A Collaborative Tool for Communities of Practice to Share Best Practices 
 
By 
 
Justus Nyamweya Nyagwencha 
 
 
 
 
A Dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty of 
Auburn University 
in partial fulfillment of the 
requirements for the Degree of 
Doctor of Philosophy 
 
Auburn, Alabama 
May 13, 2013 
 
 
 
 
Key Words: Programming, User interface, Usability, WebOS (web operating system), 
Communities of Practice, Computer Supportive Collaborative Work 
 
 
Copyright 2013 by Nyamweya Nyagwencha, Justus 
 
 
Approved by 
 
Cheryl Seals, Chair, Associate Professor of Computer Science and Software Engineering 
Xiao Qin, Associate Professor of Computer Science and Software Engineering 
Wei-Shinn Ku, Assistant of Computer Science and Software Engineering 
Tony Cook, Assistant Professor of Education, Extension Specialist and CES - 4H Admin   
ii 
 
Style manual or journal used in preparation of this proposal is Transactions of the American 
mathematical Society (together with the style known as ?auphd?. Bibliography follows van A 
Leunen?s A Handbook for Scholars. 
 
Computer software used:  The document preparation package ?Microsoft Word? in line with the 
departmental style-file phd.sty. 
 
 
 
  
iii 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Abstract  
 
                                                                      
This dissertation presents a For Youth For Life (FYFL) cloud tool as a unique solution to 
a problem of identifying an easy to use, scalable, cost effective, and fault tolerant collaborative 
system or tool for members of communities of practice to share best practices in line with 
Computer Supportive Collaborative Work (CSCW). The proposed research will be designed, 
developed and deployed as a secure collaborative tool or system that addresses issues related to 
usability, adaptation, and managing community of practice groups to promote informal learning 
and provide adequate support to help novice users overcome technophobia. This study performs 
empirical studies to support adopting a For Youth For Life (FYFL) cloud tool as a unique 
solution for communities of practice to share best practices in line with CSCW. The resulting 
tool, For Youth For Life (FYFL) cloud enable users to access information and collaborate 
effectively and its selection is efficiently supported by usability data among potential and expert 
users. The usability experiments and performance results fully demonstrate it as a user friendly, 
easy to that is easy to use, scalable, cost effective, and fault tolerant, and with straightforward 
user interfaces that foster the success of novice users. The usability experiments and performance 
results were instrumental in analyzing the perceived effectiveness and receptiveness of the 
proposed collaborative tool to share best practices within a Community of Practice (CoP). We 
consider technophobia and limited computer skills as main factors limiting collaboration among 
members of communities of practice, and strive to provide and validate an extensible and 
flexible CSCW tool that is easy to use and learn.  
iv 
 
This dissertation also proposes an innovative approach to hierarchical group management 
?Universal Quadrant Model? (UQM), a recursive, nondeterministic and backtracking generic 
algorithm. The computational framework manages self-purporting and emerging groups and 
provides a mechanism that limits fictitious accounts within an online community. UQM 
estimates the number of quadrants to represent spatial locality of groups relying on population 
density as an input factor. It is designed to cope with issues of adaptability, scalability, 
effectiveness, and efficiency in managing groups within a community of practice and is used for 
moderating users, navigation, locating and distribution of resources within an online system. The 
model provides a user friendly and efficient method for moderating a high number of users 
within groups by automating group formation. It also addresses the membership anonymity 
problem, and perpetuates self purporting and sustaining groups within a spatial locality i.e. (a 
community of practice group).  
  
v 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Acknowledgements 
 
 
The author would like to specially thank Dr. Cheryl D. Seals for her tireless support and 
the members of the advisory committee for their continued support throughout the entire 
graduate studies period. He is grateful to his parents (mother Pafika Kemunto Nyagwencha and 
especially his late father Nyagwencha Nyambane) for taking care of him and inspiring him in a 
profound way. Finally, he thanks his wife, his Daughters Naya Tichi Nyamweya and Zara 
Blessing Nyamweya for unlimited love.  
  
vi 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Table of Contents 
 
Abstract .........................................................................................................................................III 
List of Figures .............................................................................................................................. XI 
Introduction ....................................................................................................................................1 
1.1 Motivation ...............................................................................................................................1 
1.2 The Goals, Approach, Contribution of the Research ..............................................................5 
1.3 Organization of the Dissertation .............................................................................................8 
Literature Review ........................................................................................................................10 
2.1 CSCWs to Mold Communities .............................................................................................10 
2.2 Computer Supportive Collaborative Work ...........................................................................15 
2.2.1 Collaborative Network Learning ....................................................................................15 
2.2.2 Computer Supported Collaborative Learning .................................................................15 
2.2.3 Learning Management Systems ......................................................................................16 
2.2.3.1 WebcT ..............................................................................................................16 
2.2.3.2 Blackboard ........................................................................................................18 
2.2.3.3 Moodle ..............................................................................................................19 
2.2.3.4 Atlantic Link .....................................................................................................21 
2.2.4 Collaborative and Informal Learning in Virtual Space ...................................................21 
2.2.4.1 Supporting Communities of Practice Groups with CSCW ..............................23 
2.2.4.2 Sharing of Best Practices within a Community of Practice ..............................24 
2.2.4.3 Collaborative Learning within Communities of Practice .................................25 
vii 
 
2.3 The Variety of Collaboration Scales .....................................................................................26 
2.4 Classification of Collaboration Tools ...................................................................................30 
2.4.1 Computer Bulletin Board Based Systems or Forums (BB). ...........................................31 
2.4.2 Content Managers ...........................................................................................................32 
2.4.3 YouTube .........................................................................................................................33 
2.4.4 E-Mails ............................................................................................................................34 
2.4.5 Cloud Computing ............................................................................................................36 
2.4.5.1 webOS Cloud ....................................................................................................38 
2.4.5.2 Components webOS .........................................................................................38 
2.4.5.3 webOS Key Features ........................................................................................39 
2.5 Minimum Security Requirement CSCW Tools ....................................................................40 
2.6 Users and User Experiences with CSCW Tools ...................................................................46 
2.7 Research Objectives ..............................................................................................................47 
Research Outline and Statement of the Problem ......................................................................51 
3.1 Research Outline ...................................................................................................................51 
3.2 The Collaboration Tool Selection Problem ..........................................................................51 
3.3 Research Approach ...............................................................................................................53 
3.3.1 Phase I: Requirements.....................................................................................................54 
3.3.2 Phase II: Prototyping.......................................................................................................54 
3.3.3 Phase III: Comprehensive Evaluation .............................................................................54 
3.4 Research Questions ...............................................................................................................55 
3.4.1 Technical Skills ...............................................................................................................56 
3.4.2 System Support of Usability ...........................................................................................56 
viii 
 
3.4.3 System Support for Novice Programmers ......................................................................57 
3.4.4 Skills Requirements for Reuse or Share Best Practices ..................................................58 
3.5 The Group Population Problem ............................................................................................59 
3.5.1 The existing group management model ..........................................................................60 
3.5.2 The Existing Group Management Solution ....................................................................63 
3.6 Hypotheses ............................................................................................................................65 
Design and Implementation ........................................................................................................68 
4.1 Case Studies: Initial Phase, Phase I, and Phase II .................................................................68 
4.1.1 Initial Phase: YouTube - KxNN (Kids News Network) Study .......................................69 
4.1.2 Phase I: K-12 Teachers Study .........................................................................................71 
4.1.2.1 Basic Structure of a Forum ...............................................................................72 
4.1.2.2 Networking Teaching Tools .............................................................................73 
4.1.3 Phase I Data and Analysis...............................................................................................76 
4.2 Generated FYFL System Requirements and Analysis..........................................................80 
4.2.1 FYFL Systems Requirements .........................................................................................81 
4.2.2 Summary of Benefits: .....................................................................................................86 
4.2.3 Assumptions and Dependencies .....................................................................................86 
4.2.4 Summary of System Features .........................................................................................87 
4.3 Use Cases ..............................................................................................................................88 
4.3.1 Use Case ? I ....................................................................................................................89 
4.3.2 Use-Case II......................................................................................................................93 
4.4 Downloading and Re-using of Best Practices .......................................................................96 
4.5 Phase II: FYFL Cloud Expert Group Study ..........................................................................98 
ix 
 
4.5.1 Phase II: Expert Survey Data and Analysis ....................................................................99 
4.5.2 FYFL Tool Generated Requirements............................................................................107 
4.5.3 Generated Requirements for a Cloud Tool ...................................................................108 
4.6 The UQM Model.................................................................................................................109 
4.6.1 UQM Architecture ........................................................................................................112 
4.6.2 The Universal Quadrant Model Prototype ....................................................................112 
4.6.3 The UQM architecture ..................................................................................................116 
Experimental Evaluation and Data Analysis ..........................................................................118 
5.1 Experimental Design ...........................................................................................................118 
5.2 Usability Evaluation............................................................................................................119 
5.3 The Experiment ...................................................................................................................120 
5.3.1 Experiment Methods .....................................................................................................120 
5.3.2 Target Population Group...............................................................................................120 
5.3.3 Experiment Setup and Requirements ............................................................................120 
5.3.4 Experiment Design........................................................................................................120 
5.3.5 Materials .......................................................................................................................121 
5.3.6 Informed Consent..........................................................................................................121 
5.3.7 Pre-test Questionnaire ...................................................................................................121 
5.3.8 Post-test Questionnaire .................................................................................................121 
5.3.9 Procedures .....................................................................................................................121 
5.4 Data Collection and Data Analysis .....................................................................................122 
5.4.1 Performance Data..........................................................................................................124 
5.4.2 User Observations .........................................................................................................124 
x 
 
5.4.3 Retrospective Interviews ...............................................................................................124 
5.4.4 Statistics ........................................................................................................................124 
5.4.5 Experimental Results ....................................................................................................124 
5.4.6 Participants Backgrounds..............................................................................................125 
5.4.7 Participant Background Categories: .............................................................................125 
5.4.8 Task Performance and Satisfaction ...............................................................................130 
5.5 Verbal Protocols and User Behavior ...................................................................................134 
Conclusion and Future Work ...................................................................................................136 
Bibliography ...............................................................................................................................141 
Appendices ..................................................................................................................................147 
APPENDIX I ...............................................................................................................................147 
APPENDIX II ..............................................................................................................................160 
APPENDIX III .............................................................................................................................169 
APPENDIX III .............................................................................................................................171 
  
xi 
 
List of Figures 
 
Figure 2.1: CSCW Matrix. (Johansen, R. 1988 ?Groupware:  Computer Support for Business 
Teams?) .....................................................................................................................13 
Figure 2.2: WebCT ? Course .........................................................................................................17 
Figure 2.3: Blackboard interface: (Courtesy Auburn university website) .....................................19 
Figure 2.4: Moodle (courtesy of Wikipedia) .................................................................................20 
Figure 2.5: Courtesy Wikipedia: You tube user interface .............................................................34 
Figure 2.6: Courtesy Google: E-mail composition and transfer in diagram. .................................35 
Figure 2.7: Cloud computing conceptual diagram (Courtesy wikipedia) ......................................37 
Figure 2.8: The FYFL.org cloud ....................................................................................................41 
Figure 3.1: The FYFL ?cloud? development system cycle. ..........................................................55 
Figure 3.2: The Orange region: Mid-Western region ....................................................................61 
Figure 3.3: The Red region: Southern region ................................................................................62 
Figure 3.4: The Red region; Southern region ................................................................................63 
Figure 4.1: The prototyping Model (Courtesy Software Engineering Theory and Practice S.L 
Pfleeger and J. M. Atlee) ...........................................................................................69 
Figure 4.1: The KxNN -YouTube channel ....................................................................................70 
Figure 4.3: The basic structure of a forum. ....................................................................................72 
Figure 4.4a: The proposed collaborative tool theoretic diagram ...................................................74 
Figure 4.4b: The  FYFL ?The improved Social Learning Environment theory ............................75 
Figure 4.5:  K-12 Forum Prototype Architecture diagram ............................................................76 
Figure 4.6: K-12 teachers gender distribution ...............................................................................77 
Figure 4.7: Subjects level of education graphical representation ..................................................78 
xii 
 
Figure 4.8: Online teaching tools supplement traditional classroom .............................................79 
Figure 4.9: Requirements Analysis (reminiscent task-artifact cycle) ............................................82 
Figure 4.10: For Youth For Life Development ..............................................................................83 
Figure 4.11: Perspective Diagram..................................................................................................89 
Figure 4.12: Use Case Diagram for the Entire System Diagram ...................................................93 
Figure 4.13: Re-Use Best Practice Use Case Diagram ..................................................................94 
Figure 4.14: The experts experimental design diagram .................................................................98 
Figure 4.15: The participant?s gender distribution graphical representation .................................99 
Figure 4.16: The expert group level of education graphical representation ................................100 
Figure 4.17: The expert user group age distribution ....................................................................102 
Figure 4.18: The expert group online tools user experience ........................................................103 
Figure 4.19: The expert group overall usability experience -FYFL tool .....................................105 
Figure 4.23: A graphical illustration of the UQM .......................................................................111 
Figure 4.24: Login page for registered members .........................................................................113 
Figure 4.25: An account registration page for UQM ...................................................................113 
Figure 4.26: Regions color coded graphical user interface..........................................................114 
Figure 4.27: A UQM generated group Graphical interface .........................................................115 
Figure 4.28: UQM generated groups in a graphical user interface ..............................................116 
Figure 5.1: FYFL cloud categorical data from the usability study. .............................................126 
Figure 3.2: Experimental procedure sequence of events chart ....................................................123 
Figure 5.2: FYFL cloud Categorical data self reports. ................................................................127 
Figure 5.3: Work experince and computer user experience in years ...........................................128 
Figure 5.4: Work experience and computer user experience in years .........................................129 
xiii 
 
Figure 5.5: The figure shows the test subjects? gender distribution ............................................133 
Figure 5.6: Self reported sample comments on usability .............................................................134 
 
  
xiv 
 
 
List of Tables 
 
 
Table 2.1: Properties of collaborative tools available in the virtual world ....................................31 
Table 2.2: Types of cloud and cloud services ................................................................................43 
Table 4.1: KXNN Pre-Questionnaire subjects gender distribution ...............................................77 
Table 4.2: K-12 teachers KXNN subjects level of education ........................................................77 
Table 4.3: K-12 teachers experience with online educational tools ..............................................78 
Table 4.4: Online teaching tools supplements traditional classroom lessons ................................78 
Table 4.5: Subjects would you use a forum to teach lessons if it were available ..........................79 
Table 4.6: Basic system requirements ...........................................................................................84 
Table 4.7: The expert?s group gender distribution table ................................................................99 
Table 4.8: The expert group level of education distribution table ...............................................100 
Table 4.9: The expert group self reported field of study table .....................................................101 
Table 4.10: The expert group age distribution table ....................................................................101 
Table 4.11: The expert group online tools user experience .........................................................103 
Table 4.12: The expert group overall usability experience of FYFL tool ...................................104 
Table 5.1: Summary of experimental overview ...........................................................................122 
Table 5.2: Participants categories ................................................................................................127 
Table 5.3: Computer user experience and work experience categorization ................................128 
Table 5.4: Means and STD DIV broken down by four background measures ............................131 
Table 5.5: Summary of time, std, and errors for the FYFL tasks (N=25) ...................................131 
Table 5.6: Satisfaction rating; mean and std-tasks performance  ................................................132 
CHAPTER I 
Introduction 
1.1 Motivation 
The usage of the term CSCW-Computer Supported Collaborative Work inside various 
academic fields and fortiori across the fields is wide. Besides, the wide range of usage of the 
term, this research will focus and include specific tasks, which will require members / 
participants to converge to a shared understanding of how usability (a branch of Human 
Computer Interaction) plays a vital role in adoption of CSCW tools among members of 
communities of practice with respect to social computing and informal learning. The study 
chooses to utilize a cloud-based tool to support communities of practice in a method that is user 
friendly and has a greater ease of use, compared to wikis and content management systems. This 
work is inspired by the appeal of Facebook and its ease of use, but seeks to provide a secure 
environment for its users through a management model that will limit the number fictitious user 
accounts to a minimum. We are motivated to create an environment that will support a large 
community of practice in virtual space and at a low cost value through economies of scale. The 
environment is intended to encourage social computing among K-12 teachers and 4-H club 
members who will collaborate, share and re-use best practices in the initial phase of the study.  
Currently, there is a lot of interest focused on social computing, a branch of CSCW. 
CSCW is a result of the realization of researchers from various academic disciplines that 
computer applications are most useful when designed according to the user?s needs. Therefore, 
various technological innovations and efforts can greatly benefit from the input of others in the 
areas of cognitive science and humanities bridging the gap between users? needs and designers. 
This collaboration has led to the theory of user-centered design. However, this research focuses 
on social computing and informal learning, a branch of CSCW in relation to:  
2 
 
1) Sharing and re-uses of best practices by community of practice members 
2) Usability of collaboration tools and the effects on novice computer users 
3) Usability and acceptance of the social computing tool compared to wikis and content 
managements systems i.e. Moodle and Blackboard and 
4). Lowering the cost of technology through cloud computing services. 
  This research, utilizes a CSCW cloud tool to evaluate by the study of community of 
practice members working together to share their best practices from a social computing and 
informal learning perspective with a focus on usability and user experience acceptance. The 
study investigates and focuses mainly on usability and informal learning but evaluates security 
issues that affect online environments. The study is designed to evaluate and ensure that the 
collaborative and social computing tool FYFL meets minimum online usability standards and has 
robust security features to safeguard the privacy of member users.  
This study  is vital because in the recent past, researchers are stressing the need to follow 
HCI usability techniques and design guidelines to ensure that the social computing and 
information learning system are easy to use and can support novice users. These techniques 
could help to gather feedback on how to improve the initial system interfaces, system security, 
and online technophobia (the fear of using technological devices, such as computers or fear of 
the effects of technological developments on society or the environment). Designers are 
encouraged to conduct usability test surveys among the targeted user populations to gather 
information on how to improve the initial design based on requirements by using prototyping 
cycles. This research uses usability experts, K-12 teachers and 4-H clubs community of practice 
members nominated as the initial user population to test and validate the system before 
deployment. The survey responses will provide valuable input for re-designing user interfaces 
3 
 
and provide rubrics for a guideline to advance informal social computing applications and 
informal learning environment.  Social computing and informal learning is a branch of CSWC 
with numerous unexplored benefits for a cross section of the population groups. For example, 
through social computing- 4-H club members and CSWC K-12 teachers can be encouraged to 
share and re-use best practices as a community of practice to emulate the business industry 
which has highly benefited from sharing best practices through collaboration (e.g. the software 
development industry that successfully utilizes code-re-use during software development through 
collaboration). This project aims at evaluating and validating a tool or framework that can be 
used to encourage social computing and informal learning through sharing of best practices 
within a community of practice to steadily benefit and enhance member?s career aspirations 
significantly through collaboration as witnessed in the code-re-use within the software 
development industry. By tapping into CSCW benefits and online learning (i.e. having full 
course content materials in virtual space on a particular subject) and enhance practices re-use and 
social computing collaboration among K-12 stakeholders. However, currently, social computing 
and informal learning CSWC tools are not used as a main tool for sharing best practices among 
4-H club members? and K-12 teachers which are the initial study groups. Through studying the 
4-H members, this research will investigate the usability and viability of a social computing tool 
fyfl.org and its effects among existing communities of practice by using user?s feedback on 
usability to generate redesign principles for user interfaces for various groups. We hope that the 
validated tool will then foster collaboration and re-use of best practices and unstructured learning 
among member users. The research will validate the need to incorporate a tool to support virtual 
community to share re-use of best practices by members of communities of practice to take 
advantage of the numerous benefits offered by the CSCW tools. This work will be validated 
4 
 
through surveys about the FYFL cloud and a virtual community that has been developed in our 
HCI lab in collaboration with the Alabama e-Extension department. The research findings are 
aimed at highlighting the untapped benefits of collaborating through the CSWC tools as well as 
the hindrances compared to traditional methods. These benefits include: 
? Data storage in the cloud 
? Location independent 
? Low cost - Pay as you go for services lowering technology cost in the long run 
? Scalability 
? Access to High performance computing at a low cost since cloud utilizes High-end 
servers. 
? Development tools for various technological use available within the cloud at low cost 
? Available  software application with the cloud  
? Possibility to Communicate Effectively  
o There is a high possibility for members of a community of practice twill learn 
how to communicate effectively. By reaching out to each other and building trust 
and understanding through friendships by seeking common ground. 
? Motivation to Collaborate 
o Members of a community will build a sense of responsibility by feeling obligated 
to the group and will take responsibility for the group. In due course they will 
learn to be responsible and become team players with the skills necessary to 
succeed in today?s world.  
? Efficient Access to Information 
5 
 
o Members of community of practice will access information and other resources 
easily without the restriction of time and place, unlike the prevalent face-to?face 
collaboration system. In addition the permanency of records on shared practices, 
the independence of time and place to access information will allow members 
(e.g. students, teachers, and 4-H members) to learn and complete the tasks at 
hand remotely. This will also eliminate the fear of starting from scratch when the 
need for a practice arises and encourage members to focus on the task at hand. 
1.2 The Goals, Approach, Contribution of the Research  
The major goal of this research was to identify, evaluate a novel collaborative tool for 
communities of practice members to share best practices and simulate a group management 
model for managing online groups effectively and efficiently. This study has identified K-12 
teachers and 4-H club members as the initial subgroups that will benefit from collaborative 
interaction in respect to sharing best practices on various topics by the members. The main 
criterion for choosing members to participate in the study is a voluntarily acceptance of teachers 
and schools to participate by willingly subscribing to use the FYFL cloud tool that we have 
developed to collaborate and share best practices. Participants will then provide a feedback on its 
usability and how easy it is to use by novice users for collaboration purposes. This FYFL tool is 
assumed to be a framework model of complementary between collecting quantitative and 
qualitative data on social computing and unstructured learning through sharing best practices 
among communities of practice members, for example K-12 teachers on science concepts. In the 
long-term, the study will focus on K-12 teachers collaborating on sharing best practices and can 
extend to sharing and re-using of educational materials between students and teachers. In many 
instances, teacher-student collaboration consists of standard face-to-face classes with the teacher 
6 
 
as the leader of the instructional process in front of the classroom or whiteboard (ref standard 
educational practices vs. collaborative practices). We are proposing to create an environment 
which does the following: (1) leverages members of a community of practice understanding and 
high volume use of collaborative technology (blogs, MySpace, Face Book, emails, etc.), (2) 
provides a medium that members can easily share materials and (3) provides a medium where 
members more freely collaborate as much as the public already collaborates for social 
networking and share content with mechanism to support communities of practice in easily 
sharing and re-using materials and best practices on specific topics.  
This study did not focus on institutional issues in the first phase of this work. Our aim is 
to study social promotion of discussions about science, agriculture and other content matter 
among the initial study groups; the K-12 and 4-H club members. We will also provide a user-
friendly experience and a secure platform for collaboration. The study will create an environment 
to leverage existing tendencies of human social nature and utilize this in a collaborative 
environment.  We anticipate that the participants of this work will have improved efficacy of 
their computer literacy, improved educational performance and more intrinsic motivation to 
spend more time concentrated on efforts that promote scientific content materials at the end of 
the study. In the second phase of the study, participants will work together as teams in a 
community of practice (e.g. student and teacher teams) that will utilize and contribute to this 
sharing and learning environment [2]. The results of this study will be used to support the 
creation of an environment that supports communities of practice in creating and sharing more 
content materials in a virtual community in a cloud environment. The environment will support 
improved use of materials within the virtual community leveraging the ease of use and popularity 
of other social networking environment such as Facebook. Our hope is that this method of 
7 
 
resource presentation and resource sharing will increase the usage of educational materials and 
applications among a community of practice.  
The thesis of this research addresses the usability and user interface problems for web-
based tools supporting informal learning through collaboration. Through our evaluation of 
literature we have found that collaborative tools must undergo a comprehensive usability test 
before adoption. When this is neglected, it results in a flawed system, which is not fully 
acceptable and embraced by the target audience (user group).   
 This research is concerned with surveying a number of collaboration online tools, 
identifying the most applicable tool for our user population (4-H group), development of a 
minimalist tutorial to support and improve usability for the self reported novice users of the 
selected application with a main focus to develop a model to aid in managing groups of groups 
while enabling users to collaborate effectively within the selected tool environment.  The main 
goal is to motivate members of communities of practice mainly the 4-H group to be content 
generators and remove the instructor type of structure and mitigate the technophobia among 
novice users by providing support through the minimalist tutorials to inexperienced web-content 
designers to contribute to the knowledge bank on particular subject matter.  
This research has five objectives: 
1. Surveying online collaborative tools to identify one with a collaborative usability 
design principles associated with effective online usability values advocated by 
current user and user experience research. 
2. Develop a minimalist tutorial that captures the general knowledge skills enough 
for mastering core usability features of the collaboration tool and test it with 
users.  
8 
 
3. Conduct a thorough usability and user experience studies with stakeholders of the 
collaborative tool and utilize the feedback data to improve the minimalist tutorial 
to enhance novice user?s experience in trainings. 
4. Generate a high level framework that can serve as a model for using minimalist 
tutorials support for novice users in online CSCW. 
5.  Develop a self purporting and sustaining group management model and its 
prototype with a color coded graphical user interface with a registration process 
that associates users with spatial locality to aid in resources allocation, and user 
accountability by limiting fictitious user accounts.  
This work resulted in a minimalist tutorial and guidelines for developing a 
minimalist tutorial for a cloud based tool for novice users, a universal model UQM 
(quadrant universal model) that will form the foundation for managing groups of groups 
to identify users in relation to their spatial locality to ensure effective and efficient 
management of resources relation to existing model, and the adoption of a cloud based 
collaborative tool for members of the 4-H group supported by usability survey data 
conducted on potential users. 
  
