~1~

Table of Contents
Executive Summary ........................................................................................................ 3 Research Brief ................................................................................................................ 4 Research Purpose ................................................................................................ 4 Methodology ......................................................................................................... 4 Target Market ....................................................................................................... 6 Recommendations................................................................................................ 7 Appendix ....................................................................................................................... 13 Appendix A: Secondary Research ...................................................................... 13 A-1: Group Secondary Data..................................................................... 13 Appendix B: Observational Research ................................................................. 26 B-1: Group Observational Data ................................................................ 26 B-2: Chelseas Observational Data .......................................................... 33 B-3: Ryans Observational Data ............................................................... 40 B-4: Hannahs Observational Data .......................................................... 46 B-5: Jackies Observational Data ............................................................. 54 B-6: Chriss Observational Data ............................................................... 58 Appendix C: Interview Research ........................................................................ 63 C-1: Group Interview Data ....................................................................... 63 C-2: Chelseas Interview Data ................................................................. 74 C-3: Ryans Interview Data ...................................................................... 79 C-4: Hannahs Interview Data .................................................................. 83 C-5: Jackies Interview Data .................................................................... 87 C-6: Chriss Interview Data ...................................................................... 92 C-7: Additional Interview Data ................................................................. 96 Appendix D: Questionnaire Research ................................................................ 98 D-1: Group Questionnaire Data ............................................................... 98 Appendix E: Focus Group Research ................................................................ 116 E-1: Focus Group Data .......................................................................... 116

~2~

Executive Summary
The following marketing guide addresses the issues regarding the MyCalPoly Portal. Our main research purpose for this study is to discover a better way to segment and organize portal information for Cal Polys students. We specifically focused on conducting thorough market research to better understand what Cal Poly students needs and desires are in regards to the MyCalPoly Portal. We accomplished this through the utilization of secondary and primary research, such as observations, interviews, questionnaires, and focus groups, respectively. To begin our research, we looked for secondary information through credible sources, such as peer reviewed articles and information on competitors, in order to figure out what we already know about the portal. The results of our research lead us to formulate our research purpose, as well as our research questions, which guided our four other forms of data collection throughout the quarter. Once we discovered what is already known about the Cal Poly Portal, we performed primary research through conducting observations. We observed the behaviors of students on their computers, in natural work environments including the first, second, and third floors of the library, the business building computer lab, and the lounge area in the University Union. We then asked individuals to perform a list of tasks so we could observe their ability to navigate through the portal. We then conducted further primary research through interviewing random Cal Poly students in different locations around the campus. We asked them specific questions in order to further develop the answer to our research question. Next we made a questionnaire and sent it to Cal Poly students of all different grade levels. We got over 100 responses, which gave us a large sample size, and compiled the data to further focus our research question. Finally, we conducted focus groups as a class which centered around the MyCalPoly Portal. We carried out two different focus groups, one made up of first and second years, and the second including third and fourth years. We also conducted one additional interview to further reinforce our conclusions. Based on our research, we have come to two recommendations necessary to the success and acceptance of the newest version of the MyCalPoly Portal: a segmentation feature based on student grade level information and implementing a social communication feature. We have concluded that if the ITS department implements our recommendations, Cal Poly students will be much more satisfied with the portal. We had an overwhelming response of negative feelings towards the current portal and with the research we have conducted, students are more likely to have a more positive view of the portal and therefore be more satisfied with its applications. The report which follows contains an account of the research process we conducted which lead us to these recommendations, as well as a demonstration of what these recommendation changes would look like if implemented. ~3~

Research Brief
Research Purpose
Our original research purpose was focused on finding a better way to segment and organize the MyCalPoly Portal for Cal Poly students. Once we conducted our observations, interviews, and focus groups, our research purpose changed and finalized to: The purpose of this study is to discover the pertinent information and organizational layout Cal Poly students of each class level would like to see on their portals, through the use of different research methods such as, secondary data, observational research, interviews, focus groups, and surveys. Although this became our final research purpose, our original research purpose stemmed from the secondary data research that we completed at the beginning of the project. The research we found included such things such as how the Portal layout should be organized in a more mind-pleasing manner so that students can work their way through campus information with ease (Appendix A-1). In addition, the uPortal accommodates features that can be customized for specific local needs, therefore enabling a dynamic, personal view for users (Appendix A-1). From this information, we determined that our focus in regards to the MyCalPoly Portal should concern which organization and customization changes are needed to fit customer needs and desires. Our research questions, which sought to answer our research purpose, changed over time because our findings from each research method gave us new insights into what the customer wanted. Below are the seven research questions we came up with after conducting both secondary and primary research (Appendix A-1):

What do Cal Poly students use the portal for most? How often do they use it? Why might students not be confident in using the portal? How do students want the information on the portal to be organized? What customization options do students want available on their portal? What new information/functions, not already included, would students like to see on the portal? What functions do students already find useful?

Methodology
The research purpose and questions described above were answered through several forms of primary and secondary market research. The table below describes which strategies were used and the process of conducting each form of research. Also included in the table is a statement of purpose for each approach. ~4~

Type of Research
Secondary (Appendix A)

Process

Used various forms of secondary research such as articles, online databases, Cal Poly Fact books and more. Needed to find out what is already known about the portal and its competitors, customer, and environment. The information gathered served as a guide for the purpose of additional primary research.

Observational (Appendix B)

Conducted in locations around campus in which students are commonly found doing work on computers or laptops, such as the library and the University Union. Observed students as a spectator. Notes were taken on the environment as well as the ways in which students interact with the portal and other technologies. After observing as a spectator, asked students of varying grade, gender, and majors to perform certain tasks on the portal. Notes were taken on the process the participant went through to complete these tasks with particular attention to ease of use and apparent portal familiarity.

Interviews (Appendix C)

With new insights from the observations, interviews were conducted to gain input from a variety of individuals on campus. The purpose was to gain a first-hand account of an individuals experience and needs for the Portal. Interviews were recorded and a transcript was written. Administered online to 102 students of all grade levels, in order to get a general perspective of each grade levels needs. Two focus groups conducted, one composed of underclassmen participants and the other composed of upperclassmen participants. Each group had seven participants, all representing different colleges. Focus group sessions lasted approximately 50 minutes. Opinions were gathered on both the current and new versions of the portal. Conversations were recorded on tape and video. One additional interview was conducted to get an opinion on how useful that student would find the recommendations that were formed from previous research. The interview was recorded and a transcript was written.

Questionnaire (Appendix D) Focus Groups (Appendix E)

Additional ResearchInterview (Appendix C-7)

~5~

Target Market
Our target market includes all Cal Poly students who utilize the MyCalPoly Portal. We have found that students are the individuals who use the portal most frequently and we decided to format the report based on them at a very early stage in our research. In our recommendations, we offer a My Year section within the portal. So, we have an ideal customer for each grade level and their ideal behavioral characteristics, which is shown in the table below. According to the Cal Poly Fact Book, for fall 2010 undergraduate enrollment, there were 17,332 students enrolled. Next to each year is the total number of students per grade level in the fall of 2010. Year

Freshmen: 3,643

Sophomores: 3,590

QUICK FACTS Total Undergrad Enrollment for fall 2010: 17,332 Source: Cal Poly Fact Book

Juniors: 3,674

Seniors: 6,425

1st year

Behavioral Characteristics Unsure how to use the portal, need tutorials Housing Plus Dollars Tuition Tutors and workshops Social Communication feature Concentration information and course flowcharts Tutoring hours, club hours, workshops Tuition Social Communication feature Degree progress reports Advisor hours Flowcharts Tutoring hours Social Communication feature Graduate school information Degree Progress Report Job postings and career information Graduate school information Graduation evaluation forms General graduation information Social Communication feature

2nd year

3rd year

4th year

~6~

Recommendations
After conducting an extensive amount of research and synthesizing all findings, our group was directed in a way that led us to two particular recommendations. Students at Cal Poly have strongly voiced their opinions about the topics of personalization of the portal and the need for social interaction. These opinions allowed us to decipher that the MyCalPoly Portal needs to implement these two unique recommendations: a personalized My Year section based on grade level and a social communication feature for students and faculty.

My Year Section
Our group has come to the conclusion that students want to have more personalized aspects on the main page of their MyCalPoly Portals. This can be done by including an entirely new section titled My Year. This feature will be customized to each student depending on his/her grade level. Based on our initial secondary research, which tells us the information which was already available, we concluded that our client, the ITS department, can use the uPortal software to customize any part of the MyCalPoly Portal. Our secondary research from the section which described the client stated, One of the greatest things about the software is that it can be customized for specific local needs, therefore enabling a dynamic, personal view for users (Appendix A-1). Specifically, the My Year feature will be displayed underneath the section labeled My Classes on the main page of the newest portal. It will be important for students to see this feature directly on the main page because it contains relevant information that can be used each time they access the portal. One first year business student thought it would be relevant to include something that helps you budget your meal plan, and plus dollars to keep you on track of that (Appendix C-3). Labels included in the feature will be focused on each grade level. The bullets below describe each grade levels specific points which are to be included: My Freshman would include simple and straightforward tutorials with frequently asked questions and directions on where to find things within the portal, a tab for looking up plus dollars, and a to-do list to keep up on tuition, housing payments, and other related needs. My Sophomore would include concentration information, course flowcharts, advisor office hours and tutoring hours. The to-do list and alerts would be tailored to a sophomores needs and requirements. My Junior section would include the students Degree Progress Report, advisor office hours, flowcharts, tutoring hours, and graduate school

Something that helps you budget your meal plan, and plus dollars to keep you on track of that. -First year Business student

~7~

information. The to-do list and alerts would be tailored to a juniors needs and requirements. My Senior would have a link to graduation evaluations, the students Degree Progress Report, job postings, and general graduation information. The to-do list and alerts would be tailored to a seniors needs and requirements.

The differences between necessities for each grade level make it imperative to separate the links that are offered in each section. Here is a visual example of what we believe the MyCalPoly Portal should look like with these changes:

Given that our target market, Cal Poly students, have a substantial issue with the organization and usefulness of the portal, we would like to recommend this new feature as a possible solution. Of the numerous concerns that the students expressed in our research, the main issues that this feature will solve are based on our conclusions: the organization, customization, and addition of new features.

