We use Scenario Based Design (SBD) to visualize automatic analyses of e-portfolios in dashboards. The results of these analyses can be presented in a variety of ways. Scenarios are used to identify situations where there are problems or potential for improvement in order to improve assessment and writing processes. Here we present an excerpt of various scenarios that helped in the development of the web application.
Context: Leonie is a lecturer in the seminar “Object-oriented programming”, in which students have to create an e-portfolio. The seminar ends with an oral examination. As the portfolios are included in the grade and serve as the basis for the oral exam, the lecturers must view and evaluate the portfolios in advance.
Problem Scenario: Leonie starts by evaluating the portfolios. She selects the first student “John Doe” and opens the e-portfolio environment Mahara in the browser and John's portfolio there. Next to the browser, Leonie places the Excel window and opens the assessment grid. She creates a new spreadsheet for John and inserts the grid (from a template). The respective assessment groups/criteria are listed across the table rows. Leonie reads the portfolio and fills in the grid at the same time. This results in a full monitor and can lead to a loss of time if, for example, only a laptop without additional screen is available. She always reads the entire portfolio of a student (uniform formatting, cross-connections become visible) and does not switch between students. She goes through the criteria of the grid one after the other and enters comments and reasons in the grid in addition to the assessment. These can also be helpful for the oral examination.
Activity Scenario: Leonie starts the evaluation in the AISOP web app. In an overview, she can select students whose e-portfolios are to be analyzed. She selects John Doe, starts the analysis and switches to assessment mode after completion. Here she is shown the selected e-portfolio and, on the right-hand side of the screen, a concept map with the main topics of the seminar, which Leonie can also navigate through. She changes the view from “Concept Map” to “Assessment Grid” and now sees the grid in which she can also make entries.
Context: Lecturer Erich reads and evaluates a student's portfolio. When filling in a point in the grid, he is unsure and wants to compare the portfolio with the portfolio of another student that has already been assessed in order to identify qualitative differences or similarities and adjust the assessment. Since he considers the current portfolio to be good, he would like to compare it with the portfolio that has been rated best so far.
Problem Scenario: Erich switches to the spreadsheet that is already open and navigates to the table with the overview of grades for all students. He searches for the portfolio with the highest marks so far, opens a new browser window, navigates to the desired portfolio in Mahara and compares different sections in parallel by arranging the two browser windows next to each other on the screen. He notices that the two portfolios are at roughly the same level in terms of the particular point in the grid. Erich switches to the grid of the student who has already been assessed in order to view the assessment, switches back to the grid of the current student and enters the same assessment there.
Activity Scenario: In the student overview of the LAD, Erich selects the portfolio of the student currently being assessed and the one with the best overall grade to date and selects the “Compare” option. A side-by-side view opens in which both portfolios are displayed next to each other in a browser window. He scrolls to the desired section in both portfolios and compares the portfolios. After the comparison, he switches to the grid and enters the assessment for the student.
Context: Student Moritz writes his portfolio for the first time as a regular learning diary, where acquired knowledge is explained in his own words and with his personal thought processes.
Problem Scenario: Moritz writes text on various topics from the seminar, inserts artifacts and scrolls up and down a lot to compare paragraphs. He would like to try to write good texts on individual topics that do not appeal to him and is sometimes unsure whether the scope is sufficient.
Activity Scenario: Moritz sees the interactive concept map for his course on his LAD. The main topics of the seminar are displayed here, as well as the links between the topics and the scope of the topics in the portfolio. Even though the map is an abstract collection, he realizes that the topics covered now make more sense to him and he can also make connections to other topics. For some topics, he notices that his diary entry is a little too brief for a knowledge presentation. The dashboard allows Moritz to quickly navigate to these places and adjust the content.