1.3 Organization of the Dissertation 
The rest of the dissertation is structured as follows. Chapter 2 is literature review, which 
contains a brief history of collaborative tools and their characteristics. In chapter 3, we address 
the research issues; define the research problems and outlines approaches that attempt to solve 
the problems. Chapter 4 explains in detail the software design, development, and the proposed 
9 
 
universal quadrant model (simulation). Chapter 5 describes the methods and presents the human 
studies empirical results. Conclusions and future work is presented in chapter 6.  
  
10 
 
CHAPTER 2 
 
Literature Review 
 
As a generic term, CSCW combines the understanding of the way people work in groups 
with the enabling technologies of computer networking, all associated hardware, software, 
services and techniques, and the quantified general effects thereafter [12]. In academics, CSCW 
allows cooperation among people of various academic backgrounds as a design oriented 
academic field (i.e. social psychologists, sociologists, computer scientists and educators). 
Though the field is multidisciplinary, it is a focused research field with a main objective of 
designing or re-engineering computer-based technology products to support and satisfy a specific 
group?s work [1][12]. The design of CSCW technology is tailored to specific characteristics 
unique to the user group based on the understanding of the group?s work and practices as well as 
the amount of cooperation required for the success of the group (i.e. a computer collaborative 
learning group focused on enhancing learning through collaboration). However, there is an 
emerging group of users that use technological innovations for unexpected activities [15]. There 
are many common examples of innovative use of collaborative technology (e.g. the use of 
forums as a K-12 teaching tool contrary to the designers? intentions.  
 
2.1 CSCWs to Mold Communities  
The term computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) was first coined by Irene Greif 
and Paul M. Cashman in 1984 at a workshop attended by individuals interested in using 
technology to support people in their work[33]. In 1987, Dr. Charles Findley presented the 
concept of collaborative learning-work; "how collaborative activities and their coordination can 
be supported by means of computer systems"[34]. Through many authors consider CSCW and 
11 
 
groupware to be the same, they are different. Groupware refers to computer-based systems; 
CSCW is the study of tools and techniques of groupware as well as their psychological, social, 
and organizational effects. Wilson (1991) expresses the difference between these two concepts: 
?CSCW is a generic term, which combines the understanding of the way people work in groups 
with the enabling technologies of computer networking, and associated hardware, software, 
services and techniques ? [28]. 
CSCW is a design-oriented academic field bringing together social psychologists, 
sociologists, and computer scientists, among others. Despite the variety of disciplines, CSCW is 
an identifiable research field focused on understanding characteristics of interdependent group 
work with the objective of designing adequate computer-based technology to support such 
cooperative work. 
There are three CSCW core dimensions of cooperative work that have been discovered 
over the years by researchers:  
Awareness: Refers to individuals working together need to be able to gain some level of 
shared knowledge about each other's activities [36]. 
Articulation work: Refers to cooperating individuals must somehow be able to partition 
work into units, divide it amongst themselves, and after the work is performed, reintegrate it 
[37][38].  
Appropriation (or tailorability): refers how an individual or group adapts a technology 
to their own particular situation; the technology may be appropriated in a manner completely 
unintended by the designers [39].  
These concepts have largely been derived through the analysis of systems designed by 
researchers in the CSCW community, or through studies of existing systems (e.g. Wikipedia). 
12 
 
CSCW researchers that design and build systems try to address core concepts in novel ways. 
However, the complexity of the domain makes it difficult to produce conclusive results; the 
success of CSCW systems is often so contingent on the peculiarities of the social context that it 
is hard to generalize. Consequently, CSCW systems that are based on the design of successful 
ones may fail to be appropriated in other seemingly similar contexts for a variety of reasons that 
are nearly impossible to identify a priori [40]. CSCW researcher Mark Ackerman calls this 
"divide between what we know, what we must support socially, and what we can support 
technically", the socio-technical gap and describes CSCW's main research agenda to be 
"exploring, understanding, and hopefully ameliorating" this gap [41]. 
In order to implement CSCW effectively, Mark Ackman?s social technical divide must be 
addressed. The gap of what technology can support from a social context introduces the 
challenge of ?how we can replicate the social events virtually?? Bridging this gap will ensure 
that CSCW tools are effective in satisfying the need they are designed to mitigate/solve. To 
address the social ? technology divide Morgan Kaufmann uses a Time/Space matrix and divides 
CSCWs into groups; same time- same place, different times ? same place, different time 
different space and different time ? different space. The matrix is intended to be a replica of real 
life social situations that CSCWs designers will have to address when creating/refining CSCWs. 
The Time/Space Groupware Matrix shown below courtesy of Morgan Kaufmann publishers 
outlines the different ways people collaborate [41]. 
13 
 
 
Figure 2.1: CSCW Matrix. (Source: Johansen, R. 1988 ?Groupware:  Computer Support 
for Business Teams? The Free Press.) 
 
Both time and space facets are bipolar (i.e. same time or different time and same lace 
different place perspective). Thus the time space groupware matrix has online communities 
divided into four categories: 
Same Time, Same Place ? Synchronous Co-located: Characterized with face to face 
interactions in decision rooms, single displays, groupware, shared table, wall displays, room 
ware etc.[41]. 
Same Place, Different Time ? Asynchronous: A major collaboration between a group working 
on continuous tasks through tea rooms, large public displays, shift work groupware, project 
management etc.[41]. 
Different Place, Same Time ? Asynchronous Remote: Remote interactions accomplished 
through video conferencing, instant messaging, charts/MUDs/virtual worlds, shared screens, 
multi-user editors etc. [41]. 
14 
 
Different Place, Same Time ? Asynchronous-Remote: Communication, coordination, e-mail, 
bulletin boards, blogs, asynchronous conferencing, group calendars, workflow, version control, 
wikis [41].     
The CSCW paradigm provides a framework of what we know we can support socially 
but the social technical mapping still remains the main problem. Many of the researchers in this 
area are looking for ways to bridge the disparity between the social need and the capability to 
support the need technically from a computer science perspective [29]. 
Communities can be formed to support almost any activity. This creates a need for 
CSCW in a multitude of areas that need to be supported through computer collaborative work. In 
real life, there are some sorts of community supportive computer-based collaborative service 
being used by major commercial, social and academic activities in the world today. IBM uses the 
use the term social computing to describe the field of computer collaborative work. This is an 
attempt to infuse social convention in opposition to the technological characteristics that are 
associated with computer systems and software (i.e. the use of e-mail for maintaining social 
relationships, instant messaging for daily micro-coordination at one's workplace, or weblogs as a 
community building tool instead of the programming aspects of the e-mail or blog). The outlined 
tools have been successfully implemented and accepted by many users as a way of social life. 
Likewise many educational and commercial institutions are in the forefront of advancing their 
services using CSCW tools. Some of the major services offered to clients include online degrees 
and online banking services by most major banks in the commercial service sector. Many social 
forums have been implemented to serve communities. The forums are an intended meeting 
?spot? for individuals to gather and socialize. In the academic world, systems are utilized as 
pedagogical agents to enhance teaching and sharing knowledge (e.g. blackboard, WebCT and 
15 
 
Moodle) [42]. The general public has many forums to support social interaction for example 
Facebook, yahoo chart and Twitter. Our goal to leverage Facebook in providing a cloud system 
where members of a community of practice will spend time and contribute to the knowledge of 
peers as well as learn from others in a user friendly and secure manner through social networking 
on a community practices.  
 
2.2  Computer Supportive Collaborative Work 
Types of computer collaborative work include collaborative networking learning, 
computer supported collaborative learning, learning management systems, and collaborative 
learning in second worlds (virtual worlds).  
2.2.1 Collaborative Network Learning 
Dr. Charles A. Findley developed the method ?Collaborative Networked Learning? as 
part of his work on designing the classroom of the future for the knowledge worker in the mid 
1980s. "Collaborative Networked Learning? (CNL) is electronic discourse between self-directed 
adult learners and experts. Another form of collaboration, self-directed organizing and learning 
for the youth relies on the concept of youth voice.  To succeed, learners are accountable and 
dependent on each other in participation groups through communication in a contextual 
framework supervised by an expert [42].   
 
2.2.2 Computer Supported Collaborative Learning 
Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) is a relatively new educational 
paradigm within collaborative learning, which uses technology in a learning environment to help 
mediate and support group interactions in a collaborative learning context. CSCL systems use 
16 
 
technology to control and monitor interactions, to regulate tasks, rules, and roles, and to mediate 
the acquisition of new knowledge [43]. One study illustrated that using robots in the classroom to 
promote collaborative learning led to an increase in learning effectiveness of the activity and an 
increase in the student?s motivation [43]. Researchers and practitioners in several fields, 
including cognitive sciences, sociology and computer engineering, have begun to investigate 
social computing and CSCL; it constitutes a new inter-disciplinary field.  
2.2.3 Learning Management Systems 
Learning Management Systems is a context that gives collaborative learning particular 
meaning. In this context, collaborative learning refers to a collection of tools, which learners can 
use to assist, or be assisted by others. Such tools include virtual classrooms (i.e. geographically 
distributed classrooms linked by audio-visual network connections), chat, discussion threads, and 
application sharing (e.g. a colleague projects spreadsheet on another colleague?s screen across a 
network link for the purpose of collaboration) among many others. Notable learning 
management systems tools include: aTutor, Blackboard Learning System, CCNet, Claroline, 
Desire2Learn, Dokeos, eCollege, eFront, HotChalk, ILIAS, Jackson Creek Software, 
JoomlaLMS, Learn.com, Meridian KSI, Moodle, Saba Learning Suite, Sakai Project, 
SharePointLMS, Spiral Universe, Thinking Cap and TotalLMS.  
2.2.3.1 WebcT 
WebCT (Course Tools) was the world's first widely successful course management 
system for higher education. At its height, it was in use by over 10 million students in 80 
countries before it was acquired by Blackboard and was an online proprietary virtual learning 
environment system sold to colleges and other institutions and used on many campuses for e-
learning. WebCT courses are added by the instructor through tools provided by the system (i.e. 
17 
 
discussion boards, mail systems and live chat), along with content including documents and web 
pages. The latest versions of this software are called Web courses [45]. 
According to the Blackboard website ?WebCT was originally developed at the University of 
British Columbia by a faculty member in computer science, Murray Goldberg. 
 
Figure 2.2: WebCT ? Course   
 
Goldberg is also the creator of Silicon Chalk (http://www.silicon-
chalk.com/related/tutorials.htm], and Brainify [http://www.brainify.com], an academic social 
bookmarking and networking site. In 1995, Goldberg studied the application of web-based 
systems to education. His findings indicated that student satisfaction and academic performance 
can be improved through the use of a web-based educational resource (WebCT was as a result of 
this research). As part of the research, Goldberg designed a web system to ease the creation of 
web-based learning environments that resulted into the first version of WebCT. This was in early 
18 
 
1996 and he presented his work to the international World Wide Web conference in Paris the 
same year. The system later became WebCT Educational Technologies Corporation. In mid-
1999, WebCT was acquired by ULT (Universal Learning Technology) which had over 10 
million students in 80 countries using the system. By February 2006, WebCT was acquired by 
rival Blackboard Inc. and was incorporated into the Blackboard system [25]. 
2.2.3.2 Blackboard  
In the 2010, the Blackboard website clarifies that the following Services have been 
integrated with Blackboard: Bearcat Campus Card, Web Grading, Podcasting Syllabus & 
Course, Preview Tools, Mobile Messaging, Student Photos, E-reserves, PRS, course evaluations 
etc. However blackboard requires advanced skills and is not user friendly for novices. There 
have been some attempts to provide simple and powerful tools for example a tool to extract 
assessment data from similar courses in multiple sections. The content manager?s user interface 
is shown in Figure 2.3. 
 
19 
 
 
 
Figure 2.3: Blackboard interface: (Courtesy Auburn university website) 
 
2.2.3.3 Moodle 
Moodle is a software package for producing Internet-based courses and websites. It is a 
global development project designed to support a social constructionist framework of education 
[48]. 
Moodle is provided freely as Open Source software (under the GNU Public License). 
Basically this means Moodle is copyrighted, but users are allowed to copy, use and modify 
Moodle provided that you agree to provide the source to others, not modify or remove the 
original license and copyrights, and apply this same license to any derivative work. Other 
20 
 
requirements are to read the license for full details and contact the copyright holder directly if 
you have any questions [48]. 
Moodle can be installed on any computer that can run PHP and can support an SQL type 
database (for example MySQL). It can be run on Windows and Mac operating systems and many 
flavors of Linux (for example Red Hat or Debian GNU). There are many knowledgeable Moodle 
Partners to assist you, even host your Moodle site [48]. 
 
 
 Figure 2.4: Moodle (courtesy of Wikipedia) 
 
The word Moodle is an acronym for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning 
Environment and is useful to programmers and educators with advanced computer skills. It also 
means a process of twisting through a place slowly without any resistance to the tasks that 
present themselves. This description applies both to the way Moodle was developed, and to the 
way a student or teacher might approach studying or teaching an online course. Anyone who 
uses Moodle is a Moodler [48]. 
21 
 
2.2.3.4 Atlantic Link 
It is rapid e-learning software, which is intended for user to develop courses in weeks 
instead of months through easy customization of the provided software. Atlantic Link provides 
the following facilities: The Authorware content, PowerPoint files, or even existing bespoke e-
learning courses [44]. It uses rapid e-learning tools to develop courses. To develop courses, 
Atlantic link uses Content Point the world's first remote authoring system for rapid e-learning. 
Combining a 'smart' Windows client with a server based architecture, it enables true 
collaborative development from anywhere in the world. Combined with full workflow 
capabilities, it provides huge time and cost savings when compared with traditional desktop 
authoring tools [44]. 
2.2.4 Collaborative and Informal Learning in Virtual Space  
Virtual Worlds by their nature provide an excellent opportunity for collaborative 
learning. At first, learning in virtual worlds was restricted to classroom meetings and lectures, 
similar to their counterparts in real life. Now collaborative learning is evolving as companies 
begin to take advantage of unique features offered by virtual world spaces - such as ability to 
record and map the flow of ideas [30], use 3D models and virtual worlds mind mapping tools. 
Online supported education is accomplished through collaborative learning, which brings 
together learners to work and learn using tools that support Computer Collaborative Supported 
Learning where online tools are utilized for interactions synchronously or asynchronously.   
Thus, collaborative learning is an umbrella term for a variety of educational approaches 
involving joint intellectual effort by students, or students and teachers together. Usually, students 
are working in groups of two or more, mutually searching for understanding, solutions, or 
meanings, or creating a product. Collaborative learning activities vary widely, but most center on 
22 
 
students? exploration or application of the course material, not simply the teacher?s presentation 
or explication of it. Collaborative learning represents a significant shift from the teacher-centered 
classrooms. In collaborative classrooms, ?the lecturing/ listening/note-taking process may not 
disappear entirely, but it lives alongside other processes that are based in students? discussion 
and active work with the course material. Teachers who use collaborative learning approaches 
tend to think of themselves less as expert transmitters of knowledge to students and more as 
expert designers of intellectual experiences for students-as coaches or mid-wives of a more 
emergent learning process? [37]. SecondLife is a notable example. 
However, most of the collaborative tools outlined above require some advanced computer 
skills to operate. Thus, in order for novice users to collaborate and reap the benefits of CSCW, 
there is need for a tool that promotes easy sharing of best practices with a minimal a learning 
curve. The benefits of CSCW to a community of collaborators are outlined below. They include: 
1. Community members save time since they can work either together or independently, 
either way contributing to the success of their group overall.  
2. Help users to develop oral and written communication and social interaction skills.  
3. Allows for interactions with members outside their area of residency, school, city, state 
and even country.  
4. Prepares young professionals for upgrades and the technology tools they will be 
encountering there as they advance in their professional career.   
5. Allow members who are unable to attend various career development functions to keep 
up with their peers.  
6. Encourages members to share ideas.  
7. Encourages different perspectives on same the subject.  
23 
 
8. Develops higher-level critical-thinking skills thanks to the use of problem-solving 
approaches.  
9. Establishes a sense of a learning community among members.  
10. Creates a more positive attitude about sharing and learning new ideas  
11. Promotes innovation in teaching and classroom techniques for K-12 teachers.  
12. Enhances self-management skills.  
13. Develops skill building and provide opportunities for practicing skills within the 
community. 
14. Common skills which often require a great deal of practice can be developed through 
these tools and made less tedious through these collaborative learning activities in a 
formal and informal learning situation.  
Our project will be aimed at leveraging the benefits of the utilization of virtual space to 
enhance collaborative learning by designing and evaluating an online community tool ? cloud 
based tool webOS - FYFL to be utilized by a community of practice members in sharing best 
practices ( i.e. K-12 teachers and 4-H group club).  
2.2.4.1 Supporting Communities of Practice Groups with CSCW 
Schools and districts are organizations in their own right, and they too face increasing 
knowledge challenges. The first applications of communities for practice have been in teacher 
training and in providing isolated administrators access to colleagues. There is a wave of interest 
in these peer-to-peer professional-development activities. But in the education sector, learning is 
not only a means to an end: it is the end product. In schools, changing learning theory is a much 
deeper transformation. This will inevitably take longer. The perspective of communities of 
24 
 
practice affects educational practices along three dimensions. Our system plans to reorganize 
educational experiences three dimensions and evaluate the effects through surveys:  
? Internally: We will organize educational experiences that ground school learning in 
practice through participation in communities around subject matters within the system 
and receive feedback from members.  
? Externally: We will focus on how to connect the experience of students to actual 
practice through peripheral forms of participation in broader communities beyond the 
walls of the school, through blogs, teamPages and forums within the system?  
? Over the lifetime of students: Our system will also serve the lifelong learning needs of 
students by organizing communities of practice focused on topics of continuing interest 
beyond the initial schooling period (.i.e. Agriculture and basic science, responsibility, 
good citizenship). 
2.2.4.2 Sharing of Best Practices within a Community of Practice  
Sharing best practices can be defined as a situation where two or more people are 
required to or desire to create, re-use and edit materials or artifacts through collaboration or 
cooperation. Based on the literature, when two or more people cooperate they are regarded as a 
pair, three-five members a group, 20-30 members a class, hundreds or thousands of people form 
a community, a society has several thousands or millions of people but the boundaries of groups 
are uncertain and socially groups form naturally and intentionally. However, regardless of the 
size of the group, members have to collaborate to learn or share information. In academic terms, 
sharing best practices may be interpreted as a ?creation of course or topic? to be studied thorough 
the provided course (topic) material. Learning can also occur when participants perform learning 
activities such as solving problems and other lifelong learning activities [16]. This may be 
25 
 
achieved through different interactions, face-to-face, computer mediated or synchronous or not, 
but the frequency of meeting via joint effort or whether the labor is divided in a systematic way 
eludes researchers [1]. This research focuses on how computer collaboration encourages sharing 
of best practices among collaborators in a community of practice. 
A community of practice can achieve sharing and re-use of best practices through 
computer mediation collaboration. This can be viewed in three elements of the definition that 
define the space of what is encountered under the label collaborative knowledge sharing; pairs of 
students and teachers sharing through using multimedia and multi-level across a virtual 
community to develop a new culture across generations that involves sharing best practices 
among members. The developed community will explore the collaboration space along four 
dimensions: the variety of collaboration scale (group size and time span), sharing best practices 
to enhance re-use in the communities of practice (content generation), how usability affects 
collaboration (user interfaces), and data integrity and privacy of the members in virtual space 
(system security) [1][16].  
 
 
2.2.4.3 Collaborative Learning within Communities of Practice 
Research literature on collaboration learning has encompassed a wide range of meanings 
on what can be categorized as learning. Scholars argue that inclusive learning is any 
collaborative activity within an educational context, such as studying a course material or sharing 
course assignments. The term collaborative learners would then be more appropriate [1] [16]. In 
other disciplines or areas of study, the activity is a joint problem solving and learning expected to 
occur as a side effect of problem solving measured by the elicitation (to cause or produce 
26 
 
something as a reaction or response to a stimulus of some kind) of new knowledge or by the 
improvement of a problem solving skills (performance, dominant in research on multi-agent 
learning) [1][15][16].  
Other theories treat collaborative learning as a development perspective where biological 
and cultural processes which occur over the years. However, acquiring knowledge within a 
professional community is regarded as learning in most quarters. This suggests that in the entire 
learning situation, the greatest common denominator is ?collaboration? rather than learning. This 
raises two distinct understandings of the term collaborative learning: whether it is a pedagogical 
agent or a psychological process [1]. 
 
2.3 The Variety of Collaboration Scales  
Most of the known collaborative empirical research results on effectiveness of computer 
supportive collaborative work have been concerned with a small scale of two to five subjects 
collaborating within a few hours [1], with mixed results. Some studies as mentioned in the 
previous section create objects to evaluate in varying scales of user numbers: from 2 to 30 
subjects, collaborating for segments of time from 20 minutes up to one year. For instance, most 
empirical research on the effectiveness of collaborative learning was concerned with a small 
scale of two to five subjects collaborating for one hour or so. At the opposite end of this scale, 
the label 'computer-supported collaborative learning' (CSCL) is often applied to situations in 
which a group of 40 subjects follows a course over one year. The findings of the former can of 
course not be generalized to predict the outcomes of the latter and vice-versa [1]. 
Although in some studies computer supported collaboration work (CSCW) is often 
applied to situations in which a group of 3-40 subjects follows a course over a semester or a year, 
27 
 
this study has a minimum target of 33 subjects (i.e. to undercut the generalizing and reduce the 
difference in empirical settings as well the divergent underlying theories) [1]. The notion of scale 
has been the ?Berlin Wall? [1] of collaborative research and it helped to compartmentalize the 
field, but its efforts fell in the eighties since research paradigms build on supposedly clear 
distinctions between ?what is social? and ?what is cognitive?. This type of research is 
challenging based on the causality of social and cognitive processes, which is at the very least 
circular and perhaps even more complex (Parret-Clermont, Barret and Bell 1991, P.50) [10]. 
Thus, it is prudent to bear in mind that the proposed research paradigm longs to create a new 
culture relying on the previously known notion of culture, which implicitly refers to the level of 
community or society. The new culture will connect a member of a community of practice - a 
teacher student and farmer relationship where group leaders will be mediators of the sharing best 
practices culture and not creators of it as often is the case in regular classrooms. Besides, 
members will be regarded as peers in the interaction process to ease and encourage 
communication and allow easy flow information to foster true sharing of best practices [1]. 
On the issue of membership, this study will not focus on the question of how individuals 
become members of a larger collaborative or cognitive learning community [1] since members 
will be introduced through several communities of practice workshops who will in turn introduce 
peers. After being introduced, the time spent by members on the system will be monitored and 
the amount of content generated by users can be used as forms of the evaluation on the success 
of the tool by classifying the data into two categories, relevant and irrelevant [1]. This is in line 
with CSCW research culture, which is built around the use of persistent representation of the 
problem state mediated by some artifact (e.g. a shared visual workspace in groupware as altitude 
meter in cockpit) and as an interaction memory (e.g. a trace of last interactions in a MOO 
28 
 
environment). For this research, culture will be built around the proposed style of groupware or 
as a virtual space community (i.e. FYFL cloud with the aim of having a grounded mechanism for 
constructing a new way of sharing best practices among a community of practice) (e.g. a 
community of K-12 teachers) [1].  
To encourage the users to contribute and to boost interaction, the use and learning of the 
system will have a subordinated functional criterion for the success of the community where no 
programming skills are required. However, enough understanding of the system to perform the 
tasks of posting comments and generating content inside the community will be necessary [2].  
Nevertheless, community of practice members sharing best practices (e.g. K-12 teachers 
collaborating to promote learning within the community) will be developed with a peer-to-peer 
capability. However, it is also prudent to think of the tool for as a means for individuals to 
collaborate with themselves. The idea of the individual learning by explaining is fostered in this 
community since members could be learning by putting materials together to post on groupware 
space[1][13]. The individual learning concept is in correlation with Maurphy-Nguto, Bellenburg 
and Baker?s individual machine learning research theory used in comparison operators to model 
the construction of knowledge through challenge. The study could extend to fostering and 
evaluating reasoning by investigating how monologue reasoning contributes to understanding the 
cognitive benefits of collaborative learning through sharing of best practices among a community 
of practice [13].  
Furthermore, for the sake of this research, a group (a community of practice) is defined as 
a unit or an individual as a group to lessen the magnitude of scale and move the observation to 
the most appropriate unit of analysis [1]. This research utilizes a cloud based FYFL tool which is 
viewed as an improvement of the current systems (e.g. the initial BB prototype system that was 
29 
 
developed at the initial stages of the study to gather design requirements for a full system, 
because it holds multimedia content as well as encourages user participation by allowing them to 
be creative within the limit of the available features). The system is an improvement of the 
current wiki? style content generation forums collaborative tool too and has received support 
from the 4-H research collaboration system that is seeking an elaborate tool that is easy to learn 
and use for novices. The use of the system will be simplified as far as possible but may require a 
few elaborated skills on some tasks. Still most tasks will require elementary computer skills 
based on the results for the preliminary surveys of the targeted subjects [2].  
The elaborated skills requirement activities/properties can be classified as multi-agent for 
learning in this case [9]. The goal is to identify whether using different media to enhance 
collaboration will result in productive work as well as engage the user to spend more time 
learning a pre- prerequisite motivation of the research.  
To boost sharing best practices, the study identifies K-12 teachers and 4-H as the 
subgroups that will most benefit from collaborative interaction with respect to the science 
curriculum and agricultural studies respectively. The main criterion for choosing subjects is the 
acceptance of teachers and 4-H clubs to voluntarily participate in the study by willingly using the 
FYFL system (cloud) as an environment for sharing best practices, which is a computational 
model of complementary between quantitative and qualitative knowledge on subject matter 
content. On a larger scale, the study will focuses on teacher student collaboration, which is part 
of our future work. The study will involve more defined tasks for a short period of time. Issues 
that will require a longer period of time to discover will be addressed in the second phase of the 
study.  
30 
 
The study will view sharing best practices as collaboration learning between two human 
agents for a well-defined learning task through a noble solid task on a small scale basis. For 
example, posting an online lesson on a type of best practice is assumed to foster learning through 
self-collaboration since users could be learning when viewing and add responses through 
multiple types of media available through the tool. 
 
