of it. However, several interviewees expressed interest in getting more information about this tool so that it could be shared with their students.</p>
<blockquote>"It would be great if we could input our data digitally and avoid all the human error from manual entry."</blockquote><br>
<p><strong>Lack of a centralized workflow</strong> to process course information impeded collaboration across campus offices. Each college had its own workflow for sending information to the central registrar. Some of this process was done with paper forms and needed to be entered into the database manually, meaning that an extensive QA process took place afterwards to ensure course description accuracy.</p>
<blockquote>"Well, right now it's held together with rubber bands and sealing wax."</blockquote><br>
<p>There were <strong>technical constraints</strong> due to massive amounts of course data housed by different campus offices. Some colleges had shadow databases with extra course information, and the process to sync this data with the University's central database would be quite extensive. The central database had been around for a long time and had amassed an enormous amount of information. While there were plans in place to update its structure, this was not an easy endeavor.</p>
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<h2>Solution</h2>
<p>My team brainstormed and sought feedback from classmates and instructors on our solutions. The ideas we proposed to our client included:</p>
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<li>Regular all-hands meeting to improve communication between departments</li>
<li>Collaboration between our client and the University IT department to revamp the course information form, allowing professors and administrators to enter complete information and eliminating the need for shadow databases</li>
<li>Working with the IT team to sync existing shadow databases with the data visualization tool</li>
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<p>The culmination of this semester-long endeavor included a final report and presentation analyzing the key themes we had uncovered during the interview process and offering solutions.</p>
<img src="imgs/client_presentation.jpg" alt="LSA databases slide">
<p><i>Many thanks to my teammate <a href="http://zachzeng.com/index.html">Yizhou</a> for creating such outstanding graphics for our client presentation.</i></p>
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<h2>Discussion</h2>
<p>Overall, my team had a great experience working with our client and learning more about the ins and outs of University administration. A few key takeaways:</p>
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<li>Our team encountered a learning curve as far as figuring out how to balance constraints (class requirements) and client expectations. What our client needed did not line up with the typical schedule and process that had been provided by our instructors. Through consistent communication with both clients and instructional staff, our team was able to adjust on the fly and provide useful solutions. While this ended up being a bit more up-front work, this project was a useful exercise in creatively working around constraints.</li>
<li>We presented our findings and solutions to classmates, instructors, and clients. While the information conveyed was essentially the same for each group, the delivery differed significantly. I learned a great deal about “knowing my audience” and presenting information in a format that made sense for each group. While creating several versions of each presentation took some time, I believe that a tailored approach to presenting sparked more thoughtful discussion than if we had not thoughtfully considered our audience’s needs.</li>
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