Socio-cognitive engineering is a framework for the human-centred design of technology-based systems to enhance human knowledge working, decision making, collaboration and learning. Like user-centred design, it draws on the knowledge of potential users and involves them in the design process. But it extends beyond individual users to analyse the activity systems of people and their interaction with technology, including their social interactions, styles and strategies of working, and language and patterns of communication, to form a composite picture of human knowledge and activity that can inform system design. The framework consists of two main parts: a phase of activity analysis to interpret how people work and interact with their current tools and technologies, and a phase of systems design to build and implement new interactive technology. Socio-cognitive engineering has been refined and tested through a series of projects to develop computer systems for supporting learning and knowledge working.
Building systems that are correct by design has always been a major challenge of software development. Typical software development approaches (and in particular interactive systems development approaches) are based around the notion of prototyping and testing. However, except for simple systems, testing cannot guarantee absence of errors, and, in the case of interactive systems, testing with real users can become extremely resource intensive and time-consuming. Additionally, when a system reaches a prototype stage that is amenable to testing, many design decisions have already been made and committed to. In fact, in an industrial setting, user testing can become useless if it is done when time or money is no longer available to substantially change the design. To address these issues, a number of discount techniques for usability evaluation of early designs were proposed. Two examples are heuristic evaluation, and cognitive walkthroughs. Although their effectiveness has been subject of debate, reports show that they are being used in practice. These are largely informal approaches that do not scale well as the complexity of the systems (or the complexity of the interaction between system and users) increases. In recent years, researchers have started investigating the applicability of automated reasoning techniques and tools to the analysis of interactive systems models. The hope being that these tools will enable more thorough analysis of the designs. The challenge faced is how to fold human factors’ issues into a formal setting as that created by the use of such tools. This article reviews some of the work in this area and presents some directions for future work.
E-learning is expected to support organizations and individuals so they can become more adaptable and competitive. However, in order for organizations to realize the full potential of this technology, they should create and sustain the right context to foster learning in articulation with business objectives. This requires active participation and engagement of workers. This work explores a variable called motivation-to-e-learn, a key component of this process. Our goal is to identify what motivation-related variables are critical for users’ engagements in the process. To this end, we explored the importance of a set of motivation-to-e-learn variables for a group of participants at our university. From this activity, an exploratory four-factor structure emerged that explains 67% of motivation to e-learn variance. We discuss our results, together with their implications for designing technology-supported learning experiences, lessons learned, and future work. Our contribution is a step toward integrating business processes, learners, and e-learning systems into an effective and harmonious whole.
The Meningitis Hypertext Case Study is a computer-assisted learning module developed by the Liverpool Epidemiology Programme as part of a comprehensive set of modules and case studies to assist health workers to learn epidemiology. The objectives of the case study are to highlight important concepts in diagnosing an epidemic of meningitis. It has been developed using hypertext software (LINKWAY) which allows interactions with other epidemiological software (EPI INFO) for the analysis of the data. The case study makes extended use of graphical displays, has a 'user-friendly' presentation and can be used by individuals and groups. Our initial experience indicates that this form of computer-assisted learning has considerable potential by providing users with an organized path through a series of problems set in a realistic environment. This could prove to be potentially useful in developing countries where up-to-date learning materials are often unavailable.
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