2.4  Classification of Collaboration Tools 
The groundwork of this research project identified the need for a tool with easy to use 
and secure properties in order to encourage community of practice members to share best 
practices with each other. Existing collaboration tools were surveyed in order to select the most 
suitable tool or system that can be modified and tailored towards supporting various 
communities of practice. The K-12 and 4-H communities were pre-selected as the main study 
groups. The first step was to evaluate tools currently in use for collaboration, conduct a pilot 
survey on usability and security, classify the available tools and then select candidates for further 
study. The main criterion for tool selection is that the tools selected tools should be able to 
support group collaboration. In this study we surveyed various tools from each of the these 
categories; YouTube, wikis, blogs, Bulletin Board (BB), webOS (clouds), and Content managers 
as listed in Table 4.1  
The wiki environment category of collaboration is dependent on text manipulation and 
requires a bit of programming skills to share content. The HTML programming skills required 
are for direct manipulation of text to create, edit and post best practices on the shared space. Part 
of the programming in Wikis is handled by HTML code unknown to most members of the 
community prompting for a simple way to share their ideas for best practices. Though widely 
31 
 
adopted as a collaborative tool, wikis are popular among experts with some programming skills 
and could be an impendent for adoption among novice users. This calls for an easy to use tool 
with enough security features to encourage members to sharing best practices without worrying 
of intrusion. Thus the choice for a wiki as a collaboration tool for sharing best practices among 
its members would prove to be complicated for novice users who must overcome the load of 
learning basic HTML programming skills to be able to operate and share their practices within 
the community. Thus wikis are a good candidate for collaboration, but very complex for novice 
users. 
 
 Collaboration Tools Attachments Forum Blog Text SaaS PaaS IaaS 
Wikis    X    
Bulletin Board X X X X    
Content Managers 
(blackboard, Moodle) 
X   X    
E-mails X   X    
webOS  (clouds) X X X X X X X 
YouTube X   X    
 
Table 2.1: Properties of collaborative tools available in the virtual world  
 
 
2.4.1 Computer Bulletin Board Based Systems or Forums (BB). 
The BB category is where multimedia data can be supported and uploads with somewhat 
easier means than wikis. This is acceptable as a better tool for sharing best practices among 
novice users compared to the wikis.  For example, it is possible to post a video message on the 
BB to share best practices without having to learn any programming skills. On the BB, 
information can be shared and created with direct manipulation using icons and is the usability 
environment is geared towards supporting novice users. The cost to have such an environment is 
32 
 
not expensive thus could be run in virtual space. In our case, a prototype was created and a 
survey conducted among K-12 teachers whether they can use such a tool for teaching in the 
classroom if it were available.  Without considering cost, 60 percent of the participants 
responded that they would use the tool for teaching on condition that is usability was improved. 
On questions regarding ease of use, over than two thirds of the respondents were classified as 
novice users and reported that our tools were easy to use.  
2.4.2 Content Managers  
Content management, or CM, is the set of processes and technologies that support the 
collection, managing, and publishing of information in any form or medium. In recent times this 
information is typically referred to as content or, to be precise, digital content. Digital content 
may take the form of text, such as documents, multimedia files, such as audio or video files, or 
any other file type which follows a content lifecycle which requires management. 
Content management is essentially geared towards supporting collaboration that consists 
of the following basic roles and responsibilities: 
Creator ? the creator is responsible for creating and editing content. 
Editor ? the editor responsible for tuning the content message and the style of delivery, 
including translation and localization. 
Publisher ? the publisher is responsible for releasing the content for use. 
Administrator ? the administrator is responsible for managing access permissions to folders and 
files, usually accomplished by assigning access rights to user groups or roles. Administrator may 
also assist and support users in various ways. 
Consumer, viewer or guest- the person who reads or otherwise takes in content after it is 
published or shared. 
33 
 
However, a creator, an editor, a publisher and an administrator can be the same person.  
2.4.3 YouTube 
YouTube is a video-sharing website on which users can upload, share, and view videos. 
Three former PayPal employees created YouTube in February 2005 [23]. The company is based 
in San Bruno, California, and uses Adobe Flash Video technology to display a wide variety of 
user-generated video content, including movie clips, TV clips, and music videos, as well as 
amateur content such as video blogging and short original videos. Individuals have uploaded 
most of the content on YouTube, although media corporations including CBS, BBC, VEVO and 
other organizations offer some of their material via the site, as part of the YouTube partnership 
program [23]. 
Unregistered users can watch the videos, while registered users are permitted to upload 
an unlimited number of videos. Videos that are considered to contain potentially offensive 
content are available only to registered users 18 and older. In November 2006, YouTube, LLC 
was bought by Google Inc. and now operates as a subsidiary of Google. Several large US 
broadcasters, including CBS, NBC and Fox, already have similar agreements with YouTube 
[23]. 
YouTube makes it easy for members not only to watch and share video clips, but also to 
upload their own content.  However, the downside of the site is that it is riddled with pirated film 
and music clips uploaded by members who do not own the copyright. This makes the site 
unappealing for a host of best practices for communities of practice since it infringes against 
copyrighted laws. For example, some media firms, most prominently Viacom, have recently 
demanded that YouTube removes tens of thousands of clips from the site that they own the 
copyright for in the recent past. But, the major drawback for YouTube is that only it only allows 
34 
 
sharing of data in videos format.  There are other video sharing sites such as Revver offering the 
same services offered by YouTube, however, YouTube has managed to attract a huge audience 
of millions of users making it a default name of sharing videos online. 
 
Figure 2.5: Courtesy Wikipedia: You tube user interface 
 
2.4.4  E-Mails 
Electronic mail, commonly called email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital 
messages across the Internet or other computer networks. Originally, email was transmitted 
directly from one user to another computer. This required both computers to be online at the 
same time, for an instant messaging. Today's email systems are based on a store-and-forward 
model. Email servers accept, forward, deliver and store messages. Users no longer need be 
online simultaneously and need only connect briefly, typically to an email server, for as long as it 
takes to send or receive messages. 
An email message consists of two components, the message header, and the message 
body, which is the email's content. The message header contains control information, including, 
35 
 
minimally, an originator's email address and one or more recipient addresses. Usually additional 
information is added, such as a subject header field. 
Originally a text-only communications medium, email was extended to carry multi-media 
content attachments, a process standardized in RFC 2045 through 2049. Collectively, these RFCs 
have come to be called Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME). 
Network-based email was initially exchanged on the ARPANET in extensions to the File 
Transfer Protocol (FTP), but is now carried by the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), first 
published as Internet standard 10 (RFC 821) in 1982. In the process of transporting email 
messages between systems, SMTP communicates delivery parameters using a message envelope 
separate from the message (header and body) itself. 
 
 
Figure 2.6: Courtesy Google: E-mail composition and transfer in diagram.  
 
 
36 
 
2.4.5  Cloud Computing 
Cloud computing is a type of computing that makes available shared resources, software 
SaaS and information through the web processing to computers and other devices on demand 
over the internet. In the cloud, users can only access services and have no access to details of the 
technology that supports them because there is deliberate separation between the novice use and 
the details of the system information as they don?t need to control the technology that supports 
them.  
Cloud computing outlines a new system in service delivery and usage in IT services 
based on the internet. It typically involves over-the-Internet provision of dynamically scalable 
and often virtualized resources and a byproduct and consequence of the ease-of-access to remote 
computing sites provided by the Internet [51].  
Cloud services take the form of web-based tools or applications that users can access and 
use through a web browser mimicking programs installed and running on a local computer. The 
term "cloud" was coined as a figure of speech for the Internet, referring to a cloud looking 
drawing used in the IT industry to represent the telephone and the computer network diagrams 
which are a form of abstraction for the internet network infrastructure. [50]. 
Currently cloud services are used to deliver common software and data business 
applications residing on servers accessible through the web service. To make the services 
efficient, it is important to focus on the key the key element of cloud computing is customization 
and the creation of a user-defined experience. In this project, the communities of practice 
members will provide user-defined and customization feedback on usability and customization 
of the webOS (cloud). 
37 
 
 
Figure 2.7: Cloud computing conceptual diagram (Courtesy wikipedia) 
 
There are many common centers and servers that support cloud computing infrastructures 
to deliver services, which appear as single points of access to the users in need of commuting 
services. Most of the service centers are required to meet consumer?s quality of service QoS 
expectations in agreement to the customer?s service level agreements (SLAs). Salesforce, 
Amazon and Google, Fujitsu, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, IBM and Dell are the major players in 
delivering cloud services to customers today.  
Granted, there are hundreds if not thousands of firms offering cloud services?web-based 
applications living in data centers, such as music sites or social networks. But Microsoft, Google 
IBM, and Apple play in a different league. Each has its own global network of data centers. They 
intend to offer not just one or two services, but whole suites of them, with services including e-
mail, address books, storage, collaboration tools and business applications. They are also vying 
38 
 
to dominate the periphery, either by developing software for smart-phones and other small 
devices or by making such devices themselves [51]. 
2.4.5.1  webOS Cloud 
In general, the webOS cloud computing was developed for customers to reap the benefits 
of computing services without owning an IT infrastructure by renting the computing resources 
through from a third-party provider avoiding  capital expenditure cost benefit  in the long run. 
Our webOS is aimed at providing a platform for sharing best practices among a community of 
teachers by using a utility computing model that is similar to how traditional utility services with 
a subscription of for usage.  
2.4.5.2 Components webOS  
Client - Computer hardware and/or computer software that depend on cloud computing 
for application delivery and is essentially useless without it.  
Application - Software as a Service (SaaS) deliver software as a service over the Internet. 
This eliminates the need to install and run the application on the local computers and simplifies 
IT maintenance and support. Advantages of SaaS include; 
? Users can access commercially available software over the network when need arises. 
? Ease to manage the from a central location rather than going to every customer's site 
? Application delivery is closer to a one-to-many model, including architecture, pricing, 
partnering, and management characteristics 
? Efficient and quick way to update software, through a centralized updates eliminating 
the individual downloads for patches and upgrades which take a long time. 
Platform - Platform as a Service (PaaS)-delivers a computing platform to offer solution services, 
to support consumption if cloud infrastructure by sustaining cloud applications.  
39 
 
Infrastructure - Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - The platform eliminates the purchase of 
servers, software, data-center space or network equipment by clients or users who instead buys 
those resources as a fully outsourced service through paying for what they need only. 
Software- Software as a Service (SaaS) ? This include computer software products that are for 
the delivery of cloud services, including multi-core processors, cloud-specific operating systems 
and combined contributions. 
2.4.5.3 webOS Key Features 
Agility - improves with users' ability to rapidly and inexpensively re-provision technological 
infrastructure resources. 
 Cost - is claimed to be greatly reduced and capital expenditure is converted to operational 
expenditure.  
Device and location independence ? user can access the system and its services using a web 
browser regardless of their device or their geographical location as long as they have a internet 
connection and computing device i.e. ipad, PC, smart phones etc. 
Reliability ? Improved multiple redundant sites are used, which makes well designed cloud 
computing suitable for business continuity and disaster recovery. 
 Scalability ? Possible through provisioning of resources on a fine-grained, self-service basis 
near real-time, without users having to engineer for peak loads. Performance is monitored and 
consistent and loosely coupled architectures are constructed using web services as the system 
interface. Performance bottlenecks overcome through for a large class of applications is data 
parallel programming on a distributed data grid. 
Security ? Data security is improved due to centralization of data. Security is comparable to or 
better than under traditional systems, because webOS is able to devote resources to solving 
40 
 
security issues that many communities of practice members cannot afford. Furthermore, the 
complexity of security is greatly increased when data is distributed over a wider area and / or 
number of devices. 
Maintenance - Cloud computing applications is easier, since they don't have to be installed on 
each user's computer. They are easier to support and to improve since the changes reach the 
clients instantly. 
Metering - Cloud computing resources usage should be measurable and should be metered per 
client and application on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. 
 
2.5 Minimum Security Requirement CSCW Tools 
Security is a prerequisite of a successful online tool. Security concerns can be a hindrance 
for the success of any online system since users will be reluctant to use the system that doesn?t 
assure them of privacy. In August 2010, Time magazine did a cover story called ?Face Book and 
it?s redefining privacy? story about how people don?t fear what they can share, but are conscious 
of how to share and who they can restrict shared access. The article articulates the willingness of 
FaceBook's users to share and over share ? from descriptions of our bouts of food poisoning 
(gross) to our uncensored feelings about our bosses (not advisable) and credits this to the success 
of the site. Thus far the company's motto has been to press users to share more and then reduce 
this pressure if too many of them complain. Because of this, FaceBook keeps finding itself in the 
crosshairs of intense debates about privacy. This happened in 2007, when the default settings in 
an initiative called Facebook Beacon sent all of your Facebook friends update about purchases 
you made on certain third-party sites.  
 
41 
 
 
   Figure 2.8: The FYFL.org 
cloud 
 
Beacon caused uproar among users - who were automatically enrolled ? who received 
occasioned a public apology from the FB founder and CEO, Mr. Mark Zuckerberg. Since 
Facebook focuses on being a social networking site and not an educational site, many people 
spend lots of time there and it is our hope that the FYFL cloud will appeal to students who could 
spend most of their time participating in collaboration and development as well as learning. But 
due to the security issue, Facebook is getting ready to unveil enhanced privacy controls after 
being admonished by the FCC for not adhering to the Electronic privacy issue due to their 
revolving nature.  The changes are forthcoming on the heels of a complaint filed with the Federal 
Trade Commission (FTC) on May 5, 2010 by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, due to 
Facebook?s frequent policy changes and tendency to design privacy controls that are, if not 
deceptive, less than intuitive. 
42 
 
Cloud type  Properties Services 
Microsoft cloud 
http://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/cloud/tools-resources.aspx 
 
IT Agility: 
Cloud technology accelerates 
your time-to-market and 
empowers your team to respond 
quickly to changing business 
needs. Windows Azure public 
cloud platform, for additional 
scale and efficiency whenever 
you need it. 
Elasticity: 
Increase and decrease resource 
use with a wave of your hand 
through self-service, 
automation, and cloud 
infrastructure.  
End-to-End Management: 
The cloud management is at the 
command center. Cloud power 
means management across 
physical and virtual, on 
premises and off premises 
cloud environments and deep 
into the applications themselves  
 IT Datacenter Efficiency: 
Cloud power means driving 
down operation costs by 
automating the management of 
datacenter resources and 
knowing exactly which 
resources were used where. 
 
Tools & Resources 
? Windows Azure 
? Case Studies 
? White Papers 
Videos 
Cloud Conversations 
Blogs 
Video + Audio 
News 
Social Data Storage 
Google cloud 
http://code.google.com/appengine/ 
 
Centralized administration: 
The cloud manages all 
applications of the company 
without any involvement of the 
company;  
Reliability and support:  
The services are reliable based 
on service agreements with 
developer support guaranteed. 
Secure by default: 
 Only authorized users can have 
access to the services and 
applications. 
Cost: Reduces costs for users 
Tools & Resources 
? Case Studies 
? White Papers 
Videos 
Cloud Conversations 
Blogs 
Video + Audio 
News 
Social 
Storage services 
Printing services/ 
43 
 
and one pay for the services 
they are using i.e. the cost is 
cheap but you only pay for 
what you use.  
Enterprise features:  
Though it has not been 
implemented yet, Google 
intends to provide SQL 
databases services through SSL 
in its cloud at a cost. 
Stoneware **FYFL cloud Agility   
Improves with users' ability to 
rapidly and inexpensively re-
provision technological 
infrastructure resources 
Low  Cost  
Reduced capital expenditure   
Device and location 
independence 
User can access services and 
the system regardless of the 
geographical location and 
device computing power so 
longer as they have internet 
connection through a browser.  
Reliability 
Redundant goo in disaster 
recovery. 
Scalability 
Performance is monitored, 
performance bottlenecks 
overcome by data parallel 
programming 
Security 
Data security improved due to 
centralization of data. 
 Maintenance 
Applications is easier to 
support 
Metering 
Measurable and should be 
metered per client  
 
Tools & Resources 
? Windows Azure 
? Case Studies 
? White Papers 
Videos 
Cloud Conversations 
Blogs 
Video + Audio 
News 
Social Data Storage 
Tools & Resources 
Printing services 
Private cloud  
 
 
Table 2.2: Types of cloud and cloud services 
 
44 
 
The 38-page complaint asks the FTC to compel Facebook to clarify the privacy settings 
attached to each piece of information we post as well as what happens to that data after we share 
it [52]. Since our system mimics Facebook?s popularity and easy to use features, we enhance 
security and privacy rules based on our adopted security framework in line with Electronic 
Privacy rules. Also, content posted by users cannot be shared to peers before being reviewed by a 
group leader in order to prevent the sharing of raw, private, or sensitive data by users. With the 
addiction for easy privacy management, users will be required to provide minimum information 
when signing on inline to avoid the sharing of sensitive information by ensuring that default 
settings stringently hide information. 
Cain and Seals, 2010, performed a study of social networking for educational purposes 
and gathered data from a group of K-12 teachers. The research assessed teachers? reaction and 
feeling about social networking, Internet security, online teacher support environments and their 
computing efficacy. The research examined whether teachers could utilize any system without 
being assured of proper security. This study revealed that 90% of the teachers did not want to 
interact in some on-line environments based on technophobia. In ?Retelling the Story: Official 
Tales of Technology and Head Start Teachers? Technophobia?, Arzu Arikan details how the 
United States has invested in educational technology and nourished this enthusiasm to infuse 
computers in K-12 classrooms since the early 90s through various technology policy initiatives. 
However, the Digital Divide and differences between the expected and actual technology use in 
schools still exists despite strong efforts to increase this usage trend. Arzu?s analysis is based on 
federal constructions of technology in comparison to the experiences and practices of Head Start 
teachers using technology. He presents findings from ?a larger ethnographic case study to 
compare the official tales of technology with the local experiences of teachers? that participated 
45 
 
in his study. The study findings suggest overlaps and disconnects between government rhetoric 
and the local level practices on ?how technology is defined and the ways early childhood 
teachers act on these federal constructions?. The study ?concludes by suggesting that those 
disconnects can be eliminated by acknowledging different faces for technology learning among 
teachers? [12]. This study takes into account the technology gap and lack of computer skills 
among members of the community of practice in order to ensure that it is accommodating and 
easy to use to a wide range of user especially the self reported novice users. In the initial stages 
of this study, our preliminary work focused on how to overcome technophobia, protect minors in 
virtual space without exposing to dangers of online predators, and bullying activities. We 
designed a prototype of the system (BB system) and conducted preliminary studies with teachers 
in North Carolina and Georgia schools on the likelihood of using the system as a main teaching 
tool if were available. Out of those surveyed, over 66% of them favored the system and indicted 
that they will use it if it were available on the condition that it had enhanced usability and with 
an assurance of privacy [2]. Thus, the proposed FYFL cloud system is an improvement of our 
initial BB prototype and with enhanced security relying on an evaluation based on a security 
model termed as ?A framework for evaluating storage system security? [Error! Reference 
source not found.]. However, our main focus is usability. We hope to provide an attractive 
desktop and dashboard user interface with appealing looks that can be used interchangeably. The 
usability experts assessment categorizes the system has one with an appealing look and secure 
due to our adopted security evaluation framework. But, issues of privacy in the World Wide Web 
are fully addressed through key security measures, authentication, supervision, isolation, and 
data protection through encryption to the satisfy the minimum requirements of a secure online 
system [17].  
46 
 
 
2.6    Users and User Experiences with CSCW Tools 
A preliminary study conducted by Social Networking Teaching Tools: A Computer 
Supported Collaborative Interactive Learning Social Networking Environment for K-12 in the 
spring 2010, surveyed 33 teachers in North Carolina city schools with different backgrounds and 
levels of education using a forum based prototype system. The surveyed group filled the 
usability survey to express their experiences of the system. The results were encouraging with  
70% of those surveyed felt that a forum type virtual tool will be good for K-12 education and 
expressed confidence in using the proposed tool to teach if it were available. The details of the 
study are published in detail in chapter 4 section 4.6 of this dissertation. To confirm and validate 
the preliminary results, this study extends the previous study and focuses on providing a secure 
and user-friendly social computing environment for a community of practice to collaborate, learn 
and share best practices. The proposed system will provide improved usability, better support for 
group social networking, security of community youths, and a repository of digital content. As a 
cloud based system we will also be able to provide Infrastructure as a service, (IaaS), Software as 
a Service (SaaS), and Platform as a Service (PaaS) to support the diverse needs of a broad 
community of practice.  For the success of the system, the user?s opinion will weigh heavily on 
the adoption and usability of the system. Users evaluated the system, gave their opinions and 
suggestions for improvement. The opinions were incorporated into future designs as changes to 
improve usability of the system. To ascertain improvements usability surveys based were 
conducted on the enhanced system and its results published as part of the contribution of this 
dissertation.  
 
47 
 
2.7 Research Objectives  
This research concentrated on reviewing computer collaboration literature, surveyed a 
dozen online collaborative tools, selected the most favorable CSCW tool for our targeted 
audience, developed it into a community based tool, and conducted usability surveys and 
acceptance test with the target user groups. Before conducting a usability and acceptance test, we 
developed a minimalist tutorial and survey forms to gather users? information and self reported 
responses. The users? feedback was used a basis to determine whether this tool was usable and 
recommended it for a community of practice for sharing best practices. Therefore, the usability 
and acceptance test evaluations are a guideline for improving the user interfaces and 
management models to promote online collaboration and informal learning in a social computing 
way.  
Reviewing CSCW literature provided valuable insights on how to enhance collaboration 
within a community of practice, an emerging field of social computing. Thus, for members to 
collaborate the adopted tool should be easy to use. A longitudinal study was employed to 
facilitate that this research focuses on usability and gathering data that will have an impact of 
usability.  A longitudinal study involving more than 30 subjects was conducted instead of a one-
time study to court high significance. The study proposed a group management model. The study 
proposed a group management model and conducted usability studies gathering data that will 
have an impact on usability, analyzed it, and proposed a group management model that is easier 
to use and user friendly compared to the existing one. Longitudinal usability studies were used to 
gain detailed insight into the adopted tool, its applications and highlights. An online group 
management model makes our research distinctive from previous ones (i.e. the standard is a one 
time of study of 2-5 individuals; most computer collaborative work studies conducted over short 
48 
 
periods of time length).  More distinctive is that many studies utilize prototypes with limited 
features, but this research will be conducted using a fully developed system. Further, no work 
has been found that uses a cloud for social computing, collaboration and unstructured learning; 
sharing best practices within communities of practice (i.e. 4-H groups) as well has no 
documented model for managing self replicating and sustaining online groups. The few available 
studies on social computing deal with specific problems but do not focus on human studies, 
usability, acceptance tests and a model to aid administrators in managing self sustaining online 
groups. In this study, we provide a novel model to aid group management especially when 
moderating content generation and publishing from a group with thousands of users spread 
across various continents.  
Apart from the proposed group management model, the study was conducted in three 
phases. A survey was conducted that focused on usability. In the first phase, we performed a 
usability survey user experts that examined the usability of various available tools and provided a 
feedback on which is the most suitable to be adopted for the purpose of supporting a community 
of practice to share bests practices. In the second phase, the tool was installed and modified to 
meet the requirements and needs of the target user groups (i.e. 4-H club members). Once tool 
modification designs were complete, a minimalist tutorial and survey forms were prepared for 
the purpose of gathering feedback from the user group by conducting usability and acceptance 
test and concluded with self reporting survey responses on usability. The self-reported responses 
obtained from users are key in validating the tool and offer insight to the viability of using a 
cloud as a tool for sharing best practices within communities of practice (i.e. for novice computer 
users). This data is utilized as foundational to the re-evaluation and redesign of this work in 
49 
 
efforts to support sharing of best practices, collaboration and unstructured learning among 4-H 
groups in and as a motivation for the implementation an online group management model.  
Although security is a key factor to be considered before adopting an online collaborative 
tool, this research did not focus on comprehensive security, but will tie the proposed group 
management model to be complimentary security. The other security features for the entire tool 
to make it tenable are outlined in the chapter 2. Thus, for the expert?s survey, the tool meets 
minimum security standards that guarantees members safety online, and mandates that a 
validated adult leader must approve a minor?s use of the system for required purposes once they 
are enrolled as members of a community of practice group. This research also outlines a model 
to enable users join groups correspondent with their spatial locality. In addition, each group is 
assigned a group leader or moderators who must preview all information posted by members 
before approval for public view to curb bullying cases and embarrassment, as has been the case 
on social network sites. However, once the list of members grows to thousands of users for a 
particular group, it is prudent that new groups will emerge. The new groups are mandated to 
have a moderator by the system within a group or locality. Thus, to ensure that nothing is 
bypassed in terms of vetting new members and reviewing of all information before sharing to a 
group or all groups, we have proposed Universal Quadrant Model, a generic algorithm model 
that extends the Quad tree (A quadtree is made of nodes and each node represents a bounding 
box covering some part of the space being indexed, with the root node covering the entire area. 
Each node is either a leaf node - in which case it contains one or more indexed points, and no 
children, or it is an internal node, in which case it has exactly four children, one for each 
quadrant obtained by dividing the area covered in half along both axes - hence the name) 
algorithm to aid manage users and groups of groups in a feasible way in correspondence to 
50 
 
members? population and spatial locality crucial in maintaining a safe online collaborative 
environment.  
 
 
 
51 
 
CHAPTER 3 
 
Research Outline and Statement of the Problem 
 
3.1 Research Outline 
This chapter introduces the research problem, the hypotheses, and the research questions 
of the study. It also elaborates on the characteristics of the empirical/experimental research that 
are general to all studies, which will be dealt with in detail in the subsequent chapters. It outlines 
the research problems, the arising queries; the hypotheses addressed by user studies and describe 
the characteristics of the empirical research with qualitative data. The chapter further outlines the 
study questions focusing on usability, user acceptance and proposes a model for creating 
sustainable groups that are self managing and adaptive while supporting ease of use of the 
system by novice users in a synergistic way. The empirical methods used for requirements 
analysis appear in later chapters. However, the methodology aims at validating a collaborative 
tool as a perfect tool to support informal learning by conducting an expert evaluation followed 
by a usability and acceptance test on the target user population.  
  