~8~

Organization As stated before, the organizational layout of a website is very important to users. Through our findings, we have determined that this is a common trend with students here at Cal Poly using the MyCalPoly Portal. For example, a first year math and science major stated that when he is using the portal, it is really hard for me to figure out where to find things (Appendix C-2). Also, during the observation portion of our research, one group member asked a student to find a specific link on the Portal. The record showed that the Subject clicks on the campus necessities tab, doesnt find the link, then looks under the transportation link, says It should be there (Appendix B-3). This new My Year feature would give students access to certain parts of the portal that might not have been as easy to find before. This proves one of our continuing conclusions, the ease of access and improved organization of the portal, which we found throughout our data (Appendix B-1, C-1, and D-1). Students will surely have an improved experience when using the portal if the organization factor is properly met. By receiving easier access to materials, the students wants will be met and their Learn by Doing experience will further be established. Customization Customizing the portal in a way that demonstrates how the student wants to see useful information displayed will revamp original concerns associated with the portal. Customization seems to be a crucial concept which students would like to be integrated into their lives. This is where the personalized My Year section on the portal will come into play. When asked about customization options that students want to be added to the new portal, a 3rd year female liberal arts major specifically stated, I would like to have a tab that says like senior stuff or something like that where everything is congregated in one (Appendix C-7). Furthermore, during the focus group session for the upperclassmen, one third year kinesiology student agreed with the notion of customizability by expressing, For the freshmen, you could show how to customize everything (Appendix E-1). Students of all class levels seem to have similar opinions on how the customization of year can be applicable to their portal usage.
I would like to have a tab that said like senior stuff or something like that where everything is congregated in one -Third year female Liberal Arts student

~9~

New Features

Additions to the Portal

100% 90% 80% 70% 83% 83%

79% 70% 65%

Percentage

60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 22%

Features

*Side Note: For this graph, we took the percentages of students that answered somewhat useful or extremely useful for each additional feature (Appendix D1). Our main research purpose allowed us to gather information that specified our research towards the concept of new features. The My Year tool is a completely new idea which will benefit the students in a variety of ways. Not only will there be this new section, but it will include the other improved links specific to the grade level. We found through our questionnaire research that the need for these up-to-date features was of great importance to students. The graph included above displays how a majority of students wanted new features available that are pertinent to them, with five of the six offered features ranking at or above the 60th percentile. This is only one of many examples of how our target market has distinguished their strong opinions on the need for new features.

~ 10 ~

Social Communication Feature

Our secondary research suggested that social networking sites pose a threat to academic management systems such as PolyLearn because students may prefer alternative ways to connect with peers and professors (email, Facebook, texting, etc.) instead of utilizing the forum feature on PolyLearn (Appendix A-1). In addition, a number of the students that we observed during our research expressed a desire for a quick and easy form of communication between students and superiors. A first year from the College of Business said, ...there could be like, instant messaging chat... just like a really quick question so you dont have to go into office hours necessarily (Appendix B-3), and in our questionnaire results, of 101 students who responded, 88% of them emphasized the need for a document sharing feature and 69% voted for an instant messaging feature to be added (Appendix D-1). As a result, our second recommendation aimed to satisfy the students of Cal Poly would be to include a chat feature to the portal. This feature would allow students to chat with other students, professors, and academic advisors, therefore receiving instant feedback. This is specifically a part of our suggested solution for the lack of useful features on the portal. The chat option would be displayed in the bottom right corner of the main portal page, as seen in our example of the new portal (shown above), in the form of a pop-up menu. It would display a students teachers, fellow students in classes, and academic advisors, as well as show whether or not they are online and available to chat. This feature would provide an informal and quick form of communication between the groups previously stated. It would also include a swift and easy file sharing option for quick editing and approval. A fourth year from the College of Liberal Arts stated that she saw members of the groups working together have all had to get out of their chairs at least twice to share their work with other team members (Appendix C-5). Our solution to these concerns would satisfy the students need for convenient and fast communication to superiors and would be easy for students and teachers alike to access, since it would be on the main page of their portals. Along with satisfying this criteria, it would also allow students to get their questions quickly answered by classmates about trivial things, such as homework assignments and due dates. We feel that our target market will be eager to utilize this feature, given that many of them already use the Facebook chat feature similar to this. Along with being extremely useful and easy to operate, this feature also satisfies our target markets desire for new features. Organization
There could be like, instant messaging chat... just like a really quick question so you dont have to go into office hours necessarily -First year Business student

Organization was one of our primary concerns while conducting research for the new version of the portal. The chat option would be organized in a way that is similar to the current Facebook, a minimal display in the bottom right corner of the screen. This placement makes it the least distracting to the user, but also easy to access. It would operate as a pop up list in the sense that when a student ~ 11 ~

or faculty member clicked on it, a list of peers and superiors would appear that the student or faculty member could choose to chat with. This would allow all communication needs for school to be met in one, easy to use and accessible place. Customization

Add maybe like a forum thing where students can talk about ideas within the portal itself -Third year Math and Science student

In terms of customization, students could create their own groups to chat with. An example of this need was identified when a third year from the College of Math and Science suggested that we add maybe like a forum thing where students can talk about ideas within the portal itself (Appendix C-4). Groups should be specified by each class that a student is enrolled in (with the professors included), the clubs they are involved in, and other academically specific groups. This customization option would satisfy the group chat need and allow for more effective communication between group members in their respective classes. New Features This group chat would be a completely new feature on the portal. As a new feature it would have to be tested and refined, but we strongly feel that it will be a success, given our research. A third year from the College of Agriculture, talking about Facebook and the portal, said that if they were like interconnected, then yes I would use it (Appendix C-6). The fact that many applications like it have been very successful gives us the impression that this will be no different. Todays world lives by efficiency, and instant messaging is just that. Students will notice this because it will be new and they will be very pleased with it because it will be familiar, easy to use, efficient, and applicable.

~ 12 ~

Appendix
Appendix A: Secondary Research
A-1: Group Secondary Data
Introduction The ultimate goal of the MyCalPoly Portal research project is to provide the IT department with the information it needs in order to effectively reorganize the portal so that its users are more satisfied. What the users (students, faculty, and staff) find valuable and what they would like to see in their portal are the two most vital pieces of missing information. In order to aid the IT department in improving the portal, the first step in the process requires us to provide a synopsis of what is currently known. In order to determine this, our group decided to conduct a secondary data research analysis, targeting the client, customers, competitors, and environmental situations. The background data that our group has found comes from existing data sources. The Client We begin our study by first examining the client. In order to compile the secondary research analysis, it is important to identify who exactly the client is. The My Cal Poly portal is a web portal that features information and services that [Cal Poly students, faculty, and staff] can personalize (My Cal Poly Support, 2011). According to Darren Kraker, a software engineer at Cal Polys ITS, the original Cal Poly portal was created over ten years ago using the uPortal technology (2012). The uPortal is a free open source software for the higher education community, managed by Jasig (About uPortal, 2009). Client Offerings The majority of the features that the Cal Poly portal has to offer come from the uPortal software itself. However, it is the My Cal Poly portal that has the greatest offering: a go to place where a student, faculty, or staff member can find the links to almost all pertinent information he/she made need regarding the university. It seems as though it is a giant, web-based encyclopedia specific to Cal Poly. uPortal: There are a variety of things that the uPortal software offers to the universities that utilize it. These include, but are not limited to, authentication and security infrastructures, single sign-on secure access, campus applications, web-based content, and end user customization (About uPortal, 2009). One of the greatest things about the software is that it can be customized for specific local needs, therefore enabling a dynamic, personal view for users (About uPortal, 2009). uPortals ability to host multiple portals on the same installation, [each one having] its own domain name, ~ 13 ~

look-and-feel, authentication mechanism and user attribute source, can seriously benefit Cal Poly if the IT department chooses to implement different types of portals for different majors or class levels. Cal Poly recently upgraded the uPortal software to the fourth version. This version contains a variety of new features, the most important being a mobile browser experience. The uMobile framework allows for the development of native mobile apps that can be customized and authenticated to meet the university's needs (About uPortal, 2009). Cal Poly has already taken advantage of this by creating a My Cal Poly Portal app. However, there is still much improvement needed. Some other features of the uPortal 4 include: improved data import/export formats, administrative tools, and flexibility. Kenneth Green, founding director of the Campus Computing Project, which studies the role of technology in higher education, states that there is a notion thatproducts, [such as the uPortal], pay closer attention to the needs of universities (Powers, 2006). With this notion in mind, the IT department has taken advantage of the uPortal in order to customize the portal to match Cal Polys needs. The IT department has control over block scheduling for freshmen, PASS, and the newly developed mobile application (Kraker, 2012). Mr. Kraker informed the class that any web page that says portal in the URL is something that the IT department created, and therefore controls. This means that they have the ability to customize, reevaluate, and reorganize all of the content on these pages so that it can be made more meaningful and useful for its users. My Cal Poly Portal: There are a number of different ways to obtain campus information using the customized My Cal Poly portal. Upon logging into the My Cal Poly portal webpage, the viewer should be connected to the main tab, which shows various links to campus information. There are a variety of other tabs in addition to the main one, such as technology, housing, and campus necessities, that appear across the top of the home page. Once clicked, each tab represents a separate screen on the page and can contain several channels, full of useful information. These tabs are used to organize the channels into a format that suits ones needs and can therefore be rearranged by being dragged into new positions and/or deleting and adding new ones, using the customize link. My Cal Poly portal users also have the ability to change the layout of their entire portal. They can do so by using the customize link, as stated above. The portal will bring up a screen that serves as the layout design page, from there the user can position the channel in the desired location within the portal layout, change the colors of the portal, and add any other tabs that they may want to use (My Cal Poly Support, 2011). If the user then decides that he/she does not like the current design, they can revert back to the old display by clicking revert to default layout at the top of the page (My Cal Poly Support, 2011). The main portal tab offers an Announcements Channel [which] is a powerful tool that allows users to receive information from various Cal Poly groups they are affiliated with. This can include campus-wide, departmental, course, or club information (My Cal Poly Support, 2011). The user can choose to subscribe or ~ 14 ~

unsubscribe to the channel, therefore displaying another customization method of the portal. The last, and very useful offering, of the My Cal Poly portal is the Single Click Access channel. The SCA, located on the main tab, allows [one] to use the Portal to login to other web-based applications with one user name and password, such as PASS, Mustang Jobs, and the Student Center (My Cal Poly Support, 2011). All of these offerings allow for the Cal Poly user to have easier access to necessary campus information. According to the Cal Poly Information Technology Services Service Desk, the My Cal Poly portal is designed to work with current versions of the Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers[but] does not render correctly on MAC's accessing with IE (My Cal Poly Support, 2011). This means that MAC users have to use Safari or Firefox in place of the Internet Explorer that they may be accustomed to using. Hopefully, with the new version 4 software of the uPortal, this problem can be fixed. Another feature of the My Cal Poly portal is the security precaution taken with inactivity timeouts (My Cal Poly Support, 2011). These timeout intervals are set by the campus and require the user to simply log back in. In order to avoid a timeout, the user must periodically press the enter key or move between pages (My Cal Poly Support, 2011). Below is a chart of the timeout sessions, according to the My Cal Poly support page on the ITS web page. My Cal Poly Portal PeopleSoft Enterprise Wizard 30 Minutes 45 Minutes 30 Minutes

