[p2pu-dev] Notes from this week's community call

Thu Jul 19 20:46:42 UTC 2012

What a fun call! We got to see Alison first thing in the morning - thanks,
Ali, you're a trooper!
As always, the notes are on the etherpad:
http://pad.p2pu.org/p/community-20120719

*Community Call 19 July 2012*

Attendees

   - Charlie

   - https://p2pu.org/en/groups/collaborative-lesson-planning/

   - https://p2pu.org/en/groups/collaborative-lesson-planning-2/

*Standups **What have you been up to? Short **written** notes (we'll
discuss only if there are questions)*

   - Alison

   - promotion courses

   - Bekka

   - Course promotion

   - Berlin org stuff

   - Performance reviews

   - Thinking about community

   - Vanessa

   - OMG

   - John

   - http://mechanicalmooc.org - check it out, it's alive

   - Etherpad hacking

   - Course Wireframes and then Cohort Wireframes

   - Philipp

   - Staff goals

   - School of Open helper

   - Site design

   - Dirk

   - Alan

   - Open Masters Handbook -
   https://drive.google.com/#folders/0B4U5Z8p_DphkRmhmdDFJODVpWW8

   - Open Masters portfolios

   - Jane

   - SCHOOL OF OPEN: http://pad.p2pu.org/p/berlin-school-of-open

   - Digital sprint: http://pad.p2pu.org/p/berlin-school-of-open-sprint

   - Molly

   - School of Open

   - Thinking about research questions related to P2PU

*Key updates*  *Super short updates about P2PU*

   - Exciting new courses to check out (Alison)

   - http://info.p2pu.org/2012/07/17/check-out-great-new-courses-at-p2pu/

   - Development priorities (Dirk)

   - State of the mustard (Philipp)

   - Bright green (users, joins, comments all more than +5%)

   - Curating our digital lives -> 150+ comments last week

   - Everything is up! Groups created increase may have something to do
   with School of Open reactivating dormant courses.

   - Haven't had a huge spike in traffic, but worth waiting to see what
   happens after the new courses announcement, although this might have
   something to do with summer holidays in the US.

*Reportback from Dirk on Dev Priorities*

   - Mentorship application

   - Alex has been working on this - we'll be looking at it later on in the
   agenda

   - Design guide & UX guide

   - Aleks S and Joao have been working on a design & UX guide, to help us
   build better features, make things more consistent and prettier

   - Twitter bootstrap integrations

   - This is related to the UX/Design guides, which will take a while

   - Lernanta architecture

   - Ice breaker application

   - Alex is working on this - a technique to help people get to know each
   other better when they first join a course, something fun and lighthearted

   - Wordpress themes - Open masters & P2PU projects (and improving
   functionality on http://info.p2pu.org)

   - Pixel art for citizen science game

*Vanessa: Burning Research Questions*

   - Good people of P2PU, *write your burning questions here*

   - Step 1: What's your burning question about P2PU

   - Step 2:

   - Who would you want to talk to in order to answer those research
   questions?

   - What voice would you want to tease out of data?

   - How long would you want to talk to them for?

   - Step 3: *How* would you want to talk to them?

   - PS: What is an /active/ user?

   - Step 2 - Talk to: users and course organizers

   - Step 3 - Both existing log data (to create user personas) and
   observation of individuals participation on the site (those who we think
   are representative of the personas)

   - I would like to create a profile of an "active user" which we could
   pull from the database, so we can find a way to get a snapshot of "this
   number of people are engaged in P2PU right now"

   - Triangulate the data

   - PS: Why is someone creating a course?

   - Step 2 - Talk to: users who created succesful courses

   - Step 3 - Filter for successful courses, then interview course
   organizers

   - AC: Where do users go when they finish a (their first) course?

   - participants, dev team

   - survey, can you follow users through clicks?

   - you can track where a user "clicks" next, but only if they stay on
   P2PU - you could also pop up a little input field that asks "what's next"

   - problem with surveys is that they pre-assume things, so you get
   limited responses.

   - BK: how do we know if anyone has had fun? Or learnt anything?