3.2 The Collaboration Tool Selection Problem 
There is need for members of the communities of practice (e.g. K-12 teachers) to use 
virtual space effectively in accomplishing the goal of sharing the best practices. As an online 
community, users should be empowered to utilize cyber space to full potential using tools that 
suit their needs. However, currently both informal and organized educational groups (e.g. 4-H 
and K-12 groups) have no time, and little motivation to learn new tools, and most do not have the 
expertise to develop and refine tools that serve their purpose. Currently there is no such universal 
tool that can serve the needs of a group and communities, motivating them to share best practices 
52 
 
by being easy to use, learn, manage and secure.  The goal of this research is to identify and 
evaluate online tools, select or develop a more viable one for a particular user population, 
perform an acceptance test to validate the tool for the intended user population. The second goal 
is to propose a usability model to support creation of sustainable groups that are self managing 
and adaptive in virtual space based on Computer Collaborative Supportive Work literature, 
genetic algorithms, and data structure algorithm. The self-regulating and sustaining group model 
is aimed at improving the management of users and their postings. The model is necessary 
because managing large numbers of groups for administrators is a challenge especially if this 
collaborative tool has to avoid the pitfalls of Facebook of fictitious accounts and raw posts. 
CSCW entails tailoring and evaluating an existing tool with users (e.g. SharePoint (wiki), KxNN 
(forum), or emails) with an aim of using it for a purpose that it was not intentioned for by the 
designers. Therefore, before any CSCW tools are purposely deployed for use, an expert 
evaluation should be conducted to ascertain the needs of the user population and extract 
requirements for developing the it further suit user?s needs. Tool evaluation is necessary because 
it highlights the needs of novice users within a selected user group and provides a platform to 
address them to underscore the fact that most cyber tools are aimed at serving professionals with 
significant computer experience. We conducted user population survey on the 4-H and K-12 
group?s which are our targeted study groups and confirmed that most members self- reported 
themselves as are computer novices and are likely to have technophobia. We will perform 
usability evaluations with the targeted user population in an effort to reduce any technophobia 
that our application could cause. Our evaluations will ensure that the tool supports novice users 
and is easy to use and learn for our target population. This study will collect qualitative data from 
4-H members who are the potential users of the cloud tool by developing a minimalist tutorial 
53 
 
and using it for evaluating the usability acceptance for novice users. The feedback from our 
usability experience with 4-H content development and educators will provide an insight to the 
basic needs for a virtual community cloud for CoP users and reinforce the effectiveness of a 
minimalist tutorial developed as part of this research to shorten the time limit and the efforts 
required by novice users learn and utilize a tool comfortably without undergoing a regular 
manual system training.  
 
3.3 Research Approach 
The seven main goals of the study are:  
(a) Select an appropriate tool for CoP to share best practice for available utilizing an 
expert inspection and feedback report 
(b) Reconfigure the tool to accommodate the user group in accordance to software 
engineering principles 
(c)  Develop a minimalist tutorial for the redesigned tool 
(d) Conduct a usability and acceptance test with the test group before deploying the tool 
(e) Introduces new and enhance technical skills to novice computer users, 
(f) Encourage users to adopt the use the cloud tool for collaboration instead of 
traditional methods, and 
(g) Suggest and prove an algorithm-based model to improve creation and management 
of groups within a collaborative tool with simulated results.  
To gather data on the usability and effectiveness of the collaborative environment, 
experimental participants performed a series of tasks and at the end of the list of tasks; they 
54 
 
completed a detailed survey questionnaire to provide feedback on their experiences with the 
system.  
3.3.1 Phase I: Requirements 
Phase I requirements are gathered based on the available system. Then a thorough 
usability and security inspection and analysis was conducted on the existing tools/software using 
a scenario-based approach.  
3.3.2 Phase II: Prototyping 
Finally, the usability and security of two best-rated tools are evaluated empirically 
through inspections and scenarios based analysis. The results leads to the requirements for an 
iterative design and development work for the desirable and usable community of practice tool 
needed for Phase II. 
3.3.3 Phase III: Comprehensive Evaluation 
A comprehensive analytical and empirical analysis gauges the success of the 
collaborative to support informal learning among CoP groups. The process includes a 
comparative expert usability inspection of the selected tool, FYFL system followed by a detailed 
study using qualitative and quantitative outcome measures. The expert evaluation stages are 
tailored to produce results leading to the research questions outlined in this dissertation.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
55 
 
 
Phase I Phase II 
 
Phase III 
                
                                                    
              
 
 
 Figure 3.1: The FYFL ?cloud? development system cycle.  
 
 
 
3.4   Research Questions 
In the first phase of the study, we investigated the possibility replicating CoP groups 
online by adopting collaborative tools in virtual space as well as explored a model for the self-
sustainability of user groups from user interface group management usability standpoint. In the 
next chapter, the findings will lead to a comprehensive report highlighting the positive responses 
supporting the adaptation of online collaborative tools by informal learning user groups. This 
work will investigate the fact that a cloud based collaborative tool will be effective, efficient and 
will provide user satisfaction for novice users and outline a self sustaining group management 
model (QUM) as more efficient and effective in administering online groups compared to ad hoc 
list based system.  
A. How can we foster informal learning by addressing the key usability issues that hinder online 
collaboration among CoP user groups (e.g. K-12 teachers and 4-H club members).  
 
Initial 
requirements 
Empirical 
Evalution of 
current 
system 
Analytic 
evaluations 
of current 
system 
FYFL"cloud"  
user interface 
& security 
evaluation 
Protypying 
Comparative 
Evaluation 
Analytic & 
Emperical 
Evaluation    
56 
 
3.4.1 Technical Skills 
A usability expert report on existing collaborative tools available for CoP to collaborate 
and foster informal learning shows that users need advanced technological and some 
programming skills to participate effectively. In this case, the original collaborative tool that was 
used to gather preliminary data from the potential user group was rated ?expert user required? 
from a usability standpoint; because it requires HTML coding skills for users to effectively 
participate in sharing best practices. The programming requirement excluded a high percent of 
user group members considered novice or beginners with less technical computing skills. In 
response to the usability limitations, a FYFL cloud based tool was designed. The usability expert 
group rated it as flexible and easy to use. It also can to support multimedia artifacts. Thus, the 
enhanced webOS tool (the ?cloud?) addresses the usability issues encountered in the phase of 
this research. We addressed the requirement to improve usability for our planned user groups 
(e.g. 4-H and K-12 CoP user groups) and increase the motivation among users by simplifying the 
means of posting multimedia information without needing any programming or advanced 
technical skills.   
 
3.4.2 System Support of Usability 
Most tools eligible for sharing information among members of communities of practice 
(i.e. K-12 teachers and 4-H club members) rely on direct manipulation of text to create, edit, post 
and share with other members as revealed by the expert survey information. On the other hand, 
the majority of the users do not have the capability/means to control and monitor post as well 
regulate the groups, making new posts from members a must see for all members once posted. 
This extends the usability features for public social networks of sharing with moderation, a 
57 
 
dangerous trend of bullying which resulted in loss of lives in past which should be negated in 
this case. The loss of lives attributed to social network sites is a down side of social computing 
and is as a result of lack of screening of users?  information before going public, thus making it 
visible for all members at an instance. The loss of life problem should be addressed and solved to 
avoid further losses. On the other hand, the potential collaboration tools require advanced 
technical skills (e.g. a bit of programming skills) that can be a learning curve for some of the 
self-reported novice users, which are the bulk of K-12 and 4-H community of practice members. 
This skills requirement is attributed to decreased motivation to participate in the sharing of best 
practices. Thus, it is our hope that the analysis of human studies data focusing on user tasks and 
acceptance test with potential users of the selected FYFL ?cloud? environment?s will validate the 
usability, cyber-trust, and security to  motivate 4-H club members to participate, share and re-use 
best practices. 
 
B. What are the most likely factors that will discourage collaboration among CoP members (e.g. 
4-H club members) in performing creations, editing, commenting, and re-using best practices 
among themselves online?  
3.4.3 System Support for Novice Programmers 
Prior to scripting languages, technical software design tools that produce what you see is 
what you get (WYSIWYG) and HTML coding were the only programming languages available 
to decompose data into useful information online. This method excludes a huge section of the 
population from contributing to online learning since they self imposes the necessary 
programming skills. In this study, we focus on virtual methods to support novices in artifact 
sharing online, without the necessity of learning any HTML, other coding languages, or 
advanced programming skills. Our research emphasis is on providing a framework for sharing 
58 
 
best practices for 4-H club members by addressing the problems with the current HTML wiki-
based, systems environments that require users to have programming skills in order to be 
productive. By reducing the cognitive baggage of learning how to program through the support 
proposed, our aim is to motivate novice users to participate in sharing and re-using best practices 
amongst them. The proposed system (i.e. webOS ?cloud?) adopts a window-based user interface 
where programming skills are not necessary to participate. The study will use a task performance 
and analysis method to gather evidence of the suitability of the system for novice users. Once 
adopted, the proposed system will effectively support collaboration and motivate 4-H members 
to share best practices and promote informal learning.  
3.4.4 Skills Requirements for Reuse or Share Best Practices 
Learning HTML coding and a bit of web programming is a tedious process that takes 
some time and is a discouraging factor for non technical entities like K-12 teacher and 4-H club 
members. Thus, a system that requires programming skills is a direct hindrance to them from 
being active in sharing best practices within the community groups. However, creating an 
accessible tool that lessens the programming skills requirement for users before they can actively 
contribute will motivate novice members to participate in a wide spectrum. This notion is 
supported by a feedback from K-12 survey participants in the initial survey with forum-based 
Bulletin Board prototype tool. In initial survey, majority of respondents expressed a willingness 
to re-use and share materials with peers if the tool?s usability improves. The adopted tool ?cloud 
based? FYFL has an enhanced usability as shown by the analyzed survey data and can 
extensively be used to support re-use behaviors of online groups. In addition, we propose a 
model to enable administrators and supervisors easily monitor self-sustaining groups. The model 
59 
 
extends a quadrant tree algorithm to include the user interface and a spatial locality of users in a 
simple and synergistic way as discussed in detail in chapter four.  
 
3.5 The Group Population Problem 
 Managing 4-H members spread across a state is challenging and is considered an NP (In 
computational complexity theory, the complexity class NP-complete (abbreviated NP-C or NPC) 
is a class of decision problems. A decision problem L is NP-complete if it is in the set of NP 
problems and also in the set of NP-hard problems. Although any given solution to such a 
problem can be verified quickly, there is no known efficient way to locate a solution in the first 
place; indeed, the most notable characteristic of NP-complete problems is that no fast solution to 
them is known) complete problem especially when it is compounded with the membership 
anonymity problem within an online environment. To address the anonymity problem and ensure 
that there is accountability in resources use, a formal model to manage resource allocation and 
allow administrators to effectively navigate and locate resources within the system is necessary. 
For example, in a discussion forum it is easy for an individual to moderate 100 members in a 
group, but intractable for a single administrator to achieve the same results if the group grows to 
10,000 or more members within a spatial locality on an online environment. Thus, to moderate a 
topic or a discussion among thousands of members from various localities and address the 
member anonymity problem by a single administrator is an NP problem without an exact 
solution. To address the problem, we propose a model that is effective in managing registration 
of new members, managing registered members through an appointed group leader in an 
efficient and easy way. The proposed solution is a generalizable model which takes into account 
the fact that, it is overwhelming for an administrator to manage an online group when a user 
population exceeds a certain threshold (P). Our major assumption was that is that with proper 
60 
 
usability and group size management, the user anonymity problems will be reduced to minimum 
levels, which will significantly improve the user?s online safety. We then apply the concept to 
the current system, which does not focus on monitoring and moderation of member?s activities in 
case there is an influx of member subscription with impressive results compared to current 
solution.   
3.5.1     The existing group management model 
To validate our model, we based our analysis on the current solution which is intractable. 
The solution was static and was implemented as a list (data structure) with all members listed 
without a proper way of association them to groups to validate users? identity and address the 
anonymity problem in our cloud test bed. The current model is 100% dependent on the 
administrator who creates user accounts and assigns registered members to specific groups 
manually to limit the introduction of fictitious accounts. This method was recommended and 
efficient for managing groups with a small number of users with known about (i.e. N <= 1000) 
but is intractable and inefficient for a bigger N (i.e. N > 10000). Thus, our model extends the 
existing model by introducing a self purporting and sustaining group element in managing online 
groups without compromising the user anonymity.. We achieve this by linking or associating 
group formation and organization to geospatial locations. Limiting anonymity and fictitious 
accounts within an online tool is important for the success a collaborative tool to foster informal 
education among members of communities of practice.  
To overcome the big highly intractable problem of managing a large N (i.e N >10000) 
limitation on our earlier solution, we initially suggested solution for managing groups of groups. 
The solution involves listing/creating regions based on the political boundaries and alignments in 
the United States serving as pilot study region. The four regions are (North East, South, Midwest 
61 
 
and West), which the cornerstone and further delaminate the rest into states with counties being 
the smallest management units. This is a practical solution, however it has it has discrepancies. 
For example, some counties may not have clubs and will lead to dummy clubs without members 
and affecting the search process when N- is greater. Thus, it makes it an inefficient solution for a 
large group problem. A further complication is that the formation of groups and management of 
posts is entirely depended on an administrator assign them manually which is an impractical task 
for an N > 10000 even considering having many administrators. This manual process will slow 
the group formation process as well limit sharing of information on the cloud forum. Therefore, 
this is not an optimal solution for the large group problem. We have implemented a color coded 
interface with plans to automate the process or aid in the process of creating self purporting and 
sustaining groups. The solution?s prototype is illustrated below.  
 
 
 
    Figure 3.20: The Orange region: Mid-Western region 
 
62 
 
 
 
   Figure 3.3: The Red region: Southern region 
 
 
63 
 
 
 
   Figure 3.3: The Red region; Southern region 
 
3.5.2   The Existing Group Management Solution  
The UQM (Universal Quadrant Model) solution improves the current model by providing 
a way to alleviate the fictitious membership?s problem and promotes self purporting and 
sustaining groups. The model allows vetting of memberships by associating applicants with 
spatial locality groups as well provides a graphical interface for easy management of those 
groups.  
The algorithm in addition addresses the membership anonymity problem, perpetuates 
new manageable groups within a spatial locality and associates them with the original groups 
once a certain membership threshold is reached within a specific quadrant or region.  
64 
 
Managing individuals, groups, and groups of groups geographically (globally) in a less 
costly, manageable, predictable manner is NP-complete problem without an exact solution. 
However, the proposed set theory quadrant universal model (QUM) simplifies the management 
of individuals, groups, and groups of groups spatially and overcomes overlapping of 
memberships within groups. 
The system will provide support to easily isolate and remove threats to the group 
members (e.g. fictitious post and other threats). The model aims at facilitating moderation of 
members? posts to ensure security and accuracy of data for the vulnerable and novice population. 
The systems automatically splits the regions into four and in each of the new regional groups has 
a leading node to moderate or lead the region once the population exceeds a threshold value; at 
this point the system issues a basic alert requirement for the new administrative nodes.  
The QUM is based on spatial location and takes into account the population count as a 
factor and is cost effective since it eliminates the imbalance of allocating administrative training 
resources for new administrative nodes in every locality regardless of the membership level. 
Thus, QUM is an organized and well structured model that introduces zones (quadrants) to 
manage users spread across the world or across 50 states and numerous counties in an easy 
conceivable way. Eliminating imbalance of allocation of resources is a daunting task in the 
existing state-county physical system. The model was developed in consideration with spatial 
locality of member groups. It ensures that neighbors are next to each other for actual identity and 
security of other users. The new members are verified by the elected administrative node that is 
charged with accepting (admitting) new members with a seconded vote from a currently existing 
node.  
65 
 
Therefore, QUM is a necessary and sufficient model to lower training costs, 
accommodate high population, and eliminate fictitious memberships. The model is tractable and 
complements the state-county based management model-system by allowing moderation of posts 
and contributions The state-country model is not cost effective in less densely populated spatial 
localities and on a larger scale, to train individual on a national level on a county by county basis 
will require thousands of sessions and is inconceivable. However, QUM will utilize the 
population and spatial locality of members and proposes an easy method to support users in the 
navigation of the cloud environment and locating of resources (or finding resources effectively). 
QUM also maps out the most populated areas and focuses on training administrators analogous 
to the population density or membership count. Thus, densely and sparsely populated areas are 
adequately and equitably allocated management resources irrespective state, county or region 
without any disparities.  
 
3.6 Hypotheses 
 For community of practice groups, (i.e. the 4-H community) to collaborate successfully 
in virtual space, they must have a forum to share information. The FYFL environment provides a 
framework for them to express ideas realistically by supporting various types of media. It 
incorporates features that are paramount for sharing quality information with ease through the 
use of templates. To validate the ease of use, we conducted a series of participatory design 
studies; scenario-based design, qualitative evaluation, and usability analysis and data collected 
by means of user surveys (i.e. task analysis surveys on how easy it is to post and comment on a 
practice relying on the tool features).   
Using simple tasks with the aid of a minimalist tutorial, users will rely on templates to 
accomplish simple tasks of sharing best practices by simply clicking icons on the screen (i.e. 
66 
 
members can upload raw artifacts from various electronic storage spaces by mouse selection). 
The templates are part of the design scheme to support ease of use by ensuring that resulting 
presentations will be standard from all members. The empirical study will focus on the usability 
of the tool (i.e. the user interface among various potential user groups with an emphasis on 
novice users and group administrators). This research proposed a group management model with 
features that support self-purporting and sustaining groups. 
This research addresses three research questions listed below that leverage the hypotheses 
that were tested at the end of the study. The study surveyed a dozen online tools utilizing an 
expert rating scale and selected the most appropriate tool to be redesigned according to CSCW 
guidelines and be adopted by a community of practice for sharing best practice. Before adoption, 
a usability and acceptance survey tests was conducted relying in part on the effectiveness of a 
minimalist tutorial developed at the beginning of this study. The tutorial enabled users to 
accomplish the assigned experimental tasks and facilitate data collection through surveys to 
validate the tool. The survey required users to accomplish simple tasks on the virtual tool and 
provide feedback of their usability experience through a survey form. At the end of the study, the 
usability and acceptance test survey data was analyzed to test the hypotheses of the research. 
The data collected during the experiment and through qualitative observations and 
surveys is presented in consecutive tables and other statistical methods. 
  
A. Hypotheses I: Performance 
HA1: Participants will be able to accurately complete the tasks within the bench mark times 
without having any errors.  
HA2: Novice users? participants? will yield slow times and more errors that expert users in 
completing the same task list of posting artifacts.  
67 
 
  
B. Hypotheses II: Usability 
HB1: On average, the participants will be more satisfied using the FYFL tool to collaborate 
than without.  
HB2: There will be a significant difference among evaluations of participants and on the 
overall satisfaction and ease to use.  
HB3: There will no significant differences between participants self reported feedback on 
user?s ratings on visual quality and organization of information.   
HB4: The morale for opportunity for online collaboration among potential users will change 
significantly 
 
C. Hypotheses III: Technical Skills and Technophobia 
The ?click and post? style incorporated in the webOS tool will simplify the creation and 
sharing of best practices potential users i.e. 4-H members.  
HC1: All participants completing the tasks will have improved technical skills by posting 
artifacts on the webOS collaborative too. 
HC2: All participants will have an increased user confidence on online collaboration and reduced 
technophobia interacting, creating and sharing artifacts capabilities onFYFL tool.   
68 
 
CHAPTER 4 
 
 Design and Implementation  
 
This chapter outlines into detail, the system implementation and refined requirements for 
the development of the system based on the initial requirements analysis. It also includes the 
details of the BB (KxNN) prototype system that was created in the initial phase I of this research. 
The implementation has been outlined with Unified Modeling Language as an object-oriented 
design standard to capture requirements. The chapter gives an overview of a model and user 
environment to complete the design for the FYFL cloud and the implementation details. The 
chapter concludes by outlining simulation results for the UQM group supportive model which 
creates and manages self purporting and sustaining groups online. 
4.1 Case Studies: Initial Phase, Phase I, and Phase II 
We approached the project by identifying a number of tools that were suitable for CSCW 
to support community of practice to collaborate. We adopted the evolutionary prototyping to find 
a suitable tool that will be easy to use and learn among novice users. Evolutionary Prototyping 
used herein is quite different from regular prototyping and its main goal is to build a very robust 
prototype in a structured manner and constantly refine it. Thus, an evolutionary prototype is the 
foundation of the main system whereas the new system is a product of improvements of the 
initial system based on new requirements and changes from users [23]. This process allows a 
continuous refinement of the system and is based on an acknowledgement that designers don?t 
understood all the requirements and will build on those well understood requirements while 
adding features as they understand the requirements more. 
69 
 
  
Figure 4.1: The prototyping Model (Courtesy Software Engineering Theory  
    and 
Practice S.L Pfleeger and J. M. Atlee) 
 
One advantage with EP is that it can implement all the features a user wants but on an 
interim basis with minimal functionality and could be used in service till the system us delivered. 
At the same time, it allows developers to develop  parts of the system that they understand better 
without worrying about those they understand less unlike having to develop the whole system 
with all features.  
The partial system is sent to users for testing as users work with the system they find 
missing features of make requests through  feedback to the developers who have a chance to use 
the feedback/requests together with their expertise and employ sound configuration-management 
practices to change and update the requirements, update the design,  recode and retest. 
4.1.1 Initial Phase: YouTube - KxNN (Kids News Network) Study   
The KxNN is a YouTube tool created as a proof of concept for users by the team of 
researchers. The resulting prototype effectiveness and usability was not formally evaluated with 
    
   List of 
Revision 
Prototype 
Requireme
nts 
Prototype 
Design 
List of 
Revision 
List of 
Revision 
Prototype 
System Test 
Delivered 
System 
70 
 
the target user population. However, an expert inspection test disqualified it as a viable tool 
because it was on the public domain with limited intellectual property protection laws and its 
security and privacy could be easily compromised.  
 
 Figure 4.2: The KxNN -YouTube channel 
 
To refine the KxNN YouTube tool to improve the usability and support needs, we 
employed an expert tool study, which revealed that YouTube has limited functionality and 
cannot serve as an effective tool for collaboration among novice users. The experts 
recommended a tool that incorporates multimedia supportive features as a viable platform. The 
expert review highlighted that as a public domain tool, intellectual property was an issue if this 
mechanism of delivery was adopted. The experts concerns were based on the fact that the 
Internet since its acceptance has always been heralded as the last place for true freedom without 
limits. In order to truly embrace the limitless capabilities of the Internet and promote informal 
learning, educators must not only be open to use the Internet as a method of supplementary and 
71 
 
cooperative education, but also learn to use the strengths of the Internet in their advantage by 
exercising control, rights, and security. 
The expert recommendation on the unsuitability for using YouTube led to an inspection 
of other newer technologies which could serve as venues for collaboration (i.e. social networking 
which encompass Facebook and Twitter) but which most educators see as taboo in educational 
environments.  For example, Facebook, the world?s largest social networking site, has over 600 
million registered users and it is impossible to deny the reach and impact of these sites; they 
surround each and every move that we make today and are potentially perfect platforms for 
sharing best practices among communities of practice members. But, without downplaying their 
impact and influence, social networks are public domains jeopardizing the intellectual property 
and privacy of users.  
4.1.2 Phase I: K-12 Teachers Study  
To improve on the proof of concept tool, the next step was to investigate  multimedia 
supportive tools for novice users (e.g. leading the forums, message boards or bulletin board) to 
support K-12 education. A Computer Supported Collaborative Interactive Learning Social 
Networking tool was envisioned as an environment for K-12 teachers to share best practices as a 
test group. This environment can also be referred to as a bulletin board or as threaded 
discussions, discussion boards or discussion groups while as well as a conference as known by 
others. However, the FuseTalk simply calls them forums, a place where people have the ability 
to start communication (in the form of threads) and reply to other people's threads. Deciding 
whether just one forum or multiple forums were needed was difficult because of the uncertainty 
of forum definition and what makes a forum. We also faced other draw backs with respect to 
forum members, posting messages, which are visible to everyone in that community and once 
72 
 
read, there is the option to post a reply, which can also be visible to the community.  Thus, a 
discussion can build up without all users having to be online at the same time. However, our aim 
is to organize groups taking advantage of the ease of control and moderation like social 
networking while avoiding the pitfalls of social networks.  We will also need to support the use 
of third party software for data creation.  
4.1.2.1  Basic Structure of a Forum 
 A forum consists of 4 components: the forum, categories, the topics, and the messages.  
Each component, or level of hierarchy, is illustrated in the diagram below. 
 