Client Communication and Delivery In regards to the communication and delivery of the portal, Cal Poly is struggling. According to Mr. Kraker, this is probably the biggest weakness of the My Cal Poly portal. Not only is the portal so packed with information that there is not much room to add more, but it is delivered in a way that is nearly impossible to navigate through. In other words, the portals communication and delivery methods need some serious improvements. Communicating: The two main forms of communicating about the portal involve SOAR and word- of-mouth. As an incoming freshman, one must learn about the portal and what it is by attending SOAR. It is here that the freshmen are first introduced to what purpose the portal serves and how to go about creating one. There is little to zero information on how to customize the portal. The main information that is given at this orientation involves creating a username and password to be used to log in to the portal. Once this has been accomplished, the user is basically on their own in figuring out how to find and use the different features of it. There is a FAQ link in the upper right hand corner of the page that helps answers any questions that the student, staff, or faculty member may have. The ITS desk is also available for help if needed (My Cal Poly Support, 2011). Another form of communicating about the portal simply involves ~ 15 ~

word-of-mouth transformation. Many of the resources that are available on the portal are discovered by talking with friends, faculty, or other users of the portal. The portal is also promoted in various forms throughout the campus, such as in billboards and flyers, that use the portal to either gather or give out information. There is no set strategy for communicating about the portal, however these methods have worked out, in some way or another, in past years. Delivery: The delivery of the My Cal Poly portal is a bit more complicated. The format of the portal is messy and unorganized, full of additional information (Kraker, 2012). Since the information that has been added to the portal has been ongoing since the year 2000, it is necessary to reorganize the way that the information is displayed. As explained above, the initial after-log-in display concerns a main tab, almost like a home page, with many other tabs lined up across the top of the webpage itself. Although the tabs, channels, and colors can be customized by the user, the various information displays are long and difficult to manage. Since the portal is essentially a webpage, it can be viewed on any computer, laptop, or Ipad, and with the new version 4 uPortal software, on a smartphone as well. The Customer The next segment of the situation analysis involves defining the customer. The customer can be divided into two distinct categories, each needing the portal to complete a different job. The categories are: 1. The student 2. The faculty and staff Each has unique demographic description and use the portal in a different way. Here we will analyze each category based on demographics, psychographics, and what that particular group uses and needs most from their portal experience. The Student According to our client, the student is the first and foremost important customer to consider when designing the new Cal Poly web portal. There are many distinct groups within the student population, but our project would like to focus on the different needs between grade levels, specifically between Freshmen and Seniors. These two groups may have the most distinct and pressing needs for the portal, either as first-time users or as seasoned veterans using the portal to seek gainful employment after graduation. The following are relevant demographic features of the Cal Poly student body according to the Cal Poly Fact Book (2010). Cal Poly Student Population Total Number: 18,360 Female: 8,197 (44.6%) Male: 10, 163 (55.4%) ~ 16 ~

Average Age: 20.8 years Average unit load: 14.53 Freshman Sophomores Juniors Seniors Graduate 3595 2989 3674 6422 1680

Based on this information, it is safe to say the general population of students at Cal Poly would fall under the label of Generation Y. Generation Y is a segment that has little to no brand loyalty (Lazarevic, 2012), and although there is no competition for other Cal Poly portals, students likely search elsewhere for access to similar resources online. People belonging to Generation Y are suspicious or disenchanted with traditional forms of advertising, preferring to rely on recommendations from peers. This group is highly diverse and well educated, and most importantly for purposes of our project, are extremely comfortable with technology and are likely to be early adopters (Aquino, 2012). This segment has been influenced by an economic recession, war, and the threat of global warming (Engleman, 2009). The graph illustrates the headcount of students per college. It might be helpful to segment the student population by college. Engineering by far is the largest major, followed by Agriculture, Liberal Arts, Business, Science and Math, and then ~ 17 ~

Architecture. Each group could have unique needs, such as access to job offers, current events, and opportunities. The Staff After the students, our client informed us to focus next on the needs of the faculty and staff that access and utilize the Cal Poly portal. The following describes the breakdown between teaching staff and administrative staff according to the Cal Poly Fact Book (2010). Faculty (including part time): 1,220 Administration: 1229 Age in years: Under 48: 2,054 Over 48: 1,743 Due to the information given, a majority of faculty belong to the Baby Boomer generation, while a large number of the rest are part of Generation X. With this spread of demographics, it is important to keep both their needs in mind. Baby Boomers are those individuals born between 1946-1964 (Engleman, 2009). These individuals are noted for having a strong work ethic, and were shaped by events such as the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, as well as the Civil Rights Movement. This group is brand loyal and highly value the role of education, loyalty and a strong work ethic, with hours worked and time served to one organization to be seen as a measure of ones worth (Engleman, 2009). Generation X, once considered to be, the slacker generation, is now going to take the place of the Baby Boomers. This demographic values stability and tradition, which is important to consider when revising something that is used daily. Like Gen Y, this group is not considered to be brand loyal (Hachtmann, 2008). This group of faculty members embraces technology, but may not be as fluent or proficient as their Gen Y students. Therefore, we can expect this group of professors to want a portal that is more in keeping with the old version, while offering a few new useful features. Usage According to a study, SC3- Student Survey on Portal Improvements (2012), there were 44,439 logins on an average day. However, of those logins, only approximately 17,500 were unique. This leads us to believe that the same 17,500 people were repeatedly logging in throughout the day, most likely due to being timedout of the site. The second number gives a more accurate representation of the current traffic of the Cal Poly portal. Another aspect of usage that is important to keep in mind is the platforms that students and faculty use to access the portal. Below lists the different platforms and how many people use them to on April 10, 2012 according to a study performed by our client.

~ 18 ~

iDevice (iPhone, iPod, iPad) Android Internet Explorer Safari Chrome Firefox

2387 442 7,233 22,043 12,431 12,448

This information is important to consider when designing the new MyCalPoly because it shows that although there is a large demand for mobile versions of the portal, a majority of people still prefer to log in on a desktop or laptop computer. Therefore, the desktop version should not be overlooked when designing the content and design of the portal. The Competitor One of the main parts of our secondary data research involves discovering who our competitors are. Data management systems are essential for running universities nowadays. The features and characteristics of portals have changed over the years, but their efficient and informative features are key to keeping students, faculty, and administration connected. Cal Polys uPortal is just one option to the many different types of portals out there. For example, there are other big name software companies like Sun Gard and Jenzbar which have similar features. But even social network sites like Facebook are taking the place of portals with their new ability to create groups for people to congregate and upload documents to share. Below I will outline some of uPortals competitors and their offerings. Jenzbars mission is: We are exclusively dedicated to maximizing the success of colleges and universities in the key areas of constituent satisfaction, operational excellence, and enrollment, retention and advancementwhat we call ERA (Jenzbar, 2011). Jenzbar.com was founded in 1998 as an Internet portal and e-learning company that was used by administrators, professors, and students. They now serve over 700 campuses across the U.S. and worldwide (Jenzbar, 2011). Jenzbar made the move in September 2011 to connect their catalogs to Facebook. This gives the students the opportunity to browse their catalog and register for classes while not having to leave their Facebook page (Sohn, 2011). By making this change, Jenzbar is catering to the interests of students and their needs to multitask while being on the computer. With Facebooks almost 750 million active users, it would be silly for these companies to not take advantage of Facebooks many aspects including: marketing/communications, ~ 19 ~

course participation, academic advising information, alumni development, and retention/community building (Stoller, 2011). I find from experience that Facebook is the simplest form of communication between group members, especially since there isnt an efficient way to communicate within our Cal Poly portals.It is a strength that Jenzbar is implementing a way for students to better multitask and communicate, however, students may not want their personal Facebooks to be connected with school work. Also, in early August 2011 two major higher education software companies, Datatel and SunGard Higher Education released that they were going to join forces. This merger will expand this super companys client list to over 2,000 educationoriented institutions. With that, the new SunGard/Datatel company will have more than 50% market share for data management type software (Kolowich, 2011). SunGard currently offers a program called Degree Works where students can receive personalized advising and counseling, get a simple outline of courses and credit transfers, and can get help with a timely degree certification (About Datatel SGHE, 2012). Their Student Success and Retention Planning Services also offers a system to help identify at-risk students and intervene with appropriate timely support which will help benefit student success overall at the university (About Datatel SGHE, 2012). The merger is a strength for the two companies because it will expand their market share however it is a weakness for other higher education software companies who will be threatened by SunGard/Datatels new market power. Blackboard is another competitor and used to be a former customer to Cal Poly. Blackboard truly covers all aspects needed for a successful online education portal. They have Blackboard learn, connect, analytics, collaborate, transact, and mobile services, all of which make learning more effective and accessible (Blackboard, 2012). By having each of these services connected into one platform, it makes it easier on students to find what they need easily and quickly. From the research I have done on competitors it seems that many other softwares serve to have many of the same basic features that Cal Polys portal does. However, I do believe Cal Polys portal can make a lot of adjustments. Such as implementing a feature like SunGards which offers personalized advising and counseling for students or connecting the portal with Facebook or another type of communication software that makes it easier for students to connect when doing group work. Dian Schaffhausers article 10 Keys to the Portal stresses things like making critical info visible, design for accessibility, and make a mobile extension of the portal (Schaffhauser, 2012). These along with the other points are ideas that other campuses have implemented and are what Cal Poly should take into consideration when redesigning their portal. Environmental Forces The world is an ever-changing place and all things in it are changing as well. For this reason, it is important for our group to discuss some of the changing trends that we are concerned with: the economic, social, political, and technological trends These four ~ 20 ~

trends affect the way customers think, feel, and act about a product. They will be the main focus of this section of research as we try to discover our overall research questions about improving Cal Polys portal. Economic The Economy is an important factor in many business decisions, including the one that we are faced with. From a global standpoint, Our outlook ... in 2012 and 2013 is slower growth than the last couple of yearsabout 3% global GDP growth in 2012 with quite a bit of differentiation between the strongest performers and the weakest performers (Hatzius, 2012). Jan Hatzius, from Goldman Sachs, also stated that the economy in the US should remain about the same and that he is not expecting there to be another recession in the upcoming year. He expects the growth to slow down in the US as a result of some spill over from the European recession. Another contributing factor to the USs decrease or stabilization in economic growth will be owed to more fiscal restraints, spending cuts, and the possibility of higher taxes (Hatzius, 2012). California was the worlds eighth largest economy in 2010 (LA Times, 2010). Although the prospects for the national and California economies are guardedly positive, both economies are on the mend. Below is a graph of the nations real gross domestic product from 2010 to the prediction for 2013.

