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There can be little doubt these days that using the Internet (also Intranets, WWW) provides remarkable opportunities for individuals, groups, and organizations to communicate with one another, pool resources, and share information. At Virginia Tech, being online is almost fundamental to every affiliated person's experience. Students, in particular, use the Internet for a wide variety of academic and personal reasons. Recently, we have seen use of the Internet expand to include the delivery of supplemental and, in some cases, primary course materials.

In this project we use scenario-based design techniques to analyze and evaluate a web site that delivers instructional-support materials and provides access to online student evaluation in the form of electronic quizzes. Like Erskine et al. (1997), we have modified our scenario-based approach to serve less as an initial design tool and more as an evaluation tool for redesign and improvement. In some cases, we take advantage of Shneiderman's 8 properties of Direct Manipulation to analyze a scenario or draw a conclusion. We also rely on a modified NGOMSL model to perform an analysis of the navigational buttons that appear on the main interface of the Presentations.

When the Cyber1114 group leader suggested that an HCI analysis of the Cyber1114 project would help him evaluate, update, and redesign portions of the site, we were quite excited. We envisioned observing lots of actual student users and using online surveys to query them for specific feedback. Unfortunately, we found ourselves running into administrative problems. It seems, understandably, that the Math Department already felt their students were overburdened by the experimental nature of the Emporium. They were not receptive to sanctioned contact with actual users, presumably because it might seem disruptive to students' studies. Nonetheless, the department did direct us to their own data collections and several designers were available for the study. In many cases, the designers provide the most useful information.

Despite the absence of actual users in this study, several alternatives were available. First, we had direct contact with the software designers, who were very often users in their own right. They provided us detailed information about how the software was designed and intended to be used. Some of them even provided scenarios that we were able to use in our claims analysis. Second, we were given indirect feedback from actual users by way of the instructors. It was their concerns about the buttons on the navigation bar that prompted the NGOMSL analysis. Third, we had access to journals kept by an original group of 12 test subjects. These subjects were rising college freshman, expecting to go into engineering or computing sciences. They tested very early in the design process, so their notes were limited to the first few sectios. Fourth, we were able to get direct, but informal, feedback from students who were also tied the Emporium in one way or another. It is important to note that this feedback was not structured nor was it solicited. These students did not provide scenarios directly. In most cases, we obtained this information, unofficially, through casual conversation.

Approximately 1300 students are currently accessing the site from remote locations that include: home/dorm, on-campus computer labs, and the Virginia Tech Math Emporium - a 200+ computer lab dedicated to serving the Mathematics Department's Internet and computing needs for entry level math courses. Most students connect via ethernet or high-speed cable, but materials were designed to be tolerable for lower speed modems.

The course that this project focuses on is an introduction to matrix and vector algebras. It is typically required for all first year engineering and computer science students, though other students may be enrolled.