  
 Figure 4.3: The basic structure of a forum. (Courtesy http://www.imsg lobal.org) 
 
 
Each forum can have an unlimited number of categories and sub-categories. Categories 
are like placeholders in which topics of discussion and messages are contained.  Henceforth, a 
category manages the forum?s topics into folders or groupings.  This is a logical method of 
73 
 
sorting topics.  On the home page of the forum, a listing of all the categories to which the user 
has access, excluding those categories that the user wishes to block from viewing (refer to ?How 
do I update my profile??), will be displayed.  In addition, the user will see the number of topics 
posted within each corresponding category, and the date/time/author of the last posting made in 
the corresponding category. To find out quickly if new messages have been posted since the last 
viewing, simply hover over the clipboard icon corresponding to the category in question. 
Consequently to test forum?s usability and effectiveness on supporting collaboration and sharing 
of best practices among communities, we performed a usability study among likely users. Social 
Networking Teaching Tools: A Computer Supported Collaborative Interactive Learning Social 
Networking Environment for K-12 forum was utilized for was our first case study among a user 
population for feedback on requirements to improve it to support novice users in line with HCI 
(Human Computer Interactions) and CSCW theories principals. K-12 teachers were the main 
target. The selection was based on our preliminary research from literature review, which 
indicated that there are no particular online tools devoted to support K-12 education in virtual 
space. Often teachers are unable to effectively communicate and convey information to their 
students. Therefore we chose to investigate the possibility of deploying an interactive teaching 
tool in the classroom and how well teachers would receive the tool. The study was successful 
and generated requirements, which led to the adoption of the cloud as suitable tool to support 
communities of practice to share best practices.  
4.1.2.2 Networking Teaching Tools  
Figure 4.9a is an initial theoretical model for Computer Supported Collaborative 
Interactive Learning Social Networking Environment for the K-12 community. The model was 
later refined and simplified as shown in Figure 4.9b.  
74 
 
 
  
Figure 4.4a: The proposed collaborative tool theoretic diagram  
 
 
 
75 
 
 
 
Figure 4.4b: The Refined For Youth, For Life ?The improved Social Learning 
Environment theory:  
Copyright ? 2010 Auburn University, Alabama Cooperative Extension System 
76 
 
 
 
Figure 4.5:  K-12 Forum Prototype Architecture diagram 
 
 
Validated surveys and usability experts techniques were employed to generate 
discussions, gather the content and analyze findings; basically to validate the study. 
 
 
4.1.3 Phase I Data and Analysis   
 
Gender Response Percent Response Count 
Male 56.3% 18 
Female 43.8% 14 
 
77 
 
  Table 4.2: KXNN Pre-Questionnaire subjects gender distribution 
 
 
 
 
 
Figure 4.6: K-12 teachers gender distribution 
 
 
 
Educational Level % Percent Response Count(N) 
Bachelors Degree 53.1% 17 
Masters Degree 43.8% 14 
Doctoral Degree 3.1% 1 
 
   Table 4.3: K-12 teachers KXNN subjects level of education  
 
 
 
34% 
34% 
19% 
13% 
Subjects Age group Distribution 
20 - 25 
25 - 30 
30 - 40 
> 40 
78 
 
 
 
         Figure 4.7: Subjects level of education graphical representation 
 
 
 
Educational 
Tool 
None V. 
Little 
Moderat
e 
Extensive Response 
Count 
Blackboard 0 5 17 10 32 
Moodle 1 3 12 16 32 
WebCT 23 6 2 1 32 
SharePoint 13 8 7 4 32 
 
Table 4.4: K-12 teachers experience with online educational tools  
 
 
 
Table 4.5: Online teaching tools supplements traditional classroom lessons  
53% 
44% 
3% 
Subjects Level of Education 
Bachelors Degree 
Masters Degree 
Doctoral Degree 
Options % Response Response Count(N) 
Yes 71.9% 23 
No 28.1% 9 
79 
 
 
 
 
       Figure 4.8: Online teaching tools supplement traditional classroom 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
Table 4.6: Subjects would you use a forum to teach lessons if it were available  
 
 
The data in table 4.5 shows that only a fraction of teachers were unwilling to use the 
forum to teach if it were available while more than a third (37%) were undecided. The high 
percentage of those willing and the undecided supported the project motivation to provide a 
viable a tool to support online education and informal learning by encouraging collaboration 
72% 
28% 
Online tools supplement traditional classroom lessons 
Yes 
No 
Options % Response Response Count (n) 
Yes 40.6% 13 
No 21.9% 7 
Maybe 37.5% 12 
80 
 
among community of practice members. In order to better serve our users, subjects were tasked 
to list changes necessary to improve the system. 70 percent of the subjects listed poor graphics as 
a hindrance to adopt the suggested tool for collaboration which supports the requirements to 
provide a better graphically designed tool for users. 55% elicited as lack of a tutorial for their 
lack of confidence in the tool and wanted a tool that is usable outside the school environment 
with a guarantee that it was scalable and adoptable including templates to enable them 
distinguish various clubs or groups. The revised were requirement for phase II (i.e. to provide a 
scalable and adoptable tool for novice users to collaborate and support informal learning among 
communities of practice groups). With this set of revised requirements, an expert team reviewed 
5 online collaborative tools and selected a cloud-based tool because of its scalability, security, 
portability, and  ability easy to use and learn as outlined in table 2.1. After the selection, A 
usability and suitability expert study ensued after the selection with leading to the results 
discussed under the ?Expert Group Usability Study? section of this report. 
 
4.2 Generated FYFL System Requirements and Analysis 
The requirements analysis phase of this research study covers the main research 
activities. It highlights the initial requirements, performs rational analysis and concludes with 
experimental evaluations [Seals 2004]. The study began with a general survey of end-user 
computer collaborative tools used among communities of practice. Next, we created a list of 
tools available and conducted an informal usability and security inspection for three tools; 
content managers, wikis, bulletin boards (BB e.g. YouTube (KxNN).  
The inspection included detailed properties to ascertain whether they will support the 
user-friendly interaction style and architecture that we are proposing. We began this inspection 
81 
 
with a scenario based analysis in an effort to clearly define the requirements for a robust end-user 
programming system [Seals 2004]. 
 The BB system was chosen as a preliminary usability study for the sharing of best 
practices among communities of practice. This study in particular was for identifying 
characteristics meant for ease of use for computing novices. Our user group for this preliminary 
BB study was a community of practice (i.e. K-12 teachers group). The aim of this preliminary 
study was to gauge their general proficiency and computer efficacy with content management 
systems. We utilized the results from this study, to refine the requirements for subsequent 
revision for future study and gain more insights into the best ways to share best practices among 
communities of practice. 
The preliminary study was also on the suitability of the BB as a tool for collaboration. 
Based on user feedback (i.e. usability experts, communities of practice, security experts and 
software engineer) from the BB study, we utilized this information to determine general 
guidelines for a tool to share best practices among members of various communities. The BB 
study concluded that to support novice users, the tool must be easy to use, appealing, secure and 
engaging. This chapter discusses the implications for a tool for sharing best practices (e.g. K-12 
teachers and 4-H communities), lists preliminary requirements that will be utilized to refine our 
requirements for the next version of this proposed work. 
 
 
4.2.1 FYFL Systems Requirements 
The main goal of this research as captured in the statement of purpose is to create a 
system that will support members of communities of practice to share best practices among peers 
82 
 
for various reasons (e.g. K-12 teachers to enhance career advancement within the various 
professions).The system has been branded FYFL cloud. The system incorporates an environment 
to create, edit, store, display, comment, attach and re-use existing information and eliminates 
programming learning curve requirements for novice users.  
 
Figure 4.9: Requirements Analysis (reminiscent task-artifact cycle) 
 
 
 Our previous survey results and feedback from a BB tool to support K-12 teachers in 
teaching model and methodology was instrumental in refining the initial requirements of 
adopting a cloud environment and guiding in the analytic and experimental evaluation of FYFL 
cloud. In phase I of the project, we applied the refined requirements to create a high level design 
Initial Requirements 
?Classification of Collaboration 
tools 
?Sharing of best practices among 
K-12 & 4-H members (prelimary 
study 1) 
System Analysis  
?Usability & security inspection 
with experts 
?Comparative study of BB & 
webOS  
Experimental Evaluations  
?Learning & utilizing webOS 
(cloud) for collaboration 
?Security and usage survey for 
webOS  
83 
 
using case activity diagrams. During the prototype development, informal usability evaluations 
by experts will be used to fine tune the design of its functionality and user interface [Seals 2004]. 
The design requirements for the study are as a result of intrinsic and experimental studies 
that serve as guidelines for the development of a system for sharing best practices among 
communities of practice and provide a framework for re-use. The inspections and usability 
expert evaluations and results from a K-12 teachers survey on using a BB as a tool for teaching, 
were analyzed to provide requirements for the FYFL cloud system. The preliminary studies 
showed that K-12 teachers as a community of practice will need straightforward software system 
that is easy to learn; secure, engaging and flexible to share best practices. We have gathered the 
requirements from the client as listed in a table below.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Design 
System Requirements (4.1) 
Use Case Analysis (.2) 
Environment Selection (4.3) 
Prototype 
FYFL Prototype 
 
Figure 4.10: For Youth For Life Development 
 
84 
 
The key task for a novice user is to create and post a best practice to support informal 
learning within their community. To be successful in this endeavor, the system provides tools 
that are easy to use and simple to modify.  
 
Basic System Requirements 
Support for Sharing Best Practices 
? Provide an environment easy to learn and share practices without a learning 
curve 
? Support simple to correct error and recover from mistakes 
? Provide user interface satisfaction for novice users 
? Support user content creation and downloading 
? Support easy creation and posting of best practices in any format media. 
Robust Support of Re-Use 
? Provide templates for re-use 
? Provide an extensive set of features that allow the user to modify posted data 
? Allow multiple windows to facilitate copy and paste of materials 
? Platform independent of implementations of programming languages  
? Support importing of graphics 
? Support novice user change of background graphics to suit user preference 
? Support import of multimedia and educational simulations 
Provide a Secure Environment for users  
? Support secure access and regulation of  user contributions to the community 
? Pre-screen shared information before it is shared among members 
? Member?s registration and account use provided with online security features, 
password, test question, etc. 
 
Table 4.1: Basic system requirements  
85 
 
 
This tool supports user sharing of content and examples effectively. In addition, they 
enable them to correct errors, preview data by encouraging them to share best practices 
continually [Seals 2004].The recommended system aims to provide a set of tools, which support 
novice users without programming skills necessary for modifications within alternative systems. 
to provide a specialized user view, we have provided a dashboard with custom set base icons for 
initial system view. The dashboard of preferences will be supplied to each community of practice 
on demand because we envision that most novice computer users do not have enough time to 
create user interface tools on their own. The user interface dashboard as templates provides an 
easy way to share and advance informal learning and knowledge without having to spend too 
much time. 
As part of system requirement to serve as a reservoir of information, we considered 
making the environment rich with content and convenient to use. Thus, we recommended a tool 
with the capability to import graphics, new backgrounds and allow multimedia and interactive 
ways to work within the environment to enhance user?s excitement and creativity. Most of the 
surveyed collaborative tools lack a means for addition of content and multimedia. Others, do 
support multimedia however, they have a learning curve that is more appropriate for expert 
computer users. They do not include the ease of usability that is necessary to support novice 
computer users.  
In general, the For Youth For Life environment that was adopted for members of 
communities of practice to share best practices is very practical. For example, it benefits 
educators by providing an innovative method of teaching and learning to support a new level of 
collaboration and knowledge transfer. The need to collaborate is emphasized here and is due to 
86 
 
the desire to have members of a community benefit from the group?s collective intelligence and 
existing work. From the survey, it was revealed that most available tools only support reuse in a 
minimal way due to lack of re-usable components, thus creating the need to create an 
environment that will allow re-use of components by members at various levels.  
To support the ease of use of the proposed system, we will create requirements and 
documentation that will provide users training in the use of the environment. The designed 
documents will support communities using, reusing, creating and importing materials.  The 
learning materials in form of tutorials follow a minimalism tutorial model. The supportive 
materials will help users accomplish tasks quickly with the existing features without becoming 
frustrated.  
4.2.2 Summary of Benefits:  
o Automated Collaboration System 
o Provides members of the communities of practice with recommended best 
practices without help of an administrator. 
o Provides multiple best practices to members of the communities of practice 
according to their interests, which helps to plan his/her, work easily. 
o Decreases burden on members of the community of practice to create materials 
from artifacts every time they encounter a need. 
o Encourages re-use of best practices among a community members 
 
 
4.2.3 Assumptions and Dependencies 
87 
 
o The system is only for current members of communities of practice and guest 
users. 
o All the members  have a valid ?user ID? and ?Password?,  
o A database of members of practice is already provided and is OR will be updated 
automatically as new members are added to the system. 
o Members of a community of practice using the system may have minimum 
computer skills (supports novice computer users). 
o This system is for 4-Hclub community of practice members initially. 
o Recommended best practices will depend on ?posts from members? of that 
particular expertise and which in turn depends upon ?replies? and ?the member?s 
pre-requisite skills?. 
o The system provides a means to create; self manage and support self-sustaining 
groups through a QUM group model outlined in part II if this chapter. 
4.2.4 Summary of System Features 
FYFL cloud Best Practices System is an automated and secure tool, which provides 
members of a community of practice an opportunity to create, reuse and share best practices with 
peers on a particular topic based on their interests. It will also allow members of the community 
of practice to interactively browse through and get several details like best practices on a 
particular topic, what is offered by other members, pre-requisite skills for particular practices and 
also allows them to specify their interests. The system will maintain the member?s records by 
creating or updating each record according to the collaboration policies. Only authorized 
community of practice members are allowed to maintain these records, which can be achieved 
from login to the FYFL advising system. The system can be used to create or Update a 
88 
 
Community of practice Details; Create or Update best practice Details; Create or Update 
Members Records; Retrieve List of best practices; Get Completed and Recommended Best 
Practices; Select/Retrieve Members Interest. 
4.3 Use Cases  
The main research goal of creating FYFL system is to have a system that meets a 
minimum set of usability requirements to support collaboration among novice users to be able to 
create and share best practices among themselves. For Example, a group of 4-H members want 
to share best practices (e.g. promising work or educational artifacts about agriculture, general 
science or Aerospace, etc.). Our research plans are to provide a user friendly means for novice 
computer users to create, adapt and re-use existing best practices (e.g. artifacts, video, curriculum 
examples, etc.). System requirements serve as our guide in building design cases that support the 
functionality and usability of the system.  
To accomplish a detailed analysis and design of the system, we will utilize Unified 
Modeling Language (UML) for object modeling and as a specification language to state of the 
system requirements and functionality. Also use cases and user scenarios were used to analyze, 
capture, and document specifications in relation to novice users who are the potential users of the 
system.   
Description of the system: Members of a community of practice (i.e. K-12 teachers and 
4-H club members) will interact with the system directly. They will be responsible for content 
generation. They will create and modify best practices. The system will also allow guests to view 
content, but not provide guests the level of permission to access restricted member functions (i.e. 
edit, create, download, etc.) unless they are enjoined as members of the community by the 
administrator.  
89 
 
The FYFL cloud system will provide services to the members of communities of practice 
and collaborate with other systems as seen in the diagram. 
F Y F L  C l o u d  
S y s t e m
< < a c t o r > >
F Y F L  C l o u d  L o g i n  
A u t h e n t i c a t i o n  
S e r v i c e s  
A c t o r
C a l l s  U p o n  
S e r v i c e s
C a l l s  U p o n  
S e r v i c e s
< < a c t o r > >
F Y F L  C l o u d  B e s t  
P r a c t i c e s  
D a t a b a s e  S y s t e m
< < a c t o r > >
F Y F L  C l o u d  U s e r s  
D a t a b a s e  S y s t e m
< < a c t o r > >
F Y F L  C l o u d   
G u e s t  D a t a b a s e s  
S y s t e m  
 
 Figure 4.11: Perspective Diagram  
 
4.3.1 Use Case ? I 
Name:  Create or Update a Community of Practice or Group 
Scope: FYFL Cloud - Sharing Best Practices System Framework. 
Level: User-goal 
Primary actor: FYFL administrator 
Secondary actor: Community of practice member 
Stakeholder Interests:  
Community of Practice Leader (Member):  wants to successfully add the 
community of practice name, practice description, admission requirements, and 
pre-requisites skills for the membership. He or She also has the authority to edit 
and update any changes in the entered data. 
90 
 
FYFL host (E-extension & HCI Lab) -They provide general guidelines 
requirements and rules and regulations for all communities of practice. 
Pre-conditions: The user is a valid administration member of a given community of 
practice to use the system. 
Post-conditions: A list of topics, group admission and a community of practice 
requirements are given by the communities governing authorities. 
Basic Flow:  
1) The user logins to the system. 
2) The user selects create/update a practice details button. 
3) User enters practice name. 
4) User enters community of practice description. 
5) User enters membership admission requirements. 
6) User enters prerequisite for the membership. 
7) User enters best practice requirements. 
8) Repeats step 3 to 7 until all the best practice details have been entered. 
9) User submits the best practice details. 
10) The system validates the entry requirements pending group leaders/administrator for 
approval. 
11) The system saves the details. 
Extensions: (External Flows): 
3 b) The user enters a community of practice that already exists. 
3 b. 1 The system displays an error message. 
 3 b. 2 The system returns the user back to create or update community screen. 
Open Issues: 
91 
 
1) Should the system provide the functionality of deleting a community of practice if 
needed? 
Technology of data variation list: None 
Frequency of occurrences:  Continuous. 
Special Requirements: 
1) The screen colors must be standard across the system. 
2) The font will be standard and consistent throughout the system. 
3) Only text fields for entering data. If there are constraints in number of characters to be 
entered, then it will be explicitly mentioned on screen. 
4) System will support addition of new fields to be added later. 
5) Submission of data will be based on form style entry with user acceptance required.  Also 
links will be provided for screen navigation. 
92 
 
  
 
 Multimedia 
Tools 
 Library of 
Existing Posts 
 Exit System 
 Template Objects 
  Add/Creates Group 
(Admin) 
 Delete/Modify 
Tools  
 
Actor 
 
 
Web/Mobile Tools  
 FYFL Cloud 
System Tutorial  
93 
 
Figure 4.12: Use Case Diagram for the Entire System Diagram 
4.3.2 Use-Case II 
Name:  Re-Use Of An Existing Best Practice. 
Scope: FYFL Cloud-Sharing Best Practices by a Community of Practice System 
Level: User-goal 
Primary actor: A Community of Practice Member 
Secondary actor: None 
Stakeholder Interests:  
Community of Practice Member:  Wants to successfully re-use the best 
practice, practice details, prerequisites for that particular practice, members 
handling the practice. He/She will download existing content as well. 
 Group Leaders: They provide details for various best practices and their 
requirement to the community of practice members. 
Pre-conditions: The practice downloaded and updated should be a practice or artifact 
that is recommended by the community of practice domain. 
Post-conditions or Success of Practice: A list of practices, practices details, in some 
cases details on how to institutionalize practice, and practice educational or other benefits 
to community members. 
Basic Flow:  
1) Find an existing example  
2) Modify the existing example 
3) Delete or remove unwanted material 
4) Create New Objects or Modify the existing objects 
5) Test modified or added Best practice 
94 
 
6) Save the Best Practice   
 
Figure 4.13: Re-Use Best Practice Use Case Diagram   
 
 Re-use Best 
Practice 
 Test /Share Best 
Practice/ View  
 Delete 
Unwanted 
Data (Admin 
Only) 
  Search for Best 
Practice 
 Plan for Re-Use Part of Best 
Practice 
 
Adm
in/ 
User 
 
 Test and View 
Best Practices 
 Add 
Comments on 
Best Practices 
 
Create 
/Modify 
Existing Best 
Practices 
 Copy Paste 
Best Practice 
  
 New Best 
Practice 
Test Best 
Practice  
<<uses>>  
<<uses>>  
<<uses>>  
<<uses>>  
<<uses>>  
<<uses>>  
<<uses>>  
95 
 
 
The user/community member finds a new lesson for re-use: 
1) Delete unwanted data and information 
2) Add new information 
3) Create new interaction icon or modify the existing ones 
4) User test to make sure that the added education materials is accessible and can be 
downloaded for reuse 
5) Search for best practice example 
6) Plan the re-use of user task information 
7) Modify/Reuse best Practice 
8) Create new Best Practice with templates available  
9) Post/Save the Best Practice 
Extensions (Alternate Flows): 
3a)  The user does not enter a valid best practice title while adding\editing. 
3.a.1 The system displays an error message. 
3.a.2 The system returns the user back to create or update course screen. 
3b) The user enters an already existing best practice 
3.b.1 The system displays an error message. 
3.b.2 The system returns a feedback to create or update the best practice screen. 
Open Issues: 
1)  While entering a prerequisite for a best practice, should the member enter the best 
practice title for the prerequisite practices? (to support future retrieval, must meet a 
general title and subject area) 
Technology of data variation list:  None 
96 
 
Frequency of occurrences: (Re-Use of an existing Best Practice) - Continuous 
  Special Requirements: 
1. The screen colors must be standard across the system. 
2. The font should be consistent and standard across the system. 
3. Only text fields for entering data. If there are constraints in number of characters to be 
entered, then it should be explicitly mentioned on screen. 
4. System will support addition of new fields to be added later. 
5. Submission of data will be based on form style entry with user acceptance required.  Also 
links will be provided for screen navigation. 
 
Detailed Example of Re-Use Scenario: 
John wants to learn how to grow cotton in Alabama. To know how to prevent weeds and 
insects from destroying crops, he needs a lesson or training. However, he opts to join the local 4-
H clubs, which recommends the use of crop rotation to boost yields. He notes that Peter a cotton 
farmer already has done a lesson on types of weeds and insects that destroy cotton and how crop 
rotation boosted yields on FYFL cloud. Instead of John creating a new series of lessons from 
scratch he reuses the existing lesson on how to care for his crops and recommends them to other 
farmers within the club. Our system will encourage and have a broader impact by duplicating 
and recommending such successful stories within various communities of practice groups.  
 
 
 
4.4 Downloading and Re-using of Best Practices 
97 
 
While assessing the requirements for best practices, we discovered that there was a need 
to create an environment that encourages and supports re-use of activities among a community of 
members. In the process, we created scenarios that will be instructive when members are being 
initiated into the environment. 
For a member to re-use best practices, they are required to be registered users of the 
system. The members will be added to a community of practice and will be allowed to browse 
through the existing shared topics and find a topic of their choice, and choose a posted best 
practice that has content related to a particular specific lesson/topic of which they can study and 
decide the parts to re-use. However, the expert analysis revealed that a global involvement, poses 
new risk of being infiltrated with fictitious accounts. To address the issue, we propose a holistic 
approach to improve account creation and group management as outlined in section 65.9 of this 
report. The model is a solution to the group creation and management problem and is an 
improvement to the current solution of managing members manually as a result of automatic 
registration, but lacks a mechanism to monitor fast growing groups to allocate them the 
necessary resources as required to avoid pitfalls that have befallen social networks.  
  
98 
 
4.5 Phase II: FYFL Cloud Expert Group Study  
As mentioned previously, we modified validated versions of Computer Understanding 
and Experience - Potosky & Bobko (Pre-Questionnaire), Computer System Usability 
Questionnaire (CSUQ) ? Lewis, 1995 IBM (Post-Questionnaire) and Perceived Usefulness and 
Ease of Use (Post-Questionnaire) to collect data from usability experts to ascertain that a Cloud 
tool would provide a better usability experience in line with the recommendations of the first 
survey, on participants utilizing the Forum tool before testing it with the target user group. 
 
 
 Figure 4.14: The experts experimental design diagram 
 
99 
 
4.5.1 Phase II: Expert Survey Data and Analysis 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Table 4.7: The expert?s group gender distribution table 
 
 
 
 
       Figure 4.15: The participant?s gender distribution graphical representation 
 
 
The survey collected gender distribution data to ensure that the expert feedback data was 
not biased and was representative of both sexes in order to be considered valid and credible.  
55.60% 
44.40% 
Subjects Gender Distribution Chart 
Male 
Female 
Gender 
% Response Count (n) 
Male 55.60% 5 
Female 44.40% 4 
100 
 
 
 
Figure 4.16: The expert group level of education graphical representation 
 
 
 
Education Level % Response Count(N) 
No formal education  0.00% 0 
Elementary education  0.00% 0 
High school diploma or GED  0.00% 0 
Bachelors Degree  33.30% 3 
Masters Degree  66.70% 6 
Doctoral  0.00% 0 
   
  Table 4.8: The expert group level of education distribution table 
 
The study identified the level of education as a justification for selecting experts through 
self-reported IT skills responses. The research group benchmarked a bachelor?s degree in IT as a 
proof of expertise in assessing the usability of CSCW tools as shown in Table 4.7. Our approach 
0.00% 
0.00% 0.00% 
33.30% 
66.70% 
0.00% 
Level of Education  
No formal education 
Elementary education 
High school diploma or 
GED 
Bachelors Degree 
Masters Degree 
Doctoral 
101 
 
was based on the assumption that the knowledge acquired through advanced computer science 
(i.e. user interface design courses etc.) qualifies one as an expert on the subject matter.  
  Field of study % Reponses Count (N) 
Biological sciences  0.00%  0 
IT  100.00%  9 
Education  0.00%  0 
Agriculture  0.00%  0 
Liberal arts  0.00%  0 
Applied sciences  0.00%  0 
   
  Table 4.9: The expert group self reported field of study table 
 
 
Age Group % Response Count(N) 
< 19  0.00% 0 
20-25  77.80% 7 
25-30  22.20% 2 
30-40  0.00% 0 
>40  0.00% 0 
  
  Table 4.10: The expert group age distribution table 
 
 
To establish and justify the expert?s ability to assess the usability, a user experience with 
similar tools is necessary.  This study listed a variety of tools we considered as collaboration 
tools, but were not selected either because of usability or a security issue. To validate the user 
rating of the expert?s responses on the cloud tool, we had to understand the distribution of user 
102 
 
experience among experts on various online tools (i.e. Facebook). The user experience of these 
selected online tools was sought to reduce biases on collected data since an extensive experience 
with online tools is an indication that an expert has a substantial amount of knowledge to be 
objective assessing a similar tool providing reliable and credible data as a result.   
 
