Dear All,
Apologies for cross posting.
As you may know the project to establish Intute Informs comes to an end at
the end of July. The number of registered institutional Informs users has
more than doubled since Informs moved to Intute: we now have over 120 users
and new registration requests are still coming in.
As part of the project we have now held a User Survey and two Informs
Advisory Forum meetings. Summaries of the survey results and notes from the
Advisory Forum meetings can be found at:
http://www.informs.intute.ac.uk/projectnews.html
As a result of this feedback from users we are now working on our
development priorities for Informs:
1. Improving the Quiz/ Self Test options available.
2. Improving the formatting options available when editing/creating
units: more options are now available e.g. italics, bold, underlined text
with a more comprehensive display of available tags.
3. Image database: we are working on making this easier to use and to
import images into a unit.
4. Help: we are writing online help pages which will also be available
as a complete user guide.
5. Improving search options: we have already introduced a browsable
alphabetical list of unit titles. Search by keyword in unit title and
description is also available. We are working on creating a search by
institution, and date a unit was last edited.
6. Statistics: we are working on developing statistics on number of
users, duration, progression and pattern of use for individual units.
Some development work will continue at the Intute Executive after the
project has finished at the end of July. We are also looking at
introducing: an option to add tags to units, developing a User Forum to
facilitate community communication and introducing some form of annual
Informs awards to recognise outstanding examples of Informs tutorials as
decided by the Informs community.
Some small changes have been implemented already, and these are summarised
below:
1. We have changed the terminology for displaying and hiding units.
The options are now hide/publish instead of hide/unhide units.
2. Copy unit function: we have improved the results display to display
unit and portfolio names instead of numbers.
3. End-user help (i.e. the ? symbol on the guide on the side). The
Advisory Forum suggested that generic help should be restricted to basic
info about moving through a unit and pop up blockers in the introduction
only. Context specific help can then be created by editors using TIPS.
Therefore the ? symbol now only displays on the introduction page.
4. Administrator options: we have removed the option which allows users
to change the main portfolio or account name. This is because we now
display the portfolio names on our website to identify registered
institutions. We therefore require the main portfolio name to reflect the
institution name to avoid duplication. Administrators can still contact us
to change a portfolio name if necessary.
5. Administrator options: we have also amended these to include all
editing options e.g. objects database options.
6. An editor's view of their own list of units now gives their
sub-portfolio title e.g. Diana's portfolio units, rather than the main
portfolio title.
One of the things I have been struck by from the start of the project has
been the commitment and enthusiasm of the Informs community. So many great
ideas for future developments have cropped up when we have spoken to users
that we are convinced there is a very exciting future for Informs. As
project manager I am also hoping to be able to draw up an options appraisal
which will look at the possibility of finding additional funding to finance
expanding the number of registered users and introducing more exciting
developments.
I will be contacting users again with an update on developments in the near
future.
Best wishes,
Diana.
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Diana Massam
Informs Project Manager
Intute Executive
MIMAS
Manchester Computing
The University of Manchester
Oxford Road
Manchester
M13 9PL
[log in to unmask]
0161 2750172
www.intute.ac.uk
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