Despite these indications that the economy was improving at the close of 2011, a number of factors will dampen economic growth in 2012. Among them are decreases in consumer spending, the sensitivity of business payrolls to global economic activity, the ~ 21 ~

failure of Congress to address the federal deficit, and the European debt (Governors Budget Summary, 2012). The overall synthesis of Californias economy isnt the greatest. The GDP looks to be dropping over the course of 2012 and the global economic factors dont suggest otherwise. Europe is verging on going into a recession and the rest of the world, except for China, looks to be stagnant if not decreasing some. The US is going to slow down due to more fiscal restraints, spending cuts, and the possibility of higher taxes (Hatzius, 2012). Despite the forecast being largely negative, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Some sectors of the economy, including high technology and export markets, are doing well (Governors Budget Summary, 2012). Seeing as portal technologies are a part of the high technology sector, there should still be sufficient demand for the revamping of Cal Polys portal. Social Social trends are largely related to the popularity of programs such as the Mycalpoly Portal. To attain success, the new program should follow the trends of the population. One major social trend across the world is Facebook. People value it because it provides social cohesion in peoples personal network of relations, which is a strong predictor of things like trust and social support. People that utilize Facebook are particularly attracted to the ability to get support when they are in need or seeking help making decisions (Hampton, Goulet, Marlow, Rainie, 2012). The portal should be there to help rather than hinder. It should be able to answer all questions a student has, and if it cant it should provide a number they can call to get the information that they seek. A number of things these days are being customized to peoples delight. Credit card contracts are being customized to a consumer's spending profile, broadcasted radio changes to a media stream fitting just our mood and preferences, blockbuster drugs are being replaced by personalized medicine based on real time data tracking, and instead of a "world car" we just buy mobility when we need it where we need it how we need it (Piller, 2012). The Mycalpoly Portal should aim to satisfy specific needs of each individual based on their basic information, like Facebook. Depending on year, major and concentration, the portal could inform the student of different events or important dates as a way to make the site more interactive rather than just a tool to get to class information. The two main social trends that should be focused upon are ease of use and customization. If the portal integrated these two strategies into their plan, the portal would be much more useful to students and thus a success for the IT team. Political Lately, the political trends have not been so great for the Cal State University system. According to the Governors Budget Summary for the 2012-2013 year, With 23 campuses and approximately 412,000 students there will be a decrease of $200 ~ 22 ~

million in 2012-2013 for an unallocated reduction (Governors Budget 2012-2013, 2012). This is not a good outlook for the future of our schooling system, concerning new incoming students and current ones. Tuitions are sure to be increased, staff will be cut, classes will increase in size, and monetary support for new investments, like the new My Cal Poly portal, will get little to no help. Our education system is suffering greatly from these cuts, mainly because of the economic uncertainty, budgetary issues, and recessionary levels of consumer confidence (Governors Budget 2012-2013, 2012). In contrast to this though, President Obama has approved a recovery plan for the higher education system. He and Congress created the American Recovery and Investment Act in 2009, which granted over $30 billion to improve higher education learning and affordability for students at the college level (Education, 2012). This has been important for the steps which need to be taken concerning the college level of education across the nation. Our nation is experiencing a time of cuts and deficits, but by funding the needed programs to support the future, especially education, we are allowing students to become smarter, more successful, and in turn may flip around this bad economy in the future. Technological Technology over the past several years has been growing at a surprising rate. Between social media networking, like Facebook and Twitter, and the more professional side of it, through websites like Linkedin, people from all over the world have been able to connect for various different reasons. One statistic from 2010 states that the world now spends over 110 billion minutes on social networks and blog sites (Social Networks/Blogs, 2010). This just shows the ever increasing competition for online sites to further advance their own websites to attract more users. Another website called Pinterest has been the third-fastest-growing site on the Internet in the United States, with 17.8 million unique visitors in February, compared with 11.7 million in January, according to comScore, an internet database company (Sutter, 2012). With blogging and social websites like these, sites such as the portal will be underused because of the increased competition and other technological advancements which are made to these other sites. If there was a way to integrate this sort of social aspect into the portal, then users may not even have to use Facebook or other related sites to do their networking on. Other portals used by universities across the nation seem to be experiencing some similar and contrastingly different problems in their sites. It seems as though a my university portal is implemented not only at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, but at other universities such as Arizona State, Washington State, Bucknell, and others. These sites give students an access to the needed scholastic functions to be up to date with classes, registration, campus events, reminders, and loads of other information. For example, ASUs old version of the portal contained so many pages on its site that it was nicknamed the link farm (Schaffhauser, 2011). All of this can be overwhelming for a student though, as they browse through their portal only to find heaps of different links, descriptions, and random information that may not even particulate to anything the ~ 23 ~

student needs to handle. As the newer versions of these portals are introduced, current problems that they face should hopefully be eliminated or organized in a more mindpleasing manner so that students can work their way through campus information with ease. In addition to online technological trends, the new age of mobile devices is sweeping across the world. The applications offered through these devices seem almost endless. People are integrating the use of mobile in their everyday lives, from text messaging to emailing, time managing to playing games. Some of the most important functions on mobile devices which were identified by a team of researchers were the applications that involved communication, social networking, web, weather, news, multimedia streaming, finance, and travel (Factors Influencing Quality, 2012). Through this variety, a normal person can take a small issue at hand and solve it easily through one of the offered applications. Furthermore, this new technology has given people like Dr. Selanikio from the company DataDyne the ability to develop and promote new technologies for health and international development, including the award-winning EpiSurveyor mobile data collection project and he was also named by Forbes magazine as one of the most powerful innovators of 2009 (Mobile Technology, 2011). This highlights how people are becoming successful from their progress with this up and coming industry. With advancements in this area, the portal can be integrated to have a mobile application which may be extremely useful to students. Those who have Androids or iPhones can use this on the go in a simple manner to be able to look up classes, locations, and other information about the school.

Works Cited "About Datatel SGHE." DegreeWork Degree Audit, Web Based Course Management System. 2012. Web. 12 Apr. 2012. <http://www.sungardhe.com/solutions.aspx?id=1252>. "About Datatel SGHE." Retention Planning Services, Student Retention Strategy, Planning. 2012. Web. 12 Apr. 2012. <http://www.sungardhe.com/solutions.aspx?id=1184>. "About UPortal." Jasig, 2009. Web. 10 Apr. 2012. <http://www.jasig.org/uportal>. Blackboard. Blackboard, Inc., 2012. Web. 11 Apr. 2012. <http://www.blackboard.com/>. Aquino, J. (2012). Gen y: The next generation of spenders. Customer Relationship Management, 16(2), 20. California Polytechnic State University (2010). Fact Book. San Luis Obispo, CA. "Education." The White House. The White House Government, 2012. Web. 1 Apr. 2012.

~ 24 ~

Engelman, E. (2009). Generation y vs. baby boomers: How workplace commitment levels affect recruitment and retention of generation y within corporate america. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. "Governor's Budget 2012-2013." Ebudget.ca.gov. State of California, 10 Jan. 2012. Web. 11 Apr. 2012. Hachtmann, F. (2008). Generation x revisited: An exploratory cross-cultural case study. American Academy of Advertising. Conference. Proceedings (Online), 13.
Hampton, Keith, Lauren S. Goulet, Cameron Marlow, and Lee Rainie. "The Structure of Friendship." Pew Internet. 3 Feb. 2012. Web. 12 Apr. 2012. <http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Facebook-users/Part-3-The-Structure-ofFriendship/The-Structure-of-Frienship.aspx?src=prc-section > Hatzius, Jan. "Outlook 2012." Goldman Sachs. 2012. Web. 16 Apr. 2012. <http://www.goldmansachs.com/our-thinking/global-economic-outlook/outlook2012/index.html?cid=PS_01_20_06_99_01_04_t1>.

Ickin, Selim, Katarzyna Wac, Markus Fiedler, Lucjan Janowski, Jin-Hyuk Hong, and Anind K. Dey. "Factors Influencing Quality of Experience of Commonly Used Mobile Applications." IEEE Communications Magazine. IEEE, Apr. 2012. Web. 11 Apr. 2012. Jenzabar. Jenzabar, Inc., 2011. Web. 10 Apr. 2012. <http://www.jenzabar.com/>. Kolowich, Steve. "A Back-Office Deal | Inside Higher Ed." Inside Higher Ed. 8 Aug. 2011. Web. 09 Apr. 2012. <http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2011/08/08/ sungard_and_datatel_announce_merger>. Kraker, D. (2012, April 3). Client Introduction. San Luis Obispo, CA.
LA Times. "Money & Company." California Economy Still World's Eighth-largest, despite

Lazarevic, V. (2012). Encouraging brand loyalty in fickle generation y consumers.Young Consumers, 13(1), 45-61. "Mobile Technology and New Media: Trends and Opportunities - Panelist Bios & Photos." Tech.state.gov. Tech At State, 9 Sept. 2011. Web. 10 Apr. 2012. My Cal Poly Support. (2011, December 05). Retrieved April 14, 2012, from Cal Poly Information Technology Services - Service Desk: http://www.servicedesk.calpoly.edu/content/my_cp_support/index
Piller, Frank T. "Mass Customization & Open Innovation News." : Customization Trends. 2012. Web. 16 Apr. 2012. <http://mass-customization.de/customization_trends/>.

Powers, E. (2006, March 1). Open to Open Source. Retrieved April 15, 2012, from Inside Higher Ed: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/03/01/open
Recession. 2 Dec. 2010. Web. 16 Apr. 2012. <http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2010/12/california-economy-ranking.html>.

~ 25 ~

Schaffhauser, Dian. "10 Keys to the Portal." Campus Technology. 1105 Media Inc., 1 Aug. 2011. Web. 09 Apr. 2012. <http://campustechnology.com/articles/2011/08/01/10keys-to-the-portal.aspx?sc_lang=en>. Schaffhauser, Dian. "Unicon Adds Portlet Updates to Open Source UPortal." Campus Technology. 12 Mar. 2012. Web. 09 Apr. 2012. <http://campustechnology.com/articles/2012/03/12/unicon-adds-portlet-updates-toopen-source-uportal.aspx?sc_lang=en>. "Social Networks/Blogs Now Account for One in Every Four and a Half Minutes Online." Web log post. Nielsonwire.com. The Nielson Company, 5 June 2010. Web. 10 Apr. 2012. Sohn, Tim. "Jenzabar Links Course Catalogs to Facebook." Campus Technology. 1105 Media Inc., 19 Sept. 2011. Web. 11 Apr. 2012. <http://campustechnology.com/articles/2011/09/19/jenzabar-links-course-catalogsfacebook.aspx?sc_lang=en>. Stoller, Eric. "Is Facebook Mature Enough To Be A Portal Solution | Inside Higher Ed." Inside Higher Ed. 17 Aug. 2011. Web. 11 Apr. 2012. <http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/student_affairs_and_technology/is_facebook_ma ture_enough_to_be_a_portal_solution>. Sutter, John D. "Report: Pinterest Is Third Most-visited Social Site." CNN.com. Cable News Network, 6 Apr. 2012. Web. 11 Apr. 2012.

Appendix B: Observational Research

B-1: Group Observational Data
Part 1 Introduction The observational fieldwork plan that our group developed was heavily based upon the idea of customer-computer interaction, meaning how students use their laptops or computers, as well as the environment in which the computers are being used. The main strategy that we wanted to implement for this team activity was that of keeping as spectators, so that our information can be as accurate and as unbiased as possible. We also wanted to make sure that each member was striving to obtain the necessary information, pertaining to the research questions we have chosen to focus on in this section. Although we strived to choose each observation location randomly, as ~ 26 ~

well as observed students randomly and chose different times for each observation, we recognize that there may be bias in our observations and we noted them in our I2s. Goal Our purpose was to try as best we could to answer a few of our previously stated research questions, which we saw as most pertinent and applicable to observational research, in order to further understand the customer experience while using the My Cal Poly portal. Next, we chose to explore two different primary research techniques, 1) traditional customer observation in a certain natural setting, 2) an instruction based interaction where we each observed one person as they tried to navigate the portal while simultaneously conveying their thoughts aloud. We verbally gave each person these instructions before they began, then remained as spectators after the observation had begun. The observer asked the subject to open up a web browser before they began giving the instructions. The observer then explained these directions: - Please do not start until I tell you. I will ask you to navigate through the portal in order to complete three tasks. I will ask for you to complete each task, one at a time, and then observe you as you try to complete each task. Please feel free to talk me through the process or say anything else that may come to mind. Before beginning a new task, please go back to the main portal page as this serves as your starting point. You may begin now by logging onto your portal page. (Observer then started the timer). These are the 3 tasks we asked the subject to complete: 1. Customize two aspects of your portal. 2. Find your empl ID. 3. Navigate to the appropriate page(s) to buy a campus parking pass. These two observational techniques allowed us to effectively answer our research questions and reach our objectives, so we therefore strived to derive the most applicable information from what we have gathered. Questions/Justifications

What is the research question(s) that the observation will seek to answer? 1) What do Cal Poly students use the portal for? 2) How often do they use it? 3) How confident are students in navigating the portal?

~ 27 ~

We chose these three questions because they can be the most easily answered based solely on observations, excluding the last question, which we answered by using the instructional method.

How involved will the observer be (spectator or participant)? In answering research questions one and two, we all acted as spectators observing students in different places around Cal Polys campus. For the third question, we also acted as spectators, however we each gave a participant the instructions and observed them while they tried to execute the tasks. In other words, we acted as complete observers in the first observation and then acted as participant observers in the interviewing observation. We chose to be spectators because participating would suggest a bias outcome and not lead us to gain as effective results.

Remaining Questions The following information can be found in the chart below:

The gender and year of the subject who was observed in the second part of our observations. What location was used in the observation for part 1? How much total time was spent observing? The time and date of each observation. Member Name Observation: Location, Date, Time (part 1) Subject: Gender, Year, Location . Date, Time (part 2) Junior, female, subjects home.
April 21st, 2012 from 11:33pm-11:38pm.

Total time spent observing 30+5=35

Chelsea Brown

24 hour quiet study room in the Library.

April 21st, 2012 from 5:10pm5:35pm.

Chris DaCruz

3rd floor computer lab in the Freshman, male, Business building. April 23rd, observers house. April 2012 from 12:10pm-12:30pm. 23rd, 2012 from 7:30pm7:35pm. Computer lab on first floor of the library. April 23rd, 2012 from 1:45pm-2:05pm. Freshman, female, Trinity dorm. April 22nd, 2012 from 7:40pm7:46pm.

20+5= 25

Hannah Hughes

20+6=26

~ 28 ~

Ryan Hakes UU lounge area in front of Chumash auditorium. April 23rd, 2012 from 10:50am11:10am.

Sophomore, male, UU lounge. April 23rd, 2012 from 11:30am-11:35am.

20+5=25

Jacqueline Rainey

Julians Patisserie in the library April 22, 2012 from 3:45pm- 4:05pm

Senior, female, Kinesiology office April 23, 2012 3:15pm3:27pm

20+10=30

Rationale We chose these locations because they are all popular computer usage areas that attract different types of students. We thought having a diverse location base would allow for a more random sample of students, and hopefully better data to fully understand all the observed students in their natural settings. Although we planned to randomly observe students to answer research questions one and two, for the third question we decided it would be a good idea to have each member give instructions to a different person (gender and year) at Cal Poly, so that we make sure to get another diverse sample. Because our first observations were random, there were no guidelines for observing by gender or year. In the second part of our observations we assigned each group member a grade level and gender to observe. We did our best to get a representative sample from each grade level and gender. Methods to ensure systematic data gathering We chose to make a template on Excel that includes time, running record, and our observer comments. Each member of our group has their own pictures, schematics, and charts to explain their location. However, each member followed the same format for the field notes in the Excel format. This way, we all had the same format which made the synthesis for part two much easier. This is what our Excel template looks like: Time X:XX am/pm Running Record Subject..blah blah blah Observer Comments I think and feel. Blah blah blah

~ 29 ~

Part 2 Introduction In doing our synthesis, we discovered that there were three main trends that at least three members of the group saw as significant. However, we also noted three individual observations that we concluded were not necessarily trends, rather important facts relevant to our research questions. Trends The portal is used for getting work done. Description Used Poly Learn and My Classes section to get to coursework, grades, or other class related items, more than the info on the actual portal itself. Did not use the portal as often when in more social environments. *Answers research question number one: What do Cal Poly students use the portal for? Justification I2: Hannah- Boy to my left is logging onto portal. Went to "My Classes" and then to Polylearn. Is looking at his grades. Then clicked on an assignment and a work document opened up. Begins to look over the document. I2: Chris- New female entered through the back door and sat down next to me. Logged on to portal to look at course work. I2: Jackie- on tables are laptops, books, notebooks, food and coffee. I2: Ryan- New girl finds an empty round table, sits down, unpacks her computer and materials; first website accessed is Pinterest.

People often multi-task while using the My Cal Poly portal.

I2: Jackie- students navigate between multiple windows and tabs on their laptops, people closest to me have stopped conversing, do not see anyone on portal, but most have a tab open with PolyLearn. *Does not answer a specific I2: Chris- Male in front of me on research question, but portal. Now on Facebook. Now back nevertheless is important to to student center. our research in that it allows us I2 Chelsea- Clicks on the My Cal to see that the portal is used Poly portal tab. She does not sign on a regular basis, alongside into the portal. She goes back to the We noticed that people were constantly switching between the portal and other web pages.

~ 30 ~

other things. Students often click around to find the necessary information they need. In our individual observations, we noticed that people did not exactly know where to navigate through the portal in order to get to the correct place, but clicked around various tabs/links until they find out where they needed to go. *Answers research question: How confident are students in navigating the portal?

library database search page. I2: Hannah- She clicked on "Personal Info" then "My Student Info" then "Names" and then was on the ORACLE page. She realized this was incorrect. I2: Chris- He scrolls down page then clicked on registration and enrollment then facility services then transportation info then Money matters to parking and finally found it on the online parking services page. I2: Ryan- Subject clicks on the campus necessities tab, doesnt find the link then looks under the transportation link, says It should be there, then clicks the site map link to see all tabs displayed on the page and finds the online parking services link. I2: Chelsea- Says aloud, Campus necessities maybe? She then clicks on the campus necessities tab and scrolls up and down, reading the various offerings of the page. Then she clicks on the money matters tab and scrolls up and down and reads the various offerings. She moves back to the campus necessities tab.

Individual Observations The Cal Poly Search Channel is underutilized.

Description

Justification I2: Hannah- After clicking on "Cal Poly Search" multiple links popped up

Hannah noticed that her subject used the Cal Poly Search feature located under the Campus ~ 31 ~

Necessities tab. We feel that this important feature is hidden and would be better utilized if it was more visible on the portal main page. *Answers the research question: What features do students want to see on the portal? The My Cal Poly portal page may be used as a home page for a web browser. Chelsea discovered that her subject had the My Cal Poly portal page set as her web browser home page. We thought that this was a significant fact to note because it demonstrates the fact that she utilizes the portal enough to have it be set as the first thing she sees when she opens up the Internet. *Answers the research question: How often do they use it? When using the My Cal Poly portal, it is often difficult to share work with others. Jackie discovered that students had to get up numerous times to look at other group members work. Maybe the portal could offer a platform for temporarily sharing work with other group members. *Answers the research question: What features do students want to see on their portal? Conclusion

and she clicked on the first one saying "Parking Permits- University Police Department." She said "I found it!"

I2: Chelsea- Wow. It took me this long to figure this out! Ugh! The My Cal Poly Portal page is the home webpage for her browser!

I2: Jackie- members of the groups working together have all had to get out of their chairs at least twice to share their work with other team members.

In conclusion, we developed six total insights from the behaviors that we observed while completing our individual assignments. We tried not to over generalize as best we could. We found that the My Cal Poly portal page is often used while simultaneously doing other things and/or to complete work, and that people are often unsure where to find information and resort to clicking around until they find it. The My

~ 32 ~

Cal Poly Portal also has an underutilized search option. In addition, the portal does not have a sharing feature that could be very useful for students. We also wanted to note that we tried to make our samples as relevant as possible, using the methods that we explained in the above analysis. However, there may be some bias in terms of the second observations where some of us observed and gave instructions to people that we personally know.

B-2: Chelseas Observational Data

Part 1
Location: 1st Floor in the 24-hour quiet study room of the Robert E. Kennedy library st Date: Saturday, April 21 , 2012 Time: 5:10-5:35pm Observer: Chelsea Brown

Initial Observations In order to better understand our customer, the My Cal Poly portal student user, each member of our team conducted observational research. We wanted to better gather customer information about the portal, so that we may gain insight into what the students of Cal Poly use the portal for, how often they use the portal, and how confident they are in navigating the portal. These research questions were answered through conducting observations. Our team discussed the field plan that we intended to use while conducting research so as to indicate how and where the time would be spent, for how long, and which documentation we would use to note our findings. Below is my analysis of the observational research study method that I conducted. It was my goal to remain invisible, as a complete observer or spectator, during the first observation so that the results I obtained would be as accurate and unbiased as possible. However, for the second observation session, I gave explicit instructions to a random student in order to answer the question of how easily they can navigate through the portal. Therefore, in this observation I acted as an observer participant because my identity was known to the person being observed. I began my first observation well prepared with my observation chart, in the 24hour quiet study room of the Robert E. Kennedy library. This room is located on the far northeast side of the building, on the first floor. I chose this location with my group because we all agreed that it is a place that attracts a certain type of student (that needs quiet to study and get work done) and also because it is a place where students use their laptops often. It also met the requirements of being a specific, natural setting. I began my research at 5:10PM on Saturday, April 21st, 2012. I chose this date and time because I happened to go be going to the library anyway and also because I have seen ~ 33 ~

this room used by many students on previous Saturdays at this time, so I knew that I would be able to locate at least one student using their laptop. Although the time that my group and I discussed included a twenty minute session, I became intrigued by the observation and took a total of thirty minutes to complete my first observation. I took detailed notes, which included jottings and my personal comments, while watching the person on her laptop. The 24-hour quiet study room is a relatively large room with three doors of entry/exit, nine six person tables, and many sofa chairs and side/end tables. There were a total of thirteen people in the room, including myself, throughout the entire session. The chair that I, the observer, sat in was in the far northeast corner of the room. I sat behind the person that I was observing and we were both facing west, with our backs to the wall (mine against it) and windows to our right. When I first entered the room to start my observation, there were twelve people all seated in different locations throughout the room, including the person that I chose to observe. There were six people that had laptops and out of those six, this was the one I chose to observe because she was the only person that I noticed was accessing the portal, after having walked around and looked at them all. Below is a picture taken from my exact perspective, in the chair that I was sitting in during the observation. I have also included various other pictures of the panorama of the room, again from the perspective of my location, as well as an image showing the location of the 24-hour quiet study room.

Subject

~ 34 ~

Running Record and Observer Comments Time Running Record User clicks on web browser on laptop which brings up the My Cal Poly portal webpage. As I was writing notes, she clicked on the library link. Looks up articles on the library database. Guy rides by on his bike outside the window to the right. Clicks on one article, scans it for a few seconds, then goes back to the webpage where all of the articles are listed. Stops to grab her phone from her backpack on the floor and looks at it. Types something. Then goes back to the search on her laptop. Observer Comments She is fast. Nice computer. Man, it is hard to see up close from here. Was she already on the portal page before I started watching?

5:10pm5:12pm

5:13pm5:14pm

Has she been here for a long time? Maybe shes doing a research paper and thats why she has library books open and is using the database.

~ 35 ~

5:15pm5:16pm

5:17pm5:18pm

Goes back to original database search page. Types something into one of the search boxes at the top of the page. Articles pop up. Scrolls through the different articles listed. Clicks on other tab which is the My Cal Poly portal home page, looks at it for no more than one second, and goes back to article listings. Types in another new search. Only one article option pops up on the webpage. Types in another new search. Twirls her hair around. Types in another new search. Person to the left of her, at a separate table, leaves the room. Clicks on the My Cal Poly portal tab. She does not sign into the portal. She goes back to the library database search page. Person who left comes back in and sits down in the same seat. She does not look up. Goes to Wikipedia link that was already loaded on a separate tab. Looks for two seconds, then goes to Google search bar in the upper right hand corner of her web browser. Shifts positions to her left side, resting her elbow on the desk and her head in the palm of that hand. She slouches. Then she sits back up and straightens her back. Everyone around is very focused on their work. Car drives by outside. People to the left of her start to talk quietly and she looks over. Two more cars go by in the opposite direction of us. Looks over again at the people talking. Bites her nails. Types in a new search. Stretches her arms above her head and breathes deeply. Shuffles the papers in front of her around. Types in another new search to the library database. Goes to the portal tab. Clicks on the link on the upper left corner of her web browser. A new page opens up, Google. Crosses her legs and twirls her hair. Goes to the library ~ 36 ~

Author, title, keyword maybe? Did she not know what to do on the portal or she couldnt remember why she brought it up?

She still has not written one thing down. Looking distraught. She has a normal looking layout, with no special skin or customized preferences from what I can see. Did the portal sign her out automatically and thats why she is not signed in now? Weird because she was just signed in a couple of minutes ago.

5:19pm5:22pm

5:23pm5:24pm

Good girl! Remain focused. Dont use Wikipedia!

5:25pm5:26pm

I cant see! Oh good, she moved back. Is she giving up? Is she over it?

5:27pm5:29pm

Bad idea! Bus zone only buddy.

5:30pm5:32pm 5:33pm5:34pm

Go on the portal more! Wow. It took me this long to figure this out! Ugh! The My Cal Poly Portal page is the home webpage for her browser! The girl sitting in front of her

database search again. Scrolls through articles 5:35pm Clicks out of all tabs and shuts her computer.

looks strangely like Angelina Jolie. Leaving so soon?

Conclusion After taking the jottings down during the time frame allotted, I went back and wrote in a detailed description of everything that I could remember. I felt very dumb having not realized sooner that the only reason why the portal came up so often is because it was her homepage for her web browser. However, this realization also made me think about the fact that if she has set the My Cal Poly portal page as her homepage, that means that she uses it frequently enough to have it be the first thing she sees when she opens up the Internet or it is important enough to have it be set there. Hopefully this information can be used in some way to further benefit our team on our quest to helping make the portal a better, more user friendly portal. Overall, I believe that I successfully developed some sort of ability to observe and take field notes, in order to better understand the behaviors of our student customer. Part 2
Location: 1921 Hope St., Observers House Date: Saturday, April 21st, 2012 Time: 11:33pm-11:38pm Observer: Chelsea Brown Subject: Gia, third year Business student

Introduction I asked the subject to open up a web browser before they began giving the instructions. I then explained these directions: - Please do not start until I tell you. I will ask you to navigate through the portal in order to complete three tasks. I will ask for you to complete each task, one at a time, and then observe you as you try to complete each task. Please feel free to talk me through the process or say anything else that may come to mind. Before beginning a new task, please go back to the main portal page as this serves as your starting point. You may begin now by logging onto your portal page. (Observer then started the timer). These are the 3 tasks I asked the subject to complete: 1. Customize two aspects of your portal. 2. Find your empl ID. 3. Navigate to the appropriate page(s) to buy a campus parking pass ~ 37 ~

Time

Running Record

Observer Comments

Chelsea: I will ask you to do three tasks using the My Cal Poly portal page. I will say one at a time and when I have seen that you have completed it, I will tell you the next one. Gia: Okay. Chelsea: Please customize two aspects of your portal. Gia begins by opening up the Safari web browser. She types into the Url: 11:33pmwww.my.calpoly.edu and logs in using her 11:34pm username and password. She then goes straight to the customize tab in the upper right-hand corner of the main homepage. She begins by clicking on locale. Says Whats a locale?....OhEnglish. Changes the setting to English. She then goes back to the customize page and says Skinhmmm looking at the different customize options. Then she changes the skin and looks at me for further direction. Chelsea: Please find your Empl ID. She begins by going back to the main tab on the far left side of the portal page. She then 11:35pmclicks on the personal info tab and scrolls 11:36pm down almost to the end and shows me that it is located in the lower left corner. She looks at me again for further instructions. Chelsea: Navigate to the appropriate page(s) to buy a campus parking pass. She begins by going back to the main tab. She then stops and thinks for a second. Says aloud, Campus necessities maybe? She then clicks on the campus necessities tab and scrolls up and down, reading the 11:37pm- various offerings of the page. Then she 11:38pm clicks on the money matters tab and scrolls up and down and reads the various offerings. She moves back to the campus necessities tab. Says aloud, I swear I have bought them on here before. Scrolls all the way down, looks at the far left side and says, parking. Shows me to confirm. Chelsea: Great, thank you! ~ 38 ~

Holy lord she is SO fast. She knew exactly what to do. She didnt even blink. And her portal is already customized

Good lord I should have picked a freshman. I dont even have time for thoughts with this one!

This girl is NUTS.

Gia: Thats it? Chelsea: Yup! The living room of the house in which the second observation took place is relatively small. It has one couch, where the person being observed sat, as well as a sofa chair, a coffee table, and TV stand. I sat directly next to the person being observed, on their right hand side, and remained there for the entire observation. I began the observation the moment I started to give her the directions. I have created a diagram of the set up of the room, to better describe the scene. The second observation that I did was in the living room of the subject. I chose this location because the person was more comfortable in this setting and it was the most convenient for her. My group decided that each one of us should observe a different gender and year, so that the sample overall can be more random. I observed a third year female and gained consent from her to share her information. I began the observation at 11:33PM on Saturday, April 21st, 2012. The observation took a total of five minutes. I took down various jottings of the persons behaviors and comments, as well as my own thoughts. Door TV

Coffee Table

Subject

Me

Sofa Chair

~ 39 ~

Random Notes: The first observation I conducted was in the quiet study room, therefore my notes lack the use of quotations from the observed student. The second observation done was on a third year female Cal Poly student that I personally know, therefore results could contain a bias. The second observation was significantly shorter in time than the first.

B-3: Ryans Observational Data

Part 1 Location: UU Lounge Area Date: Monday, April 23, 2012 Time: 10:50 11:10am Observer: Ryan Hakes Initial Observations This room is located inside the University Union building, right outside of the Chumash auditorium. In the area which I faced, I counted 21 available seats for people to sit in. These seats were either wooden or small, with a round back piece. They slid underneath the 12 round, wooden tables located across the middle and far side of the room. The tables against the wall were very close in vicinity to one another, but the others in the center of the room had decent spacing. I would say that these tables could fit 2 people snugly, and any more people at a table would just be crowded. The rest of the seating were red and blue colored couches, which seemed much more comfortable and relaxing. Along the wooden walls were a variety of paintings and artwork, some which included Albert Einstein and an abstract metal piece which was about 10 feet long. The lighting fixtures in the room faced upward towards the ceiling yet gave a bright glow to the whole room. This was contributed by the outside lighting from the sun which gleamed through the glass windows. The overall mood in this area was very open, with a wide range of talking, laughter, and people moving around and getting to places.

~ 40 ~

Picture of the viewpoint from where I conducted my observations in the UU

Running Record and Observer Comments Time 10:50am Running Records Girl at table in front of me studying with textbook but still on Facebook and listening to iPod; shortly finishes up, packs things and leaves 2 guys sitting behind me discussing globalization and the global change while reviewing slides on a computer through Microsoft Powerpoint Group of 4 (2 males/2 females) at a round table next to me, crowded table with many papers and phones scattered across; one person on a computer, but cant see screen Friend walks up to same table and begins conversation with one girl Single girl at table alone reads her textbook; has Starbucks coffee and pastry on table Girl on comfy 2 seater couch up against the window behind me is sleeping There are 4 different people around the room with Starbucks products (2 male, 2 female) New girl finds an empty round table, sits down, unpacks her computer and materials; first ~ 41 ~ Observer Comments Going to class at 11

Reviewing for test in the same class

Very distracting to others at table trying to work Reviewing for class and getting breakfast Up late the night before studying Again, waking up before class

website accessed is Pinterest (a picture blogging social media site) Same girl is very focused on website and scrolls through many pictures, doesnt get started on work right away Same girl is wearing soccer shorts and running shoes with a jacket 10:55am Boy at table by himself finishes studying, packs up books, puts on rain jacket, takes a drink of his thermos and leaves Soccer girl then goes on Facebook for 1 minute, then puts in headphones and pulls up iTunes to play a song, then refers back to Pinterest Many people are walking by in the aisles and going to a back door by the auditorium All round tables in the area are occupied One girl uses her smartphone to text someone Another girl leaves her seat on the single comfy couch A second person approaches the group of 4 next to me to start conversation; disturbs the guy on his computer (makes a disruptive facial expression) One member of the now 5 person group table falls asleep in chair 2 new girls fill an empty table towards the back of the room, ask a single person from another table to borrow a chair, and bring it over to their table These 2 girls sit down, chat, laugh, dont start their work yet One male finishes up work on laptop (cannot see screen), puts it into his backpack and leaves with his headphones in Other girl on Pinterest finally starts to get to work with Microsoft Word, reviews her notes ~ 42 ~

Procrastinating before the large amount of work she has to get done Its cold outside, and she just came back or will be going to the gym Going to class at 11

Needs some music to jam to

There is a meeting in the auditorium Midterms are coming up during week 5 Relief from work

They know a lot of people, and may invite friends to come study with them Isnt paying attention to others and just wants to catch some shut eye

11:00am

Need to catch up after the weekend Going to class

Has an essay to begin/revise for a writing

11:05am

on paper and listens to iTunes Male to the right of me on computer in the group of 5 gets distracted again by conversation Male comes up to an open table with 2 Starbucks drinks and opens up computer to go on Facebook immediately Male who approached table asks Do you have bible study tonight? and the other responds no 3 males show up to the only open table across the room, but there are no chairs at the table; stand around table talking and looking for chairs Go to 3 different tables, ask people Are you using this chair? and Can I borrow this chair? and snag 3 chairs to bring back and sit down with Multiple people exit the back room in the Chumash auditorium Chatter becomes very loud in the room; every seat and table is filled

class, needs music to focus

Social networking is the most important thing on their mind He wants to hangout later today This is the only place they will study, and they need to improvise to find seating Want to all sit together to work

Meeting is finished Added noise causes people to talk louder; people find this spot as a good location to study or chat

Part 2 Location: UU Lounge Area Date: Monday, April 23, 2012 Time: 11:30 11:35am Observer: Ryan Hakes Subject: Justin, second year Construction Management student Introduction I told my subject that I was going to ask him to navigate his way through certain tasks on the portal. I said, I will ask you one task at a time and then observe you as you complete the task. Please feel free to talk out loud but you cannot ask me questions as to how to complete each task. The three tasks I asked my subject to complete were: 1. Customize two aspects of your portal. 2. Find your EMPL/Student ID. ~ 43 ~

3. Navigate to the appropriate page to buy a campus parking pass. Time 11:30am Running Record Asked to complete first task Subject went straight to the customization button at top of the page Subject said, I want to go to the money matters tab Adds a new channel to the student page Observer Comments

Subject then stays on the customization page he initially went to Decides to remove the bookmarks channel from his page Time taken: 45 seconds Asked to complete second task Finds the personal info tab Subject says, I have done this many times before Easily finds the ID number on the side of the page Subject says, Every student should know how to do this Time taken: 15 second Asked to complete third task Subject says, I have never done this before

He seemed slightly confused with the organization on the page Makes his first customization on the page with ease Knew that he could make more customizable options from this page Makes his second customization

11:32am

He has had to look up this option for previous school related tasks

It is an important thing for students to know about

11:33am

clicks on the campus necessities tab, doesnt find the link Looks under the transportation link, says, It should be there

It has not been necessary for him to buy a parking pass before, probably because he doesnt drive a car up here at college It almost seems like this link would be under this tab because of how it is labeled Transportation directly relates to driving/parking cars

~ 44 ~

Subject then clicks the site map link to see all tabs displayed on the page

By doing this it would be easy to find the link if all of them are displayed out for him to see

11:35am

finds the money matters tab in turn finds the online parking services link Finds the appropriate page, says, should have another link

Time taken: 1 minute 15 seconds

With the trouble he had finding the link it seems that there should be an easier way to reach it This was the hardest task for him to complete

Quantitative Data Number of people in general area: ~35 Number of people on computers: 9 (25.7%) Number of people on the portal: 0 (0%) Number of people on social media sites: 2 (5.7%) Number of people on smartphones: 5 (14.3%) Number of people studying: 19 (54.3%) Number of people chatting: 10 (28.6%) Number of people sitting alone: 12 (34.3%) Number of people in groups of 2+: 7 groups (16 people) (45.7%) Final Notes After conducting my observations in the UU lounge area for 20 minutes, I gained some effective information and some not. Not too many of the people in this room used computers (25.7%), and a bunch of others used textbooks to study from. I would say that the textbook reading and chatting were the main activities being done. I was not able to observe anybody on the MyCalPoly portal in my vicinity, possibly because everyone already knew what work they had to get done, or because I could not verify that they were on it since I did not see all the screens of those on a laptop. The only websites that I was able to observe were Pinterest and Facebook, and I also saw two males using Microsoft Powerpoint. There were a large amount of people consuming Starbucks products while they were working. I would assume that this is because people had to be rejuvenated to start their day of studying and going to classes. I noticed that the people working in groups of two or more people were more off task, chatting and laughing consistently, not focusing on the work in front of them.

~ 45 ~

The instructional portion of the project led me to a couple conclusions about how confident students are in navigating around the portal. By being able to find the empl ID in 15 seconds, and customizing 2 aspects in 45 seconds, it led me to believe that the subject I interviewed had good knowledge of the portal. My theory was then proved wrong when he could not easily find the campus parking pass page, since that was one link he had never seen before. I think that with the amount of links on the home page of the portal, it leads the users to become overwhelmed with the amount of information displayed, and certain links should be more easily accessible and searchable. Some needed links are hidden from the users and make it hard to come across. My research is very limited though, so I could not account for all students who use the portal.

B-4: Hannahs Observational Data

Part 1 Location: Poly Connect Computer Lab on the first floor of the library Date: Monday, April 23, 2012 Time: 1:44-2:05 pm Observer: Hannah Hughes Initial Observations The computer lab on the first floor of the library is somewhere I had never been before. I didnt know how it worked either. I thought students could just walk up to a free computer, however there is a system where students walk in, go up to one of the two computers to input their Cal Poly username and password and secure a reservation for the next available computer. There are 48 computers total in the lab. There are nicely framed pictures of artwork and nature on one wall of the room. There are two big flat screen TVs which display the order of students in linen who are waiting for available computers. There is an entrance from the inside of the library, right by the front desk. And there is also an entrance from the 24-hour study lounge. There are 5 bright red chairs and 2 yellow chairs with pull out black desks. I think these chairs are for students waiting for an available computer. There are many posters on the walls promoting the library saying things like Check it out: Laptops and Head Phones, Scanners and Projectors, iPads and Kindles.

~ 46 ~

Map of the first floor of the Library. The arrow is where the Poly Connect Computer Lab is located

Sign next to me when standing in the front of the computer lab

My view from standing in front of the computer lab

~ 47 ~

My view from the red chair in the middle of the computer lab

Time 1:44 pm

Running Record Entered Computer Lab on first floor of the library Very quiet, no one talking I stand next to a sign-in desk where students put in their ID and password to reserve a computer From a quick glance around the room I notice itlooks like more people are doing random assignemnts on the computers People are filing in and out through the door One boy to my left is on his polylearn account for a class. He is looking at a powerpoint but I am too far away to read exactly what the Powerpoint ~ 48 ~

Observer Comments I have never been in this computer lab before I feel awkward watching people.

Its hard to get a good visual of multiple computers because they are all facing different directions

I feel like everyone is looking at me eventhough they probably arent.

says

Many people walking in and out. As they walk up to the desk that I am standing at they look up at the big screen TV above my head Boy to my left is using Excel and doing what look like math homework problems

They are looking for their names on the list to see if its their time to get a computer

It is so quiet I could hear a pin drop Boy to my right is clicking around on youtube and then went to a car website. I moved to an open red chair with a small dek Girl to my right is on yahoo mail, writing an email Boy to my right but closer is logging onto facebook Another boy is playing a maze-like computer game

1:50 pm

I think these chairs are for people waiting to reserve a computer

I notice that students must log on to a computer using their CP ID and password Im hoping someone soon logs onto their portal

1:55 pm

Two people by me got up from their computers Girl in jeans and brown jacket sits down. She logs on her computer and goes to BCC news.com and is searching new stories

must need an article for some class

~ 49 ~

2:00 pm

Boy sits down in red hat, white tshirt, and khaki shorts. Then opens up his gmail account and then opens an email with a word document attached Girl gets up to print her news article Boy gets up to print the word document Girl goes back to computer, logs out, and leaves Boy goes back to computer with paper and begins to look at other emails Boy to my left is logging onto portal. Went to "my classes" and then to PolyLearn. Is looking at his grades. Then clicked on an assignment and a work document opened up. Begins to look over the document. Another boy to my left opens his gmail account Boy to right plugs in usb stick to side of computer and the opens up a document I leave!

I'm surprised not many people have been logging on to their portal. I notice most people are checking their emails or are coming in to print something

hmmm lots of printing going on!

I think "FINALLY!!"

does everyone use gmail nowadays? First person ive seen plug a usb stick in!

2:05 pm Conclusion

I found this experience to be very interesting because it was not what I was expecting. I thought I would see many students logging onto their portals, however I only saw 2 actually access the portal within the 20 minutes I was there. Most students came to the computer lab to print something out, to do homework, or to kill time. I noticed that of the students who did log onto their portal, they went straight to the My Classes section on the main portal page. It is good that this feature is prominent on the portal and is a feature we should focus on improving within this project. ~ 50 ~

Part 2 Location: Trinity dorm, room 225 Date: Sunday, April 22, 2012 Time: 7:40- 7:46 pm Observer: Hannah Hughes Subject: Serena, freshman Biology student Introduction When I arrived I told my subject that I was going to ask her to navigate certain tasks through the portal. I said I will ask you one task at a time and then observe as you complete the task. Please feel free to talk out loud but you cannot ask me questions as to how to complete each task. The three tasks I asked my subject to complete were: 1. Customize two aspects of your portal. 2. Find your EMPL/Student ID. 3. Navigate to the appropriate page to buy a campus parking pass.

My subject, Serena, at her desk in her dorm room

Time 7:40 pm

Running Record Interviewed in dorm room Student was sick and lost her voice Desk was covered in may bottles, books, paper, pens

Observer Comments

It was hard to hear what she was saying Dorm was messy and cluttered so subject was crammed at her desk with her laptop

~ 51 ~

Asked student first question: Customize 2 things on your portal and she asked "how do I do that??" Subject answered question by clicking on "page layout", then clicked two columns, showing me that she could customize something. She then asked to change her format back to its original format. 7:42 pm I asked her to customize one more thing She clicked "add content" under the main tabs then clicked "student life", then clicked "wow leader sign up" I then asked her to complete my second question: Find your EMPL/Student ID She clicked on "personal info" then "my student info" then "names" and then was on the ORACLE page. She realized this was incorrect. She then went back to her portal main page. Clicked on "personal info" tab and said "It's right here!"

I obviously couldnt tell her how because that ruined the whole point of the observation! So I told her that.

She already knew how to do this because her WOW training email told her specific directions.

I could tell she was struggling to find her student ID because she kept clicking around on different tabs eventhough she clicked on the correct tab (personal info) initially. I was happy she finally found it!

~ 52 ~

I asked the third question: Find your way to buying a parking pass. The subject said "Oh I've done that before!" 7:44 pm She clicked on "registration and enrollment" tab, then "housing", then "money matters," then "campus necessities" then "Cal Poly Search" After clicking on "cal poly search" multiple links popped up and she clicked on the first one saying "Parking PermitsUniversity Police Department." She said "I found it!" END

I thought "oh good something she can find easily and quickly!"

I thought she obviously doesn't know where to find it

I didnt even know this cal poly search existed under the "campus necessities" tab! But clearly my subject had used it before and knew it was there.

7:46 pm

Conclusion I found this process of observation to be very enlightening! It was funny how the subject said she knew where certain things where and yet struggled to find them. For example, she had bought a parking pass previously but couldnt find the exact link to purchase it until after clicking on multiple tabs. Also, the feature Cal Poly Search was under the Campus Necessities tab. Why is this feature under a tab and not more prominently displayed on the portal page? I feel like this feature would be important to have easily accessible for whenever anyone had a question. I think this observation exercise was extremely helpful and Im looking forward to what more information we will gain from the other assignments.

~ 53 ~

B-5: Jackies Observational Data

Part 1 Location: 2nd floor of Library near Julians Cafe Date: Sunday, April 22, 2012 Time: 2:45 p.m. Observer: Jackie Rainey Initial Observations Upon arriving, I could tell that the students here were working on group projects or working on homework with friends. Students here are concerned about getting work done, but are not exclusively focusing on their work. I took a seat in the corner so that no one could see what was typing.

~ 54 ~

Running record and observer comments Time 2:45pm Running Record Sitting in a corner seat of julians caf on a Sunday afternoon early into the quarter, four groups sitting around tables, 3 people sitting alone 4 other people sitting together but working independently, all but three people have a laptop out (mostly Macs) three laptops are rented from the library, natural lighting from windows is dim, audible conversations being held, food and drinks from the I being consumed, casual clothing, all students have a relaxed posture (see diagram) people come and go quite often so difficult to get an accurate count of total students in area, but roughly 24 people On tables are laptops, books, notebooks, food and coffee. Can hear the espresso machine in the background students navigate between multiple windows and tabs on their laptops, people closest to me have stopped conversing, do not see anyone on portal, but most have a tab open with PolyLearn Commentary students enjoy eating while studying, prefer to be comfortable, this area is composed of social students who prefer extra stimulation or white noise while working. Nearly everyone is multitasking or talking while working.

2:55pm

Noise and clutter is ok for these people, both in the physical environment and on their computers maybe quieted down because have noticed what I am working on. Students are accustomed to multitasking, use the Portal primarily for access to poly learn. They do not struggle with handing multiple technologies or conversations at once. Some groups may rely on PolyLearn or the Portal less than others listening to music?

Group of 3, all men in front of me reference polylearn only once from what I can see, using computers more for statistical software program those sitting alone have headphones plugged in

~ 55 ~

3:05pm

members of the groups working together have all had to get out of their chairs at least twice to share their work with other team members people using phones for texting/ checking Facebook

maybe make a way to share screens through the portal

like to have a quick distraction from studying

Quantifiable Data Laptops: 21 (Macs:15 PCs: 6) Cell phones visible: 10 Students with headphones in: 5 Part 2 Introduction I told my subject that I was going to ask her to navigate her way through certain tasks on the portal. I said, I will ask you one task at a time and then observe you as you complete the task. Please feel free to talk out loud but you cannot ask me questions as to how to complete each task. The three tasks were: 1. Customize two aspects of your portal 2. Find you EMPL/Student ID 3. Navigate to the appropriate page to buy a campus parking pass. Running Record and Observer Comments Time Instructions 3:17pm Customize two aspects of your portal. Running Record "Shoot, I haven't done this in a while hold on." wanders cursor around portal first clicks on page layout. I am sitting directly next to her about 2 feet away from the screen. I am taking notes on a piece of paper. realizes not the tab she needs, finds customize portal option Commentary Has done this before, but perhaps on a different version of the portal. Does not readily know where to look for customization options- maybe not clear enough for users maybe the page layout option should be under customize instead of in two different locations

Completion time: 7 minutes

~ 56 ~

"this is good because I accidentally made personal info my home page and I need to change that." spends about 15 seconds looking over page before deciding what to do. Says the customization platform is "awkward and confusing" and that it "makes no sense." scrolls up and down and clicks on multiple options before getting to the setting she wanted to change no "save" button so has to log out and back in to see if changes actually applied

has a need for customization besides aesthetics. Seems to be struggling. Not very confident with ability to make the portal customized for her own needs. Has to try many guesses before actually finding what she needs. This could be extremely difficult for new users. it would be good to have save or apply button to click so students would know if their work would be saved instead of having to log back in to verify once the customization option is found, it is easier to get started. Some features are by far easier to change and manage than others seemed fairly confident in finding it, maybe because she was used to seeing that page every time she logged in Customization may make things more confusing for students

Went back to customize option, changed language. Did this part within 1 minute

3:24pm Find your Empl ID

Went directly to personal info tab

Time to complete: 1 minute

"Oops I think I did that wrong." and clicks back to the main page looks around main page for a few seconds. "No I was right." clicks on the personal info tab again. Scrolls down and finds her Empl ID

~ 57 ~

3:25pm Navigate to the appropriate page to buy a parking pass

"I've never done this before." went to money matters tab, hesitates for several seconds, looks at the side bar panel and finds "parking" btton. Clicks on it

Time to complete: 2 minutes

After the page loads, drags mouse right to correct link for "purchase parking passes." "Money matters is usually pretty easy. Except for adding money to campus express.

more intuitive than I would have thought to look for parking passes under money matters. Had never done this task before but was fairly confident about what she was doing did not seem to be struggling at all

B-6: Chriss Observational Data

Part 1 Location: 3rd floor computer lab in the Business building Date: Monday, April 23rd, 2012 Time: 12:10-12:30pm Observer: Chris DaCruz Initial Observations The computer lab on the 3rd floor of the business building has 37 computers. It offered a well-lit, relatively quiet and productive atmosphere. There are six tables down the left hand side of the room and five down the right. There was one round table in the back right and one in the front left of the room. Neither of them were equipped with computers. The back three tables on left have two computers while the front three have four. The back table on right has three computers while the front four have four computers per table. There were white boards on left and right walls. Windows run down the left side of the room. There is also a small blocked off study area in the very front. Three TV monitors hang on the front wall. The front door entrance is from the hallway back door entrance is through the business help center.

~ 58 ~

Photo of the computer lab, looking from my seat towards the front of the room.

~ 59 ~

Running Record and Observer Comments Time 12:10PM Running Record Computer lab about half full Mostly males Male directly in front of me used portal to check grades New male walked in through back door Male who used portal got up to print Male on far right side of room is using his own computer Male who printed returned to his seat with paper Female directly in front of me using portal to plan future schedule 12:15PM Two males left together Observer Comments Mid day. Not prime study hours Business college male dominated? Concerned about recent test Classes are getting out Print out progress report? Just using lab for work space

Taking summer school? Working on project together, have same class

Male in front of me on portal again looking at student information and Trying to figure out what classes to take academic advising resources and when to take them Female directly in front of me now using google docs New female entered through the back door and sat down next to me Logged onto portal Using the COB page Now on the classes tab Checking grades Using calculator to calculate grades Male directly in front of me checking his status on degree progress ~ 60 ~ Working on group project

Room now starting to fill up Navigated portal with ease Very fast and effective Seemed to know what she needed

Again, main concern is with grades and not with other things the portal offers

Female next to me looking at future assignments Looking at cal poly announcements Voted on poll 12:20PM New male walked in through back door and took seat at front of lab Female next to me used portal to access pwrpt for studying Female directly in front of me still using Pass Both male and female in front of me talking about degree progress and GEs Both using portal for pertinent info Female near the front on FB Male in front of me on portal again Now he is on the student center Now on FB Empty comp left on portal page Male near the front right working on music editing 12:25PM Male two rows ahead of me now on main portal page Now looking at class specifics

Main concern is course work Shows other uses for portal other than just Grades and school work Space becoming less available More school work oriented portal use

Friends working together to plan next quarter effectively, same major? Course and degree related only Procrastinating Indecisive as to what to do next Not concentrated on task at hand Where'd they go? Time to kill in between classes Another example of course oriented portal use

Female next to me looking at work Using the portal and its contents to more and study aid at same time effectively study Male in front of me now back on student center Immediately back to FB Now back to SC Male in same row but on other side of the room looking at pwrpt via the portal Female entered from back door and took comp at front of the room ~ 61 ~ Still doesnt seem to have completed the task at hand Social butterfly Refocused

More course oriented portal use

Had trouble finding a seat

Room nearly full now Still primarily male dominated Male and female in front of me helping each other navigate portal and SC No one entering or leaving Everyone quiet and working

People out of class, after lunch

12:30PM

Friends working together to plan next quarter Everyone is out of class and settled Productive atmosphere

Conclusion Pretty much all people in the computer lab appeared to be students. It was primarily male occupants. Although I could not see all of the computers at one time, I was surprise at how many people happened to access the portal while I was there. Of the people that I saw access the portal, all looked at some sort of course work with one girl taking advantage of the other offerings on the main page of the portal. This suggests that most people only use the portal for schoolwork and to access course information. Another thing that kept happening was the act of switching from the portal to Facebook. This may suggest that the portal is not socially entertaining and should be taken into consideration when redesigning it. Part 2 Location: 108 Crandall Way, observers house Date: Monday, April 23rd, 2012 Time: 7:30-7:35pm Observer: Chris DaCruz Subject: Walker, freshman Forestry student Introduction For Part 2 I gave specific instructions to a freshmen male to: 1. Customize two aspects of your portal 2. Find your empl ID 3. Navigate to the appropriate page to buy a campus parking pass I gave them one at a time and had him talk me through his thoughts along the way. Here are the results. Time 7:30 Running Record Customize portal Add content ~ 62 ~ Observer Comments Couldnt click on it Lead him to the right place

General interests Cal poly polls Added cal poly polls to page Page Layout Switched from 3 columns to 4 But then he decided he didn't like it 7:32 Scrolls down to check out options Go to student center Noticed hold so he has to do something Back to home page My info tab Scrolls down the page Registration and enrollment Facility Services Transportation info Money matters to parking Online parking services

Relatively easily

Not the right way Still not right

Found it! Still relatively easy Not sure where to go Nope Not it either Still no it Bingo! Done

7:35

Conclusion Step 1 and 2 (7:30 and 7:32) were both executed with relative ease while step 3 (7:35) was the most difficult by far. The whole exercise took about 5 minutes. Although it wasnt that difficult, it seemed to be a lot of guesswork involved, which suggests that students dont know the portal that well.

Appendix C: Interview Research

C-1: Group Interview Data
Part 1 Introduction

~ 63 ~

The purpose of this interview guide is to direct our interview research and make sure each member of the group follows the same protocol. We decided to begin with restating our research purpose, which has changed over time as we have done more research and obtained more information to guide our research, because it helped guide the entire interview process. In part one, we deducted our interview plan (which everyone adhered to) and also stated the research questions that we strove to answer through the interviews in order to better understand our clients feelings and thoughts about the portal. In part two, we synthesized each member's findings to interpret the interviewees experiences and behaviors with the portal and then developed key insights from the respondents responses and summarized them. Elements of the Interview Guide What are the research questions that the interviews will seek to answer?
1. What do Cal Poly students use the portal for most? 2. What new information/functions, not already included, would students like to see

on the portal?
3. Why might students not be confident in using the portal? 4. What customization options do students want available on their portal?

What will be the sampling strategy for choosing interview informants? The sampling strategy that we used would be considered convenience sampling because we interviewed people at a time and place that was convenient for us. However, we tried to make the sample as random as possible by approaching a random person and asking them a screening and opening question. We implemented these questions because they essentially determined whether