 
Figure 4.17: The expert user group age distribution  
 
 
Tool 
Very 
Experienced Experienced 
Moderate 
Experience  
Little 
Experience  None 
AVG. 
Rating   Count (N) 
WebCT 22.20% 11.10% 44.40% 11.10% 11.10% 2.78 9 
Blackboard 55.60% 44.40% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 1.44 9 
Moodle 0.00% 37.50% 12.50% 25.00% 25.00% 3.38 8 
Facebook 55.60% 22.20% 0.00% 22.20% 0.00% 1.89 9 
E-mail 77.80% 22.20% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 1.22 9 
Twiter 11.10% 33.30% 22.20% 33.30% 0.00% 2.78 9 
 
0.00% 
77.80% 
22.20% 
0.00% 
Age Group 
< 19 
20-25 
25-30 
30-40 
>40 
103 
 
Table 4.11: The expert group online tools user experience  
 
 
Table 4.11 contains rates experience with online tools - Educational tools, social network 
tools that can be used for collaboration on a 0-4 scale. From figure 4.18, it can be concluded that 
most experts are very experienced with online tools thus can be a reliable source of information 
on assessing the usability of CSCW tool for collaboration needs (purposes).  
The expert responses from table 4.12 support our hypothesis that the FYFL cloud tool 
provides a good usability experience and can be adopted for collaboration by a group of 
community of practice members. The experts in the study gave comments on how to improve the 
system and its usability based on the usability experience gained from performing user tasks. The 
tasks were timed and the average time was utilized to set a benchmark for assessing novice users 
using the system to collaborate. 
 
 
Figure 4.18: The expert group online tools user experience  
0.00% 
10.00% 
20.00% 
30.00% 
40.00% 
50.00% 
60.00% 
70.00% 
80.00% 
90.00% 
Experience with Online Tools Chart 
Very experienced 
Experienced 
Moderate Experience 
Little Experience 
None 
104 
 
Likert Scale:  
1-Strongly Disagree, 2-Moderately Disagree, 3-Disagree, 4?Neutral, 5-Moderately Agree, 6-
Agree 7-Strongly agree  
Usability Attributes EI E 2 E 3 E 4 E 5 E 6 E 7 Avg. Expert 
Overall satisfied how easy to use  3 7 6 5 4 6 3 5.0 
Simple  3 7 7 5 3 6 3 4.9 
Effectively complete my work  4 7 7 5 4 5 3 5.0 
Able to complete work quickly  4 6 6 5 4 6 4 5.0 
Efficiently complete my work  5 6 6 5 3 5 4 4.9 
I feel comfortable  4 6 6 5 4 6 4 5.0 
Easy to learn  5 7 7 5 3 7 4 5.4 
Become productive quickly  4 6 6 5 4 5 4 4.9 
Error messages how to fix problems  4 6 6 5 4 5 4 4.9 
Recovers  easily from mistakes  4 7 7 5 5 4 4 5.1 
Clear information - documentation  4 7 7 5 4 5 4 5.1 
Easy to find information  4 7 6 5 4 6 4 5.3 
Easy to understand provided 
information  
4 7 7 5 3 6 4 5.1 
Effective information to complete tasks  4 6 6 5 5 5 4 5.0 
System screens clear  4 7 7 5 4 5 4 5.1 
Interface is pleasant  5 7 7 5 6 6 6 6.0 
I like using the interface  5 7 6 4 6 6 4 5.6 
Has all functions and capabilities I 
expect  
5 7 7 5 4 7 4 5.6 
Overall satisfied with the system  5 7 7 5 4 6 4 5.4 
 
Table 4.12: The expert group overall usability experience of FYFL tool   
105 
 
The benchmark is necessary to evaluate the time involved performing collaborative tasks. 
From the benchmark if a task were too long for a participant, we ascertained that this function 
was too difficult to use or needed improvement. In these cases, we need to improve the usability 
as not to frustrate users. The maximum / benchmark time for a task was set by doubling the 
average time an expert took to perform a task to arrive as an estimated time for a novice user to 
perform the same task for it to be rated as easy to use and learn. 
 
 
 
 Figure 4.19: The expert group overall usability experience line graph on FYFL tool 
 
0 
1 
2 
3 
4 
5 
6 
7 
Usabi
lty
 R
atin
g Sc
ale
 
Usability Attributes 
FYFL Experts Usability Evaluation  
Avg Expert  
106 
 
 
Thus, if the average time if performing a task exceeded double the average taken by an 
expert user, it was concluded that the task was hard to perform or the minimalist tutorial 
developed for the task was not user friendly. Then we queried users to assess the necessity of 
modifying the feature before a final testing and acceptance test.  A table 4.12 elicits comments 
on the positives and negatives of the system by the expert group.  
Positives 
?A good Color scheme? 
?Calendar is an advantage? 
?A good Desktop feel? 
?a Blog is a great idea? 
?Concept is great? 
?Easy Account Management  but needs a group usability model? 
?Good aesthetics? 
Negatives 
?Start button at the bottom is not affordable and doesn't have any metaphor so 
that the user can know about it? 
?No File System Explorer? 
?No search bar of the main page.? 
?No means to manage groups when memberships grows to  thousands? 
 
 Table 4.13:  Experts elicited comments table on FYFL tool 
 
The researchers addressed the negatives by redesigning the start button and by explicitly 
adopting new metaphors for ?file system explore? and the ?search box? because the tools were 
available but expert?s inability to locate them elicited the comments as shown in table 4.13.  
In general, the experts? general responses from the self-reported feedback approved the 
suggested cloud tool for communities of practice to collaborate and share best practices leading 
to our third facet of the study, involving the target (communities of practice) user groups to 
107 
 
redesign the tool and perform a usability and acceptance test before launching version 1.0 of the 
FYFL cloud tool. The general expert usability responses are displayed in Figure 4.19.  
4.5.2 FYFL Tool Generated Requirements   
Phase II of the study revealed forum limitations in terms of services to support 
communities of practice being rated as easy to use by the experts, but needed improvement by 
the test population. Among the issue raised ware, usability (easy to use learn), scalability (how to 
accommodate a growing number user groups), and services (software and infrastructure) to 
support users in creating information and sharing best practices, and lack an efficient usability 
model to manage user groups. 
This limitation led to a new set of requirements from the expert group and through an 
evaluation of the K-12 usability study feedback and an evaluation of the targeted user needs. The 
experts refined the goals and themes of the project. The new tool was branded For Youth For 
Life collaborative tool whose main purpose is ?The For Youth, For Life Learning Network 
consisting of a knowledge bank of eXtension content pages designed for youth, high interest area 
learning community sites, a secure online social learning network, and interfaces with social 
media as appropriate?. The goal was to include the following: 
? Knowledge bank:  The Knowledge bank of eXtension content pages serves as the default 
learning resource and is developed by a youth focused Community of Practice made up of 
multiple content teams.   
? Learning community: The Learning community pages are dynamic and engaging for the 
youth audience and relate to major content and interest areas.  These community pages or 
sites also provide a way to share what is learned with others and contribute to a larger 
body of knowledge and experience. 
108 
 
? A private network: A private network accommodates learners with a private learning 
space, a learning or e-portfolio to record work and accomplishments, and a secure social 
learning networking component to accommodate groups of learners. 
? Social media: Interfacing with social media across these three functions further builds 
community among learners utilizing the For Youth, For Life Learning Network. 
4.5.3 Generated Requirements for a Cloud Tool 
Relying on requirements generated from the experts study, we selected a cloud tool as the 
best suited tool for the task at hand. Table 2.1 of this report outlines the criteria that were utilized 
to select the most viable tool for Phase III of the study. The requirements acquisition of the cloud 
and other collaborative tools consists of both a thorough understanding of the theoretical 
concepts of the collaborative tools. The revised requirements also indicate that improved 
usability and ease of use needs to be adhered to in this endeavor. The study reveals that there are 
many tools available that provide computer users with the ability to collaborate and share best 
practices, but most of them do not provide SaaS ? Software as service, PaaS-Platform as a 
service, and HaaS-Hardware as service and an environment also accessible to mobile users 
through per the cloud. The few tools that are available on mobile devices provide collaborative 
environments more appropriate for advanced users. Therefore, SaaS as a feature allows the 
support and access of a variety of end user software in a Multimedia accessible environment with 
hand-held devices. This is a cost effective framework of collaboration and can be managed as a 
private tool, alleviating matters of intellectual property ownership concerns that are common 
with public tools (e.g. YouTube). A cloud tool is scalable, extensible, can be managed in 
isolation, it is easy to implement supervised membership verification requests. However, the 
expert analysis revealed that, group membership verifications is a challenging task that needs a 
109 
 
proven model to vet new membership applications to help administrators manage groups by 
limiting fictitious memberships. To address this problem, we developed a universal quadrant 
model (UQM) that is explained in detail in section 4.9 of this dissertation. 
We have relied on CSCW theory and HCI research, which provides usability acceptance 
test knowledge on how to conduct user and acceptance test with a target group before 
deployment of perspective collaborative tools. The CSCW theory outlines how to conduct an 
effective user evaluation of an online tool and provides details of user acceptance test, a 
mechanism for gauging an understandable and ease to use tool for a novice users. The theory 
asserts that human studies testing of software products before deployment are the most valid 
source of information since they provide a true picture of an episode of actual user performance 
with the developed tool. This project utilizes human studies in the previous three phases and 
presents a detailed usability study to confirm that FYFL cloud tool is suitable for members of a 
community of practice to share best practices. 
 
4.6     The UQM Model 
QUM is a recursive, nondeterministic, backtracking algorithm that finds all solutions to 
number of quadrants needed to be represented by spatial locality groups based on the population. 
The goal is to select a subset of the quadrants and classify them based on geographical location 
and population density or count. This is meant to ease moderation and elicit training alerts of 
moderators when need arises.  
Algorithm UQM functions as follows: 
Chose Quadrant Q 
       1. If the quadrant Q is empty, the problem is solved; terminate successfully. 
110 
 
       2.  Otherwise choose a quadrant (Q) NW, SW, NE or NW (deterministically). 
       3.   Read P, total numbers of members P, P member?s population within Quadrant (Q) 
       4.    IF P < threshold  
       5.   Include quadrant in the partial solution. 
else 
       6.    for each quadrant (Qi ? Qn) such that P > threshold, 
       7.       divide quadrant into NWi, SWi, NEi, SEi  i = 1 
IF P > threshold 
repeat 7 
6. repeat recursively on the reduced quadrant Qi. 
End 
 
The regional model solution?s main aim is to associate member users with spatial 
location and to ensure that that they have existing ties to a registered club/group in a certain 
region/locality as reported. The method allows vetting to avoid duplication of memberships, 
protect minor?s privacy and avoid fictitious users. But, compared to the initial method, UQM is 
recursive, segmenting and self managing with O (nlog4n) run time compared to the initial 
solution?s O(n) run time. Thus, implementing UQM presents highly significantly run time gain 
theoretically. 
 
The Current Solution Running Time:  
 
The existing membership is supported by data structure- list O(n)run time. 
The Proposed Solution Running Time: 
 
 UQM will be a Tree structure with O (n log4 n) run time. 
111 
 
 
  
   
   
  
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
Figure 4.23: A graphical illustration of the UQM  
  
   
  
D1 D2 
D3 
D41 D42 
D43 
D441 D442 
D443 D444 
D44 
D4431 D4432 
D4433 D4434 
112 
 
4.6.1 UQM Architecture  
In some regions, it is known in advance how many objects (nodes) will be stored in the 
quadrant, with the current solution being a binary tree. To achieve better efficiency in 
performance, we propose the implementation of our QUM using a R-trees. R-trees are a 
combination of trees which take into account the spatial locality of objects in special databases. 
R-Tree solution is in line with our scope of making sure that nodes are directly associated with 
their spatial locality to limit the number of fictitious accounts that are a threat to safety to the 
users especially the youth or minors. Our solution allocates space with certain numbers of 
moderators of administrative (nodes) but is adjustable upward or downward based on the 
population count of users in that region. If the group exceeds a certain threshold as expressed 
above, it must then be reallocated and split into more tables to accommodate the new quadrants 
by duplicating the original table four times and the members being spread across all tables 
depending on where they fall spatially in relation to the new quadrants. The method is referred as 
dynamically duplicating Universal Quadrant Universal Model. 
 
4.6.2    The Universal Quadrant Model Prototype 
The Universal Quadrant Model Prototype implements and defines a user interface for 
group creation and management. We prove the model using a simulation as an extension of the 
theoretical model by providing  a login user interface, a color coded group interface for users and 
managers to visually locate, view, monitor membership group status and determine groups ready 
to split. The color coded scheme provides an informative visualization and aids in the process of 
identifying a leader for the newly created groups.  We believe that the color coded user interface, 
is an improvement to the previous solution, which listed all members and did not have a means 
113 
 
of informing managers on the size of groups in question and as well when a group was ready to 
split.   
 
     Figure 4.24: Login page for registered members 
 
 
 
    Figure 4.25:  An account registration page for UQM 
114 
 
 
Figure 4.25 is the account registration page and utilizes Google maps for users to sign up 
and identify themselves in relation to a spatial locality by entering - selecting the latitude and 
longitude coordinates of the current address. This information is fundamental in determining 
which group to be assigned. The process is automated and helps in creating groups as well as 
maintains accuracy for members since potential members will be vetted by a member of their 
local club. This limits the number of false accounts significantly.   
 
    Figure 4.26: Regions color coded graphical user interface 
 
Figure 4.26 is a sample of color coded groups within the system that have been created 
and are color coded based on their population status. The red colored groups are an alert status of 
ready to split. The red color indicates which groups are getting ready to split after attaining the 
population threshold within a region. The color coded scheme is essential in the management of 
groups as it issues an alert to administrators on when to elect and train new leaders 
(administrators) to man the potential new groups. Note that the red regions are ready to split and 
115 
 
will automatically create new groups with the aid of the UQM model. The model is a new 
contribution to the organization and management of self sustaining and purporting online groups.   
 
Figure 4.27: A UQM generated group displayed on a spatial Graphical interface 
 
 
Figure 4.27 shows a region with a color coded view with a single group on display. The 
group?s background color is yellow generated through the extended UQM simulation color 
coding scheme which stands for a group bordering full capacity but is not ready for splitting yet.   
Figure 4.28 displays 16 groups simulated by UQM, majority of which are nearing full 
capacity and are ready to split. The group leaders in these groups are in red while the rest of the 
members are in green. Administrators can access a person?s details from this interface by 
clicking the person?s image representation on displayed interface. In this simulation account, 
leaders who can double for administrators are represented with a red color. Administrators can 
get users details by selecting a person on the available screen.   
116 
 
 
Figure 4.28: UQM generated groups in a graphical user interface representation 
 
4.6.3     The UQM architecture 
The QUM supports the Table-Insert and Table- Delete. The Table-Insert inserts onto the 
table an item that occupies a single slot space for one item. Table delete can be thought of as a 
removing an item from the table. The QUM proposal supports the Table-Insert and Table Delete 
functions.  The Table-Insert insert function will manage the group database and will create two 
entries for one group that has reached the split threshold (e.g. Group Alabama Lee.0 will become 
Group Alabama Lee.1 and Group Alabama Lee.2). The Table-Delete function will be used by 
the system admin to delete empty groups and the automatic Table-Delete feature will suggest 
merger of two previously split groups back into one group and both administrators will agree to 
the merger and retain the rights to manage this new group. This function will be used when one 
or both groups are below the split threshold. 
117 
 
 
 
118 
 
CHAPTER 5 
 
Experimental Evaluation and Data Analysis 
 
This chapter presents the third phase of this study, a comprehensive evaluation of the 
FYFL cloud system that will be used by members of communities or groups to share best 
practices and its supporting principles. As outlined in the subsequent sections, the comprehensive 
evaluation will rely on analytic and empirical evaluations conducted by experts on potential 
users.   
The experts and experimental evaluations will explain evaluations reported in chapter 4, 
which includes the Experimental Design Sec. 5.1, Data Collection Sec. 5.2, and Experimental 
Results Sec. 5.3. Data collection section will present methods for the work, materials used, 
experimental data (i.e. demographics, user satisfaction questionnaires), procedures and 
experimental observations. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the experimental 
hypothesis and the implications of the study. The usability results and implications support the 
adoption of FYFL cloud system as suitable tool for a community of practice to share and re-use 
best practices. 
5.1 Experimental Design  
We conducted a usability study to gain insight and understanding of how end users (i.e. 
potential novice users) would interact and perceive the FYFL cloud and support our hypothesis 
that, a cloud tool is a useful for providing a forum for user groups to engage through informal 
learning. The goal of the study was to gain useful insight on the effectiveness of the cloud tool. 
This work supports our hypothesis through usability ratings among potential user groups. Our 
goal was to answer the following questions: 
119 
 
1. Is the FYFL a potential effective tool in providing collaboration support to novice 
informal learners?  
2. Does the organization and information strategy used have an effect on end users 
ability to share information? 
3. Are there design features in the FYFL cloud that are more useful than others and 
that can encourage influence users in adopting it for informal education? 
4. Can end users use the tool more effectively in advancing informal education 
compared to traditional methods?  
In answering these questions, we provide data on the feasibility of the FYFL cloud tool as 
a collaborative tool supporting communities of practice is advancing informal education; provide 
insights on the problems, and the limitations in adopting the FYFL cloud by end users. These 
results can serve as a general guideline for choosing and developing online collaborative tools to 
support groups.   
5.2 Usability Evaluation 
The usability evaluation conducted was to help researchers identify the problem, 
understand the problem and other mitigating issues that it may cause and plan changes to correct 
the problem of planned and actual usability. There are three types of usability evaluation 
methods: Testing, inquiry and inspection. For our evaluation, we have selected usability inquiry 
and we will utilize the method to gather information of users likes, dislikes and understanding of 
the system. In our system we aimed to create a system that supports community of practice 
members and we utilize usability evaluation to test our hypothesis. This evaluation also serves to 
document any critical incidences between planned and actual use, performance and system 
usability.  
120 
 
The experimental results from the study are presented in tabular format and analyzed 
based on results from the experimental participants. The presented results are in line with 
recommendations by usability experts who examined the system in an effort to detect potential 
usability issues.  
These following sections outline the general methods and procedures that were followed 
during this study as well as the measures that were taken to ensure the validity of results. The 
chapter concludes with experimental results and they correlate with the hypothesis in chapter 3. 
5.3 The Experiment 
5.3.1  Experiment Methods 
This section outlines the general methodological concerns for the empirical study 
conducted in phase III, the comparative evaluation which includes the research target population 
group, sample descriptions, and the experimental design.  
5.3.2 Target Population Group 
Our initial target groups are K-12, 4-H international, Alabama Cooperative extension and 
KEMET academy. 
5.3.3  Experiment Setup and Requirements  
The study was conducted in the Auburn University Human Computer Interaction 
usability lab and at 4-H centers across the state of Alabama. One of the focus groups was 
comprised of 15 users at U-shaped conference table with meeting facilitators at the head of the 
group to guide the process.  
5.3.4  Experiment Design 
The experimental design for the comparative study included a one factor between-design 
where users will perform tasks and give feedback on usability.  
121 
 
5.3.5  Materials 
The materials for this experiment included the informed consent for users to sign before 
undertaking the experiment and the tutorials that were prepared to guide users through their 
learning and re-use sessions.  
5.3.6  Informed Consent 
The Auburn University Institutional Revise Board requires researchers to have an 
informed consent approval of research designs when conducting any type of research involving 
surveys, interviews or human factors.  The informed consent stated to the participant the purpose 
of the study, justification, procedures, benefits, and risks of the project and guarantees the 
participants that all responses will be held confidential and will be used only anonymously. 
5.3.7 Pre-test Questionnaire 
The pre-questionnaire was used to gather general information about the participants to 
assess whether they met the criteria established for classification as both novice and content area 
experts as well group them into age sets.  
5.3.8 Post-test Questionnaire  
The post questionnaire was used to gather detailed information about how participants 
assessed their performance and the system used as well as to judge on a qualitative level whether  
to what extent users learned more about using the system for sharing best practice.  
5.3.9  Procedures  
The experiment began by informing the participants of Auburn University institutional 
review board approval for the experiment and affirms the informed consent. This was to 
familiarize them with the experiment and allow them the opportunity either to sign the informed 
consent and become a participant in the experiment or decline to participate.  
122 
 
Following the consent, participants completed a printed or an online user background 
questionnaire used as a baseline comfort level with computers and determines whether they the 
minimum qualifications or set standards as a user regarded as suitable for the experiment. 
 
5.4 Data Collection and Data Analysis 
The following tables are a summary of the overview of the experimental instruments and 
measures that were used to collect data in this study:  
Instrument Description 
Pre-test Questionnaire 
Performance data  
User observations  
Post-test Questionnaire  
Retrospective 
Interviews  
User background, demographics and 
expectations 
Time, types # of rules and errors per creation 
Qualitative observation and critical incidents 
User satisfaction and system ratings 
Debriefing and elaboration 
 
Table 5.1: Summary of experimental overview 
 
 
Const Form:  Participants signs the const form 
 
Pre-questionnaire  Participants complete the pre-questionnaire 
 
FYFL Task List 
FYFL login page: Please use the user name and password provided to access the system. 
Enter username:     First name and first letter of last name (TonyC) 
Enter password:    FYFLnetwork2012 
Click login:                             
Once logged on, follow the steps in the tutorials to have a social computing collaborative learning experience with teampages.  
NB: Please follow the steps below to complete the given tasks. 
Task I :Announcements teamPage 
Step 1: Click the WN button, start, collaboration and teamPages to open teamPages. 
Step 2:  teamPages screen accessible to team members only.  
Step 3:  Click-Select announcements. To post an announcement click create announcements. 
123 
 
Step 4:  Use create  to enter an announcement and Save changes  
 to save entries to the announcements page located on the upper right hand side of the team page. 
Step 5:  A FYFL Group announcement posted on the announcement teamPage. Team messages can be sorted by date, title, or category. 
Task II :The Calendar teamPage   
A team calendar for scheduling team events, appointments meetings etc. 
Step 1:  Select calendar from the main menu. 
Step 2:   Select a day on the calendar and click the date area to display an event creation dialog box. 
Step 3:  Enter title for the event and click  to enter more information about the scheduled event. 
Step 3:  Choose the start date, ending date, the event frequency and any other details pertaining  to the event on the dialog box .  
Step 4:  Add attachments with the add attachment option, browse to locate the attachment file and click submit to attach it to the calendar.  
Step 5:  Click create event  to post an event on the calendar.   
Step 6:  Click an existing event to access full display dialog box to allow you to edit or delete an event.  
Step 7:  Click edit to make changes to an event. Click update to apply the changes to an existing  event and return to the main calendar. 
 Step 8:  Three scheduled events on the FYFL group team calendar. 
Task III: The Documents teamPage 
Allows team members to manage documents including uploading and downloading 
Step 1:   From the main teamPage, click on the Documents tab on the left. 
Step 2:   Note the various features of the Documents page; i.e., File Uploader (drag and drop), Refresh, Search, Settings, Action, etc. 
Step 3:  Select one of the documents listed and Right Click to download to your computer.  Edit the document to improve the readability for your 
audience (6th to 7th grade reading level) as you would normally do for material you use with young people.  Save the document with 
your initials added to the end and then Upload by dragging the file to the File Uploader. 
Task IV : The Photos teamPage 
 Allows team members to post photos to the teamPage.Photos can be uploaded from the local machine 
 or from an assigned file services node. 
Step 1:  From the main menu click photos page, the click manage photos on the right hand corner. 
Step 2:  Choose photos page from the main menu, the click add photos on the upper right hand corner. 
Step 3:  Enter the photo title, the description and browse to locate the picture and click submit to upload it. 
Step 4:  Photo copying alert dialog box showing that the image is in process of being uploaded to FYFL social computing tool.  
Step 5:  Use the Advanced File loader to upload photos to the FYFL social computing tool (optional).  
 
 
Participants Complete Post ? Questionnaire  
 
Figure 5.1: Experimental procedure sequence of events chart 
  
124 
 
5.4.1 Performance Data  
This was collected in terms of user created best practices during the guided exploration 
with the aid of minimalist tutorials. 
5.4.2  User Observations  
This was collected in the form of user observations as well as more formal observations 
in the form of critical incidents as self reported data from participants.  
5.4.3 Retrospective Interviews  
Retrospective interviews were used to capture any information and statements the users 
provide either as critiques or affirmations of the system?s success in addressing individual needs 
and in some case community needs. 
5.4.4  Statistics 
The data collected is reported and analyzed to ascertain the usability of the FYFL tool as 
easy to use and supporting novice users and promoting of online informal education. These 
results confirm and validate usability criteria that guided us in adopting the FYFL cloud system 
for sharing best practices by a community of practice. 
5.4.5 Experimental Results 
The goal of the empirical study was to discover whether the FYFL cloud system meets 
the planned usability specifications, and to develop suggestions for improving the design. To 
fulfill this goal as evaluators, we have to understand not just what the participants did during the 
test tasks, but why they behaved and reacted as they did. This was accomplished by 
characterizing the test participants, and probing the details of the responses to the tasks (e.g. 
time, and errors), and subjective reactions (e.g. comments while using the system and ratings or 
opinions provided after tests [55].  
125 
 
5.4.6 Participants Backgrounds 
Using the background feedback survey form we were able to document various types of 
user characteristics. Mary Bath Rosson, defines Occupations as a categorical variable, and in this 
study participants self reported occupation were grouped into Extension Specialists, 4-H agents 
or Administrators, 4-H community members and other(those involved in the survey, but have no 
direct relations with the 4-H group).  We have summarized these categories in a table 5.1 as a 
frequency or count for each category (e.g., 2 Extension agents, 4 administrators, 2 others), and 
displayed the results as a bar chart (Figure 5.1).  
Table 5.1 summarizes participants? categorization into various groups based on the 
occupation responses obtained from the background survey. The chart shows that we had a total 
of 25 participants for the usability test; 2 Extension Specialists, 19 4-H agents or administrators, 
3    4-H affiliate members and one other (high school teacher). With respect to the level of 
education, Figure 5.2 summarizes the level of education of various user groups. It also shows 
number of year?s computer experience to aid in categorizing participants as either novice or 
expert user [55]. 
5.4.7 Participant Background Categories: 
In the usability evaluation process, we collected and measured several user characteristics 
in the background survey feedback form. The pie chart in figure 5.1 illustrates data from self-
reported responses of participants and it shows the frequency of responses for each category.  
 
126 
 
 
Figure 5.2: FYFL cloud categorical data from the usability study. 
  
