Tech Report HCIL-97-15

Rose, A., Ding, W., Marchionini, G., Beale Jr., J., Nolet, V. (1997)
Building an Electronic Learning Community: From Design to Implementation
Proceedings of CHI 98, Los Angeles, CA, 18-23 April 1998, ACM, New York, 203-210
HCIL-97-15, CS-TR-3831, UMIACS-TR-97-67, CLIS-TR-97-12

The University of Maryland at College Park in cooperation with Baltimore City Public Schools and several partners is working to build an electronic learning community that provides teachers with multimedia resources that are linked to outcome-oriented curriculum guidelines. The initial resource library contains over 100 videos, texts, images, web sites, and instructional modules. Using the current system, teachers can explore and search the resource library, create and present instructional modules in their classrooms, and communicate with other teachers in the community. This paper discusses the iterative design process and the results of informal usability testing. Lessons learned are also presented for developers.