   - Step 2: Those participants who DON'T finish a course, their course
   organisers

   - Step 3: Survey, exit interview,

   - Why did we chose this method:

   - AC: Is there a minimum group size (for successful learning **on
   P2PU**)?

   - participants & organizers

   - interviews with organizers, survey of participants

   - JP: What needs to people have when they come to P2PU and how are they
   met or not met? Also how do their needs/wants change as they participate
   and become a part of the community?

   - People who are on the periphery. Like why have they not joined in more?

   - People who just want to learn about something specific. Does P2PU
   fulfill that need? Is that a need P2PU should fulfill better, or is our
   focus more on the community of peers?

   - People who think we are jackasses.

   - Case studies, survey

   - BC these are the methods I've used in the past - open to new/better
   methods?

   - MAK: what role P2PU is playing in the lives of independent learners.
   What value is it providing, and for whom?

   - Everyone who has ever completed a P2PU course

   - Everyone who has ever started but not finished a P2PU course

   - I want at least some of the conversation to be in survey form with a
   constrained set of answers (so that there can be some crunching of numbers,
   and we can start to see trends).

   - MAK: Do learners feel like they can ask questions as they are
   participating in P2PU, and who do they want to ask questions of?

   - Everyone who has ever completed at P2PU course

   - Everyone who has ever started but not finished a P2PU course

   - Again, probably want this to be in survey form, but with the option
   for free text responses.

   - Basically, I don't want to have to actually talk to anyone.

   - I think it can be seductive to want to get qualitative data, and there
   is a risk that people will give the answers they THINK you want, becuase
   they want the answers to have "value"

   - In a more anonymous survey-type method we might get more honest
   answers.

   - Also, we may have the opportunity to get data on our entire
   population, rather than just a sample, and that's appealing.

   - JB: How do people feel about p2pu

   - someone who just heard about p2pu

   - someone who had their first p2pu experience

   - someone who met a p2pu community member f2f for the first time

   - In person interview and record it

   - DU: How do we measure success?

   - Alumni that took courses 2+ years ago

   - Course organizers

   - PCK: How do learners make sense of their own identities in context?

   - PCK: How do learners integrate feedback and reflection into what they
   do next?

   - PCK: When do learners need assistance with planning their next step or
   learning experience?

   - PCK: What feedback is most useful for learners? From whom, and when is
   it most useful?

   - Philipp -> Question: I don't know about machine learning, can we use
   it?

   - ie: can we design an algorythm that looks thorugh data on the site, to
   find something, and then "learns" to help extract better data

   - PK -> it depends on how complex the information that you want it.

   - JP -> I'm not a researcher, and I don't know how to design surveys -
   and it would be useful for me to get help on how to design a survey so that
   I don't bias things before they even go out.

   - And I'd rather just tack my questions on to someone else's research
   than start my own.

   - PS -> we probably have people in the community who have this
   experience and can help with this

   - BK -> we probably all want the same stuff out of a "research project"

   - VMG -> we are all doing research all the time, every time we ask
   people a question it's actually "research"

   - VMG -> so what did you like about this activity

   - PK -> I liked the diversity of questions that were surfaced

   - PS -> I thought the questions were great, I'm a little frustrated
   though, becuase now I want to do this research, and I suspect that we might
   all run into the "not-enough-time, not-enough-expertise"

   - MAK -> I think we need to start thinking about creating a survey. One
   big survey. Take all these questions, and start thinking about what a P2PU
   -wide survey would look like.

   - Charlie: How is the School of Ed. doing? Point me to link if there's
   already a write-up. Thx!

   - It's doing well, Charlie:
   https://p2pu.org/en/schools/school-of-ed-pilot/

   - Into it's 2nd iteration

   - Looks great! ... I need to get more involved ...

   - JP--> What's the purpose of this research? To present to the academic
   community?

   - Yes, but also to improve in general.

*Berlin Project Showcase*

   - *Alex's Mentorship platform:*

   -
   http://info.p2pu.org/2012/07/18/sneak-peek-at-the-p2pu-mentorship-program/

   - Is the widget/plugin/whatever here in flash?

   - *School of Open*

   - http://info.p2pu.org/tag/school-of-open/
   -
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