 
Figure 5.2 represent the age range of participants with a group distribution. The numbers 
in units, percentages (e.g. 5, 20%) represent raw data count and percentages of test subjects 
respectively. The occupation is a categorical variable, but the majority of our participants were 
E-extension teachers, however, data was disaggregated into agents, 4-H administrators, extension 
specialist and other groups for analysis purposes. 
 
   
Categories Participants  Number of Participants 
(Frequency N=25) 
Extension Specialists  N = 3 
4-H Agents  N = 19 
4-H Affiliates  
N = 2 
Other  N = 1 
8, 32% 
5, 20% 
6, 24% 
5, 20% 
1, 4% 
Test Users Age Group Distribution  
18-30 
31-40 
41-50 
51-60 
61-70 
Age Goups 
127 
 
 
       Table 5.2: Participants categories 
 
 Figure 5.3: FYFL cloud Categorical data self reports.  
 
 
This study began with summaries of participant responses as raw counts that lead to the 
creation of frequency bar charts to identify the categories in visual format (see Figure 5.2). The 
shown histogram (Figure 5.2) stems from self-reported responses from participants and it shows 
the frequency responses in each of the identified categories. Also, bar charts were utilized to 
provide an easy way to visualize information by breaking data into various categories. With 
respect to gender preferences, data is categorized into male/female categories, but did not 
ascertain any significant difference or trend by comparing responses. In addition, we collected 
and reported the demographics. Figure 5.2 shows that there were more men than women who 
3 
19 
2 1 0 
2 
4 
6 
8 
10 
12 
14 
16 
18 
20 
Extension 
Specialists 
4-H Agents  4-H Adminstrators Other 
No
. Of
 su
bjec
ts 
in 
 Un
its
   
Usability Test Stakeholders Groups 
Units  
128 
 
participated in the study (focus group), however we still hold our results accurate because we did 
not pinpoint any anomaly on the responses during gender based data analysis.  
 
  Figure 5.4: Work experience and computer user experience in years  
 
 
 Extension 
Specialists 4-H Agents 
4-H 
Affiliates Other 
Work experience 17.7 12.6 13.4 8 
Computer user 
experience  18.8 18.5 10 19 
     
 
Table: 5.3: Computer user experience and work experience categorization  
 
0 
5 
10 
15 
20 
Extension 
Specialists  
4-H 
Agents  
4-H 
Affiliates 
Other  
Number
 of
 year
s  
Particapants Cagories 
Avg. Educational Level and Computer User Experience 
Educationa level 
Computer user 
experience  
129 
 
 
    Figure 5.5: Work experience and computer user experience in years  
0 
2 
4 
6 
8 
10 
12 
14 
16 
18 
20 
1 2 3 4 
 Av
g. 
Num
ber 
of 
Yea
rs 
User Categories 
Work and Computer Exprience Chart  
Work experience 
Computer user 
experience  
130 
 
The background survey responses from participants on occupation and level of education 
responses were used to assign four groups, the extension specialists, teachers, administrators and 
other. We categorized users based on age group; the level of education; residency-number of 
years they have been working for the 4-H group and computer experience in years. The ending 
background demographics summarized table 5.2. However, it is interesting to note that sub-
categories of education level-years of experience with the 4-H group and the number of years 
they have been using computers are two different measures respectively; the former is a 
knowledge base while the later is Information Technology experience. Looking at the data, it is 
interesting to note that most users had a longer period (number of years) computer user 
experience compared to the work experience.  
 
5.4.8 Task Performance and Satisfaction  
This study identifies two data categories from a usability point of view: the objective data 
concerning user performance (times and errors, inventory of behaviors), and a subjective data 
concerning their attitudes and reactions (the ratings and comments they make during or after 
their interactions with the system) that are self reported. 
Tables 5.3 and 5.4 are summary of the performance and behavior rating results for the 
FYFL cloud usability study. Background measures are divided into age, level of education, 
residency, and computer user experience. As far as performance in performing the FYFL cloud 
tasks, we reported task time with means and standard deviations as a measure of variability as 
shown in table 5.3. Table 5.3 also shows how we recorded errors as counts and recorded an 
average frequency across all users was reported.    
131 
 
Occupation Ext- Specialists 
(n = 3) 
4-H Admin 
(n = 19) 
4-H Associates 
(n = 2) 
Other 
(n = 1) 
 
Age  
 
48.7 (10.8) 
 
40.4 (11.4) 
 
48.0 (5.7) 
 
31.0 (0) 
Education Level 18.0 (0.0) 8.5 (2.36) 10.0 (2.8) 19.0 (0) 
Residency  20.0 (2.9) 19.4 (5.8) 20.0 (4.2) 8.0 (0) 
Computer User 
Experience 
17.3 (5.8) 12.6 (9.5) 13.5 (7.8) 8.0 (0) 
 
Table 5.4: Means and STD DIV broken down by four background measures 
 
 
Our decision to report an error count instead of categorizing them into groups was as a 
result of a trending threshold for error identification with less than four errors doesn?t qualify for 
a common theme error grouping. In this study, the error was below a research assumed grouping 
threshold and was treated as a count for data reporting purposes.  
 
FYFL Cloud Tasks Mean STD Errors 
Post an Announcement 8.55 (6.93) 0.64 
Updating Calendar 5.45 (3.80) 0.36 
Uploading a document   6.18 (4.21) 0.71 
Uploading a photo 6.00 (3.92) 0.46 
Combined Total  26.18 (18.87) 2.18 
 
Table 5.5: Summary of time, STD, and errors for the FYFL tasks (N=25)  
132 
 
Table 5.5 summarizes the four subtasks from the FYFL task performance exercise.  We 
summarized task by task performance in minutes. However looking at the summary, we made a 
conclusion that most of the tasks were easy to complete an indication that the minimalist tutorials 
were easy to read and follow.  
  Strongly Disagree = 1   Disagree = 2  Neutral = 3  Agree = 4   Strongly Agree = 5  
     
Likert Item         Pre-Mean      
M,  (SD) 
Post-Mean  
M,  (SD) 
Change:    
M,  (SD) 
 
FYFL collaboration group is like a real world group 
 
3.63 (0.62) 
 
3.88  (0.89) 
 
+0.25 (0.27) 
Diverse and interesting to a wide users 3.94 (0.72) 4.13  (0.68) +0.19 (0.04) 
Opportunity for online collaboration (4-H and K-12) 3.50 (0.75) 3.81  (0.95) +0.13 (0.12) 
Confusion on procedure to post and upload files  1.94  (0.68)  
Familiarity uploading files and posting messages  3.56  (0.89)  
Confident when interacting FYFL cloud   4.25  (0.78)  
Overall pleasant usability experience  4.00  (0.37)  
 
Table 5.6: Summary of satisfaction rating; means and STD for tasks performance N=25)  
 
It is also clear from the data in table 5.5 that most of the activities were not problematic 
as concluded by low error rate recorded (i.e. the updating calendar task took 5.45 minutes to 
conclude with a 0.64 average error rate).  However, we also noticed that, posting an 
announcement took much longer compared to the rest of the activities on average. This we 
attribute to being the first task and the lower times with the rest of the activities we attribute to a 
learner?s experience acquired from performing earlier tasks (i.e. carry over effect of learning). 
We treated satisfaction outcomes as interval variables and assumed that the difference 
between two positions is the same in this research project. Though experts agree that rating 
133 
 
scales are not as precise a measure as implied in most cases, treating them, as interval data makes 
is more straightforward the test results and compare outcomes for different user groups or 
versions of a system [55].  
Thus in this research as shown in Table 5.6, we use means and standard deviations from 5 
likert scales.  
 
 
Figure 5.6: The figure shows the test subjects? gender distribution 
 
Table 5.6 also presents a change of scores for rating scales that were included in both 
surveys. These attitude items were of general nature, probing views of an online collaboration 
tools and involvement of in collaboration activities. The assumption is that a positive experience 
overall increases the positive responses on these scales [55] and in our case the effect appears as 
an overall positive difference in the change column. Thus it is fair to draw a conclusion that the 
positive reaction can be attributed to the participants? interaction with the system, which 
enhanced their concept of collaboration using a cloud and they were persuaded that FYFL cloud 
41% 
59% 
Gender Distribution  
Male 
Female 
134 
 
will change the opportunities of becoming more involved in informal learning through an online 
collaboration tool to share best practices.  
 
5.5 Verbal Protocols and User Behavior 
 It was more challenging to summarize and organize the interpretation of comments made 
by participants. Most of the comments emerged during the task performance and as answers to 
open ended questions within the study.  
Positives Notes Feedback 
?able to add talks and documents for 4-Hs members? 
?easy of being able to move about easily? 
?being able to control who can view information? 
?easy to use? ?ability or procedure to list announcements ?  
?looks very sleek? ?simple and user friendly? 
?organized? ?easy to see tabs? 
?you can have a meeting and you can have you don?t have to travel to the place? 
  Negative Notes Feedback 
?cannot add photo because my photo was too large?  
?add hold time adding things to the calendar?  
?should be easier to navigate? 
?should design around 4-H colors and theme? 
?initial confusion when try to update the calendar? ?got kicked off? 
?thought that other social networks ill compete with it?  
?may be too advanced for younger 4-Hers ? ? I was frustrated because there were no file to upload 
thus cannot complete the task? 
 Table: 5.7: Self reported sample comments on usability  
 
135 
 
We based our analysis on a question-response model, by developing categories that 
capture major terms in the comments by categorizing the reactions as either positive or negative 
without specifying or breaking it down further  to exact categories. The participants identified 
three worst things and three best things about using the system a summary of which will be 
helpful in redesigning and prototyping the tool to potential users respectively. The raw data in 
this case are self reported responses in form written notes by participants. The notes were 
requested after completing the usability tasks. Thus, Table 5.7 outlines some of the comments for 
the FYFL cloud usability task list. 
In the outline, we identified some of the events that elicited a misunderstanding of the 
system by examining its? content. For example ?I was frustrated because there were no files to 
upload thus cannot complete task? episode clearly shows that the user did not follow instructions 
of creating a file and then uploading it. In another example, the user stated that ?should be easier 
to navigate? since navigation is a usability issue, we are considering redesigning how users 
interact with the system by improving navigation icons or repositioning them.  
In general, this study relied on a simple and less costly method to assess the usability of 
the FYFL cloud tool. Through formal testing we are able to draw a general conclusion that the 
FYFL cloud tool is a promising tool for communities of practice to share best practices based on 
the analysis on the empirical data. This conclusion was arrived made with regard to participants? 
performance and subjective reactions compared to our expected reactions. Therefore, collected 
test data was within the projected levels and it is fair to conclude that the test materials were of 
acceptable usability and complexity objectives and did not oversimplify the task nor make it too 
complicated producing misleading results.  
 
136 
 
CHAPTER 6 
 
Conclusion and Future Work 
 
The adoption and success of an informal educational online tool and its value as a secure 
and easy to use and learn tool depends heavily on its usability. Computer supportive 
collaborative work theory and human computer interaction research provide usability acceptance 
test knowledge that can support the effective user evaluation acceptance tests of an online based 
collaborative tool. However, the formulation of an effective and efficient acceptance testing 
process is made difficult by the plethora of design theories and models that support a novice user 
in understanding and using a collaborative tool to share best practices. The premise of this 
research is that user acceptance test can provide a mechanism for identifying a suitable CSCW 
tool that is understandable and easy to use for a novice user. We base the practicality of this 
approach to the previous research efforts in human studies to test the suitability of software 
products before deployment in the software engineering development and human-computer 
interaction fields.  
This research examined the issue of proving a collaborative tool to support communities 
of practice members engaged in informal learning by sharing of best practice and developing a 
model for managing groups of groups that emerge within the community of practice. This 
research postulated a hypothesis that novice communities will benefit this CSWC tool, interface 
and interaction design. This research also utilized a usability evaluation approach to effectively 
assess the usability of the created (resulting) environment to support CSCW of communities. It 
also resulted into a proposed usability management model, Universal Quadrant Model (UQM) 
that serves as a group of group management model for a proper selection and moderation of 
users and new groups that emerge within a community of practice spatially.  
137 
 
In evaluating the collaborative tool for communities of practice to share best practices, 
our objective was to validate a tool that supports extension for future research activities based on 
new collaboration trends. This was accomplished by CSCW and human computer interaction 
literature reviews on collaborative theory and group management models to identify a set of key 
design and evaluation principles that are vital for online tools acceptance tests. We sought to add 
a new model to complement a current model of manual group formation and selection as a 
supplement of usability management on informal learning online communities. The cloud tool is 
a suitable tool for communities of practice to share best practices. This research is a first attempt 
to present empirical user based acceptance tests results to address a variety of usability issues 
pertaining to cloud based tools supporting information learning.  
The study to evaluate usability of FYFL cloud tool to support a community of practice in 
sharing best practices yielded significant results. Formulating the usability tasks to be used in the 
study was a difficult task. However, an empirical usability task list focusing on key tool 
functionalities was efficient in measuring tool?s effectiveness in supporting novice users in 
sharing best practices. This research was observed and measured users interacting with the 
system thus we required tasks that did not consume too much time to complete. Due to the 
limited time available for most community of practice members to engage in informal learning 
and sharing best practices, a long task evaluation period for a single task was not feasible. To 
overcome the per task completion time limitation, we explored a minimalist tutorial option and 
our ability to validate our research efforts can be attributed success of the experimental design 
and the feasibility of the research presented in this dissertation.  
However, future research is needed to gain more insight on user experiences with the 
cloud tool and the universal quadrant model which was simulated and was successful. In addition 
138 
 
in future research, we will explore extensions and possible alternatives to the usability 
experimental evaluations and model simulations used in the study presented in this research as 
well as further evaluation of the UQM. As a human computer interaction lab, having users test 
and utilize a tool and provide feedback will yield more insight on how effective the proposed 
universal quadrant model is in supporting self purporting and sustaining groups within a 
community of practice. Also, selecting a different pool of subjects to validate the usability of a 
cloud tool FYFL may yield different results. In our case, the difference between pre-test and post 
test yielded positive results an indication that users reacted positively to the tool after use an 
indication of a positive user experience recommended for a tool adoption for the targeted user 
group.  
Continued empirical usability tests, will provide more insight into the viability of the 
cloud based tool to support communities of practice share best practice effectively as well foster 
information learning within those communities. Initially our efforts were focused on identifying 
a viable tool for communities of practice to share best practices and defining a model to aid in 
managing multiple groups that emerge within the online community while protecting the 
integrity of each community. The expert survey selected the FYFL cloud tool among other 
potential candidates and it been validated through an acceptance usability survey data from 
potential users. With respect to multiple groups, the universal quadrant model will be 
incorporated once it?s fully tested by refining the existing cloud tool (manual) group 
management feature to create an environment that supports self purporting and sustaining groups 
for both development and design users within the cloud.  
The contribution of this research is beneficial to computer supportive collaborative work 
(CSCW) design, human computer interaction research, online group theory research, green 
139 
 
computing and informal learning research, and usability studies research.  The following 
contributions have been made: 
? A collaborative synergy and collective intelligence of community of practice by 
supporting them in the easy creation, sharing and reuse of online artifacts, 
curriculum and other materials is supported  
? A cloud based environment for sharing best practices among community of 
practice members (K-12 educators and 4-H club) is validated through usability 
evaluation.  
? A secure bundle system that incrementally captures, constructs, and offers 
multimedia-varying collaboration tool in virtual environment that supports 
informal learning and sharing of best practices among communities of practice 
members 
? A new method to validate a collaborative tool for operationalize informal learning 
is presented with the support of a minimalist tutorial 
? A Framework for the development of a collaborative tool for online communities 
for communities of practice to share best practice is validated through human 
studies. 
? A new group management model is developed, validated and discussed in detail. 
? Usability studies data measuring FYFL cloud tool effectiveness as a collaborative 
tool are discussed.  
 
 
 
 
 
140 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
141 
 
Bibliography 
 
[1]. Cain, C., Seals, C.  Nyagwencha, J. (2010). Social Networking Teaching Tools: A 
Computer Supported Collaborative Interactive Learning Social Networking Environment 
for K-12. In Proceedings of World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, 
Healthcare, and Higher Education 2010 (pp. 1612-1617). Chesapeake, VA: AACE 
 
[2]. Cain, C. (2010). Social Networking Teaching Tools: A Computer Supported 
Collaborative Interactive Learning Social Networking Environment for K-12. Auburn, 
AL: Maters Thesis Auburn University. 
 
[3]. Dillenbourg, Pierre. "What do you mean by collaborative learning: Cognitive and 
Computation Approaches." Dillenbourg, Pierre. What do you mean by collaborative 
learning? Geneva: Oxford:Elsevier, 1999. pp.1-19.  
 
[4]. Fahr?us, Eva R. Fahr?us E. R. Collaborative Learning through Forum Systems ? 
Problems and Opportunities. Sweden: Electrum 230, S-164 40 KISTA, 2000  
 
[5]. www.ll.unimaas.nl/euro-cscl/Papers/45.doc 
 
[6]. http://www.answers.com/topic/semiotics 
 
[7]. Diaz, David P. and Ryan B. Cartnal. "Comparing Student Learning Styles in an Online 
Distance Learning Class and an Equivalent On-Campus Class." College Teaching 47 (4) 
(1999): 130-135.*** 
 
[8]. Dieterle, Edward. "Handheld Devices for Ubiquitous Learning." ISTE. Portland: ISTE 
conference, 2005. 
 
[9]. http://link.wits.ac.za/papers/e-index-tanzania.pdf 
 
[10]. Viccarii, Rosa M., Brasil Porto Alegre and Jovani A. Jim?enez. "ALLEGRO: 
Teaching/Learning Multi-Agent Environment using Instructional Planning and Cases- 
Based Reasoning (CBR)." CLEI Electronic Journal (2007): Volume 10, Number 1, Paper 
4 
 
[11]. Andriessen, Jerry and Michael Baker. "Socio-relational, affective and cognitive 
dimensions of CSCLinteractions: integrating theoretical-methodological perspectives." 
CSCL Main Conference Events - Symposia. Rhodes, Greece: International Society of the 
Learning Sciences, CSCL2009. 30-35.  
 
[12]. http://www.stone-ware.com/cloud/products/security.html 
 
[13]. Grudin, Jonathan. "Computer-Supported Cooperative Work: History and Focus." IEEE 
Computer (1994): 19 ? 26 
 
142 
 
[14]. Dillenbourg, P., M., Blaye A. Baker And O'malley C. "Learning in Humans and Machine: 
Towards an interdisciplinary learning science." The evolution of research on collaborative 
learning. Oxford: E. Spada & P. Reiman (Eds), 1996. 189-211 
 
[15]. Bannon, Lian J. "Perspectives on CSCW: From HCI and CMC to CSCW." International 
Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (EW-HCI'92). St. Petersburg: BCS HICOM 
electronic conference system, 1992. pp 148-158. 
 
[16]. Nworie, John and Noela Haughton. "Good Intetions unanticipated effects: The 
Unintended Consequences of the Application of Technology in Teaching and Learning 
Environments." TechTrends (2008): 52-58. 
 
[17]. Bosworth, K. and S. J. and Hamilton. Collaborative Learning: Underlying Processes and 
Effective Techniques, New Directions for Teaching and Learning . Education Research 
Consumer Guide. Baltimore: US Department of Education, Office of Research, 1994. 
 
[18]. Erik Riedel, M. K. (2002). A framework for evaluating storage system security. 
Proceedings of the 1st Conference on File and Storage Technologies. Monterey. 
 
[19]. Erik Riedel, M. K. (2002). A framework for evaluating storage system security. 
Proceedings of the 1st Conference on File and Storage Technologies. Monterey. 
 
[20]. Fletcher, D. (2010, Augast). How Facebook Is Redefining Privacy. Time Magazine. 
 
[21].  Whadcock, I. (2009, Oct. 15). The clash of the clouds, http://phase1.nccr-
trade.org/images/stories/mira/clash%20of%20the%20clouds.pdf. Retrieved 09 07, 2011 
 
[22].  Weber, Tim (March 2, 2007). "BBC strikes Google-YouTube deal". BBC. 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6411017.stm. Nov. 8th, 2010]. 
 
[23]. http://www.usabilityfirst.com/usability-methods/heuristic-evaluation/ 
 
[24]. .BeattyB & Ulasewicz C. Faculty Perspectives on Moving from Blackboard to the 
Moodle Learning Management System TechTrends vol. 6 pp 4.  
 
[25]. dhttps://blackboard.auburn.edu/webct/urw/lc22554136011.tp0/cobaltMainFrame.dowebct 
 
[26]. Dillenbourg, P.  A Human-Computer Collaborative Learning System 
 
[27]. Dillenbourg, P. & Self, J.A.  Designing human-computer collaborative learning. In C.E. 
O'Malley (Ed), Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning. Wiley & Suns 
 
[28]. Baker M. J.,  Lund K. Promoting reflective interactions in a computer-supported 
collaborative learning environment, University of Geneva(1990)  
 
143 
 
[29]. Maryam A. Computer-Mediated Collaborative Learning: An Empirical Evaluation  MIS 
Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Jun., 1994), pp. 159-174 
 
[30]. Baecker, R.M.; Others, (1995). Readings in human-computer interaction: toward the year 
2000. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.  
 
[31]. Grudin, J. (1994). "Computer-Supported Cooperative Work: History and Focus". 
Computer 27 (5): 19?26.  
 
[32]. Carstensen, P. H. Schmidt, K. Computer Supported Cooperative Work: new challenges to 
systems design. To appears in Handbook of Human Factors, Kenji Itoh, Tokio, 1999 
(23p) 
 
[33]. Wilson, P. (1991). Computer Supported Cooperative Work: An Introduction. Oxford, 
Intellect Books. Wooley, DR (1994, July). 
 
[34]. Dourish, P.; Bellotti, V. (1992). "Awareness and coordination in shared workspaces". 
Proceedings of the 1992 ACM conference on Computer-supported cooperative workcc. 
ACM Press New York, NY, USA. pp. 107?114. 
 
[35]. Schmidt, K.; Bannon, L. (1992). "Taking CSCW seriously". Computer Supported 
Cooperative Work 1 (1): 7?40. 
 
[36]. Strauss, A. (1985). "Work and the Division of Labor". The Sociological Quarterly 26 (1): 
1?19.  
 
[37]. MacKay, W.E. (1991). "Patterns of sharing customizable software". Proceedings of the 
1990 ACM conference on Computer-supported cooperative work. ACM Press New York, 
NY, USA. pp. 209?221. 
[38].     http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=99332.99356&type=series 
 
[39]. Grudin, J. (1988). "Why CSCW applications fail: problems in the design and evaluation 
of organization of organizational interfaces". Proceedings of the 1988 ACM conference 
on Computer-supported cooperative work. ACM Press New York, NY, USA. pp. 85?93. 
 
[40]. Ackerman, M." (2000). "The Intellectual Challenge of CSCW: The gap between social 
requirements and technical feasibility". Human-Computer Interaction: pp 179?203. 
 
[41]. Goodsell A., Maher M,  Tinto V, Smith B. B and MacGregor J(1992). ?What Is 
Collaborative Learning?"  National Center on Postsecondary Teaching, Learning, and 
Assessment at Pennsylvania State University  
 
[42]. Findley, Charles A. 1989. Collaborative Learning-work. Presentation at the Pacific 
Telecommunications Council 1989 Conference, January 15-20, Honolulu, Hawaii. 
 
144 
 
[43]. Mitnik, R., Recabarren, M., Nussbaum, M., & Soto, A. (2009). Collaborative Robotic 
Instruction: A Graph Teaching Experience. Computers & Education, 53(2), 330-342. 
 
[44]. http://www.atlanticlinkglobal.com/index.php?q=forum.  
 
[45]. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebCT [online]. 2008 [cited 24.11.2008] 
 
[46]. http://www.gdrc.org/kmgmt/c-learn/44.html 
 
[47]. http://www.blackboard.com/CMSPages/GetFile.aspx?guid=90ffd3e6-1073-4815-9ff8-
5e34975696b4 
 
[48]. Research method knowledge base, http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb /expsimp.php 
 
[49]. Geoffrey, R. Loftus and Michael, E. Masson J. Using confidence intervals in within-
subject designs,  Psychonomic Bulletin & Review  Volume 1, Number 4 (1994), pp.476-
490. 
 
[50]. Introduction to Human Computer Interaction   
 
[51]. Yi Wei, M. Brian Blake, "Service-Oriented Computing and Cloud Computing: 
Challenges and Opportunities," IEEE Internet Computing, vol. 14, no. 6, pp. 72-75, 
Nov./Dec. 2010 
[52]. http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2008/03/25/whats-in-a-name-utility-vs-
cloud-vs-grid/ Retrieved 09-07-2011 
 
[53]. Cloud Computing: Clash of the clouds".The Economist.2010-11-08 
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14637206. Retrieved 08-11-2010. 
 
[54].  How Facebook Is Redefining Privacy  
 
[55]. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1990 
 
[56]. Arikan A. 1989.  ?Retelling the Story: Official Tales of Technology and Head Start 
Teachers? Technophobia?.  Annual Meeting of American Educational Research 
Association on Monday, April 9, 2007 in Chicago. 
 
[57]. Mary Beth Rosson, John M. Carroll. Usability Engineering. San Ndiego: Morgan 
Kuafmann, 2002. 
 
[58]. Adrianson, L., & Hjelmquist, E. (1988). User?s experiences of COM - A computer-
mediated communication system. Behaviour and information technology, 7 (1), 79-99. 
 
[59]. Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1967). The social construction of reality. London: Allen 
Lane/Penguin. 
 
145 
 
[60]. Chesebro, J. W., & Bonsall, D. G. (1989). Computer-mediated communication: Human 
relationships in a computerized world. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama 
Press. 
 
[61]. Dillenbourg, P. (Ed.). (1999). Collaborative learning: Cognitive and computational 
approaches. Oxford, UK: Pergamon/Elsevier Science. 
 
[62]. Dillenbourg, P. (1999). Introduction: What do you mean by "Collaborative learning"? . In 
P. Dillenbourg (Ed.), Collaborative learning. Cognitive and computational approaches 
(pp. 1-19). Oxford, UK: Pergamon Elsevier Science. 
 
[63]. Dillenbourg, P., Baker, M., Blaye, A., & O?Malley, C. (1995). The Evolution of Research 
on Collaborative Learning. In P. Reimann, & H. Spada (Eds.), Learning in Humans and 
Machines. Towards an Interdisciplinary Learning Science (pp 189-211). Oxford, UK: 
Pergamon. 
 
[64]. Elen, J., & Clarebout, G. (Eds.). (1998). Learning about the European parliament: 
Collaboration, problem-solving, and support in rich technological environments. 
Deliverable 3.1 of the Parl Net-project: Theoretical research report on the four 
pedagogical models. 
 
[65]. Fjuk, A. (1998). Computer support for distributed collaborative learning. Exploring a 
com-plex problem area. Dr. Scient. Thesis 5, University of Oslo, Dept. of Informatics. 
 
[66]. F?hr?us, E. R. (1999a). Tutoring group learning at a distance. In J. D. Price, J. Willis, D. 
A, Willis, M. Jost, & S. Boger-Mehall (Eds.), Proceedings of the Society for Information 
Technology and Teacher Education International Conference (SITE?99, March, 1999), 
San Antonio, Texas. 
 
[67]. F?hr?us, E. R. (1999b). Creative tutoring of electronic collaborative learning groups: 
Sustaining the human factor. Notes from a workshop at the TET?99 Conference on 
Telecommunications for Education and Training, Gj?vik, Norway. 
 
[68]. F?hr?us, E. R. (2000a). Growing knowledge ? How to support collaborative learning e-
discussions in forum systems. Dept. of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm 
University/KTH, Report series No. 00-005. 
 
[69]. F?hr?us, E. R. (2000b). Student interaction stimulates learning beyond grading in 
asynchronous electronic discussions. Dept. of Computer and Systems Sciences, 
Stockholm University/KTH, Report series No. 00-008. 
 
[70]. F?hr?us, E.R. (Co-chair), Chamberlain, B. (Co-chair), Bridgeman, N., Fuller, U., & 
Rugelj, J. (1999). Teaching with Electronic Collaborative Learning Groups. Report of the 
ITiCSE'99 Working Group on Creative Teaching of Electronic Collaborative Learning 
Groups. In SIGCSE Bulletin - Inroads, Volume 31, Number 4, December 1999 (pp 121 - 
128).  
146 
 
 
[71]. http://text.lsuagcenter.com/news_archive/2012/february/headline_news/Students-in-
Tallulah-experience-4H-with-a-technology-twist-.htm (accessed last April 2012) 
147 
 
Appendices 
 
Appendix I 
 
Working with FYFL teamPages (AU-HCI & Alabama e-Extension) 
Teampages are a strategic and excellent way to create, share, and re-use content materials among 
specialists and community of practice experts through social computing collaboration. FYFL teamPages 
promote social computing and have an easy to use user interface as stipulated in this minimalist tutorial. 
The tutorial should serve as a high level guideline on how to post materials on the announcements page, 
the calendar, and the photo pages but should be used in alongside the regular manual. The steps in the 
tutorial are analogous other pages i.e. the blogs, forum, and documents meant to synchronously and 
asynchronously foster social computing collaboration and learning.  
 
FYFL login page: Please use the user name and password provided to access the system. 
Enter username:    
Enter password:   
Click login:                             
Once logged on, follow the steps in the minimalist tutorials to have a social computing collaborative 
learning experience with teampages.  
NB: Please follow the steps below to complete the given tasks. 
Part I: Announcements teamPage 
148 
 
 
Step 1: Click the WN button, start, collaboration and teamPages to open teamPages. 
 
 Step 2: teamPages screen accessible to team members only.  
149 
 
 
Step 3: Click-Select announcements. To post an announcement click create announcements. 
 
Step 4: Use create  to enter an announcement and Save changes  to save entries to the 
announcements page located on the upper right hand side of the team page. 
Save Changes 
Create 
A sample of an a typed announcement  
150 
 
 
Step 5: A FYFL Content Working Group announcement posted on the announcement teamPage team 
messages can be sorted by date, title, or category. 
Part II: The Calendar teamPage   
A team calendar for scheduling team events, appointment, meetings etc. 
 
   Step 1: Select calendar from the main menu. 
151 
 
   
Step 2:  Select a day on the calendar and click the date area to display an event creation dialog box. 
 
  Step 3: Enter title for the event and click  to enter more information about the scheduled event.   
Create Event 
152 
 
 
 Step 3: Choose the start date, ending date, the event frequency and any other details pertaining to the 
event on the dialog box.  
 
Step 4: Add attachments with the add attachment option, browse to locate the attachment file and click 
submit to attach it to the calendar.  
153 
 
 
 
Step 5: Click create event  to post an event on the calendar.   
 
Step 6: Click and existing event to access full display dialog box to allow you to edit or delete an event.  
154 
 
 
 
Step 7: Click edit to make changes to an event. Click update to apply the changes to an existing event and 
return to the main calendar. 
 
 Step 8: Three scheduled events on the FYFl Content working group team calendar. 
155 
 
Part III: The Photos teamPage 
Photo team page allows team members to post photos to the teamPage. Photos can be uploaded from the 
local machine or from an assigned file services node. 
 
 Step 1: From the main menu click photos page, the click manage photos on the right hand corner. 
 
Step 2: Choose photos page from the main menu, the click add photos on the upper right hand corner. 
156 
 
 
Step 3: Enter the photo title, the description and browse to locate the picture and click submit to upload it. 
 
Step 4: Photo copying alert dialog box showing that the image is in process of being uploaded to FYFL 
social computing tool.  
157 
 
 
Step 5: Use the Advanced File loader to upload photos to the FYFL social computing tool (optional).  
 
Part IV: The Tasks teamPage  
The tasks teamPages are a collaborative application designed to display a user?s task list from the backend 
collaboration server.  Users can add, view, edit and delete assigned tasks. 
 
Step 1: Click-Select tasks from then main menu or the left hand side.  
Tasks 
158 
 
 
Step 2: To post a task click  create item on the right hand corner of the dashboard. 
 
Step 3:   
1. Fill in the Task  
2.  Start and End dates  
3.  Select task status, the priority and % complete from  the selection menu. 
Create 
159 
 
4.  Choose assignees  
5.   Enter any message in the text box provided 
6.   Add attachments  
7.   Send to the calendar  
8.   Save  to complete a task scheduling or posting.  
 
 
 
 
Step 4: An event driven task scheduled on the specified days with 0% percent of the task              
completed. 
Available Features: List of tasks assigned to a user, add new task, delete existing, and sort features.  
 
 
160 
 
Appendix II 
Content Generation Workshop for FYFLNETWORK.org on at AU E-Extension  
1. Participatory Design Workshop (PDW) 
i. Tutorial sessions and info gathering 
A. Personal Desktop  
1. webOS introduction and gathering requirements to best serve user group 
2. Registration and login procedures 
B. teamPages  
1. Team Page interface updates  
2. Team layout customization tool  
i.  Team Leader can create calendars, photos, blogs, and forums teamPages  
3. Documents interface (supports local edit, drag and drop)  
4. webPages  
5. Added drag and drop document interface with support for local edit and network printing  
6. Supports teachers in multiple schools  
          This week:  Experience with Announcements, Calendars, Photos and Tasks teamPages. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
User Study of FYFL CoP Collaboration Tool: Consent Form 
Auburn University Computer Science & Software Engineering HCI Lab and the E -Extension. 
161 
 
Study Goals: This research is being conducted to explore the usefulness, ease of learning and use, and 
satisfaction experienced by students, 4-H members, teachers, and others interacting with FYFL 
community cloud tool. The FYFL tool is a social, collaborative learning and green computing tool where 
educational exhibits can be created and browsed online, communication can take place among visitors, 
educators, and communities of practice members who will share and re-use best practices and enjoy the 
social computing and collaborative learning online tool. We will use the results of the study to refine the 
FYFL user interface and management of members in relation to the community?s spatial locality. Our aim 
is to find out how well an individual is able to use the system and not how well the system performs. 
Procedures: The users will start by filling out a brief background survey. Then, work through several 
tasks designed to introduce you to features of the FYFL cloud after reading some brief instructions. The 
provided instructions are deliberately brief in order to gauge how well the system can support users on its 
own. After the completing the assigned tasks, you will find out a user reaction survey and then be given 
an opportunity to ask any question you have about the study?s goals, procedures and outcomes. 
 
We will collect several sorts of information throughout the interaction sessions. Some types of data we 
will collect may include the following: 
? Note taking during observation of the participant 
? Think aloud study, where we will ask the user to say aloud what they are thinking throughout the 
experiment 
? Recording of computer screen 
? Videotaping your interactions with the system 
 
If any of the methods are employed we will verbally advice the participants. 
 
Participant Consent: Your participation is an experiment is entirely voluntary; there will be no 
remuneration for the time you spend evaluating it. All data gathered from the usability study will be 
treated in a confidential fashion. It will be archived is a secure location and will be interpreted only for 
purposes of this evaluation. When your data are reported or described, all identifying information will be 
removed. There are no known risks to the participation in this experiment, and you many withdraw 
anytime. Please feel free to ask the evaluators if you have any other questions, otherwise, please sign and 
date this form if you are willing to participate in this study. 
Name??????????????? ??????..  Date????????????????  
If there are any questions please contact Dr. Cheryl D. Seals at 334-332-8282 sealscd@auburn.edu and 
Tony Cook at 3347503606 cooktja1@auburn.edu  
 
User Background Survey  
Auburn University Computer Science & Software Engineering HCI Lab and the E -Extension. 
Thank you for agreeing to participate in the study. Before we begin, it is important to know more about 
your background ? your experience with collaborative and social computing tools, with technology and so 
on. This will help us in understanding your interactions and reactions to the system. Remember that all 
personal data will be treated confidentially and reported without identifying information.  
 
162 
 
Name:_________________________________ Occupation: ____________________________ 
Age: ________ Years of Education: _______ Years in the H-4 or K-12 Education: ___________ 
 
For how many years have you been using computers? 
 
Please describe your typical computer use (e.g., over a period if a week). As part of the description please 
indicates the types of computers that you use on a regular basis: 
 
Do you have any experience with content management systems, socials networks media and other 
collaboration tools like Blackboard, Moodle, Facebook, e-mails, youTube etc.? Yes   No. If yes describe? 
 
Have you had any experience with private clouds or any other known computer cloud? Yes   No 
If yes please describe? 
 
Please respond to the following 3 items by choosing (circling or underlining) the answer that best 
corresponds to your own opinion. Note that in some cases, this may require you to make a prediction 
about online activities? 
 
1. Joining of an online collaboration CoP group is like joining a collaboration group in the real world? 
1. Strongly Disagree        2.  Disagree            3. Neutral                4. Agree           5. Strongly agree 
2. Online communities are diverse and of interest to a wide range of CoP members e.g. 4-H and K- 12. 
     1. Strongly Disagree        2.  Disagree            3. Neutral                4. Agree           5. Strongly agree 
3. There are many opportunities for me to become involved in online CoP collaboration projects i.e. 4-H 
and K-12 groups. 
 
1. Strongly Disagree        2.  Disagree            3. Neutral                4. Agree           5. Strongly agree 
4. Do you consider yourself a novice computer or an advanced computer user? 
__ Novice __Advanced   
Is there something that you will like include about your background or interests? If yes, please briefly 
describe:  
  
163 
 
General Instructions for FYFL Collaboration Study 
Auburn University Computer Science & Software Engineering HCI Lab and the E -Extension. 
During this workshop, you will carry out tasks within the FYFLNETWORK.org collaboration tool. The 
tasks are organized into groups of four and six. Each group will be introduced to tutorial that describes the 
role and situation on how to perform those tasks, and then each task is specified individually. Note that 
our task leaves out some of the detailed task steps intentionally so that we can determine how well the 
system can guide your interactions with it. If you are confused at any point, please just make your best 
guess about how to proceed, using the information that we have provided. Our hope that is that we will 
intervene only when necessary to help you proceed when stuck. 
We will recommend that as you start each task; speak aloud ?Beginning Task? followed by the task 
number. After completing the task, say: ?Task Complete.? Please feel free to think out loud as you work. 
It is very important for us to understand your goals, expectations, and reactions as you work through the 
tasks. Please feel free to ask any further questions that you may have at this time?  
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
164 
 
Specific Task Instructions for 4-H CoP Forum-Blog-Chat 
Auburn University Computer Science & Software Engineering HCI Lab and the E -Extension. 
Background of Tasks 1- 4 
Imagine that you are Tony Cook, an experienced 4-H extension specialist who has couched many students 
on extension projects before. This year is your are the coordinator Four Youth For Live content 
generation workshop. However, you and your colleagues are very busy and have decided to utilize the 
FYFLNETWORK.org teamPages to collaborate utilizing the announcements, calendar and photo social 
computing pages. The teamPages have already been set up for you to and we will like you to perform the 
following tasks in relation to your topic and give us your feedback about your experience.  
Task 1: 
Working with calendar: Please schedule a meeting for the next content generation meeting on your 
respective the FYFL-calendar (FYFL-Water, FYFL-Agriculture and Geospatial Sciences, FYFL-
Financial Literacy and FYFL) between September 12th- 14th 2011. The title of the meeting is ?FYFL 
content generation follow-up meeting?.   
Task 2:  
Working with Announcements page: Please post an announcement with an attachment for the next 
scheduled content generation meeting on your respective FYFL-announcement page (FYFL-Water, 
FYFL-Agriculture and Geospatial Sciences, FYFL-Financial Literacy and FYFL) reminding members to 
be prepared to upload content to the FYFL social computing cloud tool.  The title of the meeting is 
?FYFL content upload to the social computing cloud tool?.  
Task 3: 
Working with Photo page: Please use the photo upload capability to upload a photo to the FYFL-photo 
page (FYFL-Water, FYFL-Agriculture and Geospatial Sciences, FYFL-Financial Literacy and FYFL) 
from the images folder in the fyflnetwork drive. 
Name: ?The penguins?  
Description: My first picture in the FYFL social computing cloud.   
 link:  /fyflnetwork/FYFL Images/Penguins.jpg 
 Task 4: 
Folders: Open FYFL documents folder and create a nested folder name it e-Extension: Locate the 
Announcements.doc in the FYFL Documents folder under the following link: 
myfile/fyflnetwork/FYFL Documents/Announcements.docORFiles/fyflnetwork/FYFL Documents/ 
Announcements.doc  and save it in the e-extension link. 
Data Collection Form for FYFLNETWORK.org Study 
165 
 
Auburn University Computer Science & Software Engineering HCI Lab and the Alabama E -Extension. 
 
Date.__________________  Participant No. ___________  Evaluator.________________ 
Task Number 1: ___________ Start time: _____________ Stop time: ________________ 
Task Number 2: ___________ Start time: _____________ Stop time: ________________ 
Task Number 3: ___________ Start time: ____________   Stop time: _________________ 
Task Number 4: ___________ Start time: _____________ Stop time: _________________ 
Task Number 5: ___________ Start time: _____________ Stop time: _________________ 
Comments made by participant: 
 
 
Errors or problems observed (including assistance offered) 
 
 
Other relevant observations:  
 
 
 
  
166 
 
User Reactions Survey  
Auburn University Computer Science & Software Engineering HCI Lab and the E -Extension. 
 
Now that you have completed the FYFLNETWORK.org interaction tasks, we will like you to give a feedback on 
your reactions, both in general and to specific features of the system. 
What three things did you like most about the FYFLNETWORK.org tool (cloud)? Why? 
 
 What three things did you like least about the FYFLNETWORK.org tool (cloud)? Why? 
 
If the FYFL cloud was made available to you, would you use it? Yes  No. Why?  
Please respond to the following 10 items by providing the answer that best corresponds to your own opinion. 
1. Joining of an online CoP collaboration group is like joining CoP collaboration group in the real world? 
       1. Strongly Disagree        2.  Disagree            3. Neutral                4. Agree            5. Strongly agree 
2. Online communities are diverse and of interest to a wide range of CoP members e.g. 4-H and K- 12. 
        1. Strongly Disagree        2.  Disagree            3. Neutral                4. Agree           5. Strongly agree 
3.  There are many opportunities for me to become involved in online CoP collaboration projects i.e. 4-H 
     and K-12 groups. :     1. Strongly Disagree     2.  Disagree     3. Neutral        4.Agree  5. Strongly agree 
4. I was confused with the commands used to post and upload documents on the community teampages. 
    1.   Strongly Disagree        2.  Disagree               3. Neutral              4.  Agree           5.  Strongly agree 
5. The procedure for posting messages and uploading files into the teamPages familiar with me. 
       1. Strongly Disagree        2.  Disagree              3. Neutral               4.  Agree             5. Strongly agree 
6. Learning that only members with permissions can make changes to projects or posts increased my confidence 
with FYFL social computing tool.  1. Strongly Disagree   2.  Disagree   3. Neutral  4.  Agree           5. Strongly agree 
7. Creating content utilizing Software as a Service (word press), saving it and creating a shortcut to access it is a 
complex process?        1. Strongly Disagree        2. Disagree          3. Neutral             4.  Agree       5. Strongly agree 
8. It was easy to use, track changes and stay aware of what other collaborators are doing and I had a pleasant overall 
experience with FYFL user interface?   
   1   Strongly Disagree             2. Disagree                3.  Neutral                    4. Agree               5.  Strongly agree 
9. What would suggest changes to the design of the FYFL tools including teamPages you interacted with? 
10. Which interface is most appropriate for your community? Do you have any other final comments or reactions? 
Participatory Design Content Generation Project Idea Summary 
Auburn University Computer Science & Software Engineering HCI Lab and the E?Extension 
Give the idea a name:  
167 
 
Members who worked on it:   
Basic idea ? What does it teach or what happens? 
 
 
 
User group content is planned for 4-H, K-12 or other ___________?  
 
 
 
Likely characters ? Who is likely to benefit or be affected by the idea proposed. (Not people only)  
 
 
 
Community issues or problems this idea addresses or evokes, discuss of. 
 
 
 
 Does this activity promote problem solving or research skills? Yes No ___   
Explain:  
 
 
 
Produce a sample design using drawing, pictures, and text on how to implement the idea before 
sharing with the community of practice on fyfynetwork.org. 
Illustrate diagrams here: artistic details and figures are fine. 
 
168 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Has your preference for the user interface for the FYFLNETWORK.ORG social computing tool 
changed at the end of the workshop? Yes NO. 
Please provide the rationale. 
 
169 
 
Appendix III 
Electronic Information Letter 
For a Research Study entitled 
Social Networking Teaching Tools: A collaborative Tool for Communities of Practice to Share Best 
Practices: 
You are invited to participate in a research study to explore your experiences with social computing 
and introduce to a new tool that could be adopted for use by communities of practice members to promote 
unstructured learning in a social computing way. The purpose of this research project is the evaluation the 
usability and suitability of a virtual framework (cloud tool) for sharing best practices among members of a 
community of practice. This research is being conducted by Justus Nyagwencha under the direction of Dr. 
Cheryl D. Seals in the Auburn University the Department of Computer Science and Software 
Engineering. You were selected as a possible participant because associated with K-12 education or the 4-
H group which are the targeted potential users for the tool. 
What is being involved if you participate? Your participation in this research study is voluntary. If you 
decide to participate, the study will be conducted in three parts. If you decide to participate in this 
research study, you will first be asked to fill out a questionnaire for general background information. The 
purpose of the questionnaire is to obtain demographic information and some basic information regarding 
your experience with social computing and online educational tools. The total time commitment for part 
one is approximately 7 minutes. At the end of the pre-questionnaire you will be presented with a task-list 
and link to the prototype environment. The time to accomplish part two the task list for guided 
exploration of how to muse the collaboration tool is approximately 20 minutes. The purpose of the task-
list will be to introduce you to the collaborative cloud tool services environment. After completion of the 
task-list, successfully or unsuccessfully, you will be given a link to the final questionnaire. Your total 
time commitment to part three will be approximately 10 minutes.   
Are there risks or discomforts? There are no perceived risks associated with this study. 
Are there any benefits to yourself or others? Information collected during this study will help us indentify 
how effective and intuitive the FYFl cloud tool and environment is to supporting collaborative activities 
online and advance unstructured learning in a social computing way in relation to 4-H and K-12. 
Will you receive compensation for participating? No compensation for participating will be given. 
Are there any costs for participating? There are no costs associated with participating. 
To change your mind about participating, you can withdraw at any time during the study by simply 
closing your browser or returning your handout survey to the supervisor. One you?ve submitted 
anonymous data, it cannot be withdrawn since it will be unidentifiable. Your decision about whether or 
not to participate or to stop participating will not jeopardize your future relations with Auburn University, 
Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering.  
170 
 
We will keep the data from this study anonymous. All data is stored in a password protected electronic 
format. To help protect your confidentiality, the surveys will not contain information that will personally 
identify you. The results of this study will be used for scholarly purposes (publishing in professional 
journals, theses and dissertations and presentations in professional meetings) only and may be shared with 
Auburn University representatives. 
If you have any questions about the research study, please ask now or contact Justus N. Nyagwencha 
at jnn0002@auburn.edu (334)324-5595) or Cheryl D. Seals at (334)844-6319, sealscd@auburn.edu 
This research has been reviewed according to Auburn University IRB procedures for research 
involving human subjects. 
For more information regarding your rights as a research participant you may contact the Auburn 
University Office of Human Subjects Research or the Institutional Review Board by phone (334)844-
5966 or email at hsubjec@auburn.edu or IRBChair@auburn.edu. 
HAVING READ THE INFORMATION PROVIDED, YOU MUST DECIDE IF YOU WANT TO 
PARTICIPATE IN THIS STUDY. IF YOU DECIDE TO PARTICIPATE, THE DATA YOU PROVIDE 
WILL SERVE AS YOUR AGREEMENT TO DO SO. THIS LETTER IS YOURS TO KEEP. 
________________________________________________ 
Investigator's signature           Date 
 
 
Justus N. Nyagwencha  ____________________________ 
Print Name 
 
 
 
 
171 
 
Appendix III 
Electronic Information Letter 
For a Research Study entitled 
Social Networking Teaching Tools: A collaborative Tool for Communities of Practice to Share Best 
Practices: 
You are invited to participate in a research study to explore your experiences with social computing 
and introduce to a new tool that could be adopted for use by communities of practice members to promote 
unstructured learning in a social computing way. The purpose of this research project is the evaluation the 
usability and suitability of a virtual framework (cloud tool) for sharing best practices among members of a 
community of practice. This research is being conducted by Justus Nyagwencha under the direction of Dr. 
Cheryl D. Seals in the Auburn University the Department of Computer Science and Software 
Engineering. You were selected as a possible participant because associated with K-12 education or the 4-
H group which are the targeted potential users for the tool. 
What is being involved if you participate? Your participation in this research study is voluntary. If you 
decide to participate, the study will be conducted in three parts. If you decide to participate in this 
research study, you will first be asked to fill out a questionnaire for general background information. The 
purpose of the questionnaire is to obtain demographic information and some basic information regarding 
your experience with social computing and online educational tools. The total time commitment for part 
one is approximately 7 minutes. At the end of the pre-questionnaire you will be presented with a task-list 
and link to the prototype environment. The time to accomplish part two the task list for guided 
exploration of how to muse the collaboration tool is approximately 20 minutes. The purpose of the task-
list will be to introduce you to the collaborative cloud tool services environment. After completion of the 
task-list, successfully or unsuccessfully, you will be given a link to the final questionnaire. Your total 
time commitment to part three will be approximately 10 minutes.   
Are there risks or discomforts? There are no perceived risks associated with this study. 
Are there any benefits to yourself or others? Information collected during this study will help us indentify 
how effective and intuitive the FYFl cloud tool and environment is to supporting collaborative activities 
online and advance unstructured learning in a social computing way in relation to 4-H and K-12. 
Will you receive compensation for participating? No compensation for participating will be given. 
Are there any costs for participating? There are no costs associated with participating. 
To change your mind about participating, you can withdraw at any time during the study by simply 
closing your browser or returning your handout survey to the supervisor. One you?ve submitted 
anonymous data, it cannot be withdrawn since it will be unidentifiable. Your decision about whether or 
not to participate or to stop participating will not jeopardize your future relations with Auburn University, 
Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering.  
172 
 
We will keep the data from this study anonymous. All data is stored in a password protected electronic 
format. To help protect your confidentiality, the surveys will not contain information that will personally 
identify you. The results of this study will be used for scholarly purposes (publishing in professional 
journals, theses and dissertations and presentations in professional meetings) only and may be shared with 
Auburn University representatives. 
If you have any questions about the research study, please ask now or contact Justus N. Nyagwencha 
at jnn0002@auburn.edu (334)324-5595) or Cheryl D. Seals at (334)844-6319, sealscd@auburn.edu 
This research has been reviewed according to Auburn University IRB procedures for research 
involving human subjects. 
For more information regarding your rights as a research participant you may contact the Auburn 
University Office of Human Subjects Research or the Institutional Review Board by phone (334)844-
5966 or email at hsubjec@auburn.edu or IRBChair@auburn.edu. 
HAVING READ THE INFORMATION PROVIDED, YOU MUST DECIDE IF YOU WANT TO 
PARTICIPATE IN THIS STUDY. IF YOU DECIDE TO PARTICIPATE, THE DATA YOU PROVIDE 
WILL SERVE AS YOUR AGREEMENT TO DO SO. THIS LETTER IS YOURS TO KEEP. 
 
Justus Nyagwencha   10-11-2011 
Investigator               Date 
 
The Auburn University institutional Review Board has approved this document for use from May 9th 
2011-May 8th 2012. Protocol #10-125 EX 1005 
 
To begin the study please visit the link below or utilize the survey pamphlet or booklet provided to you at 
the beginning of the session to do the study 
Link: http:// http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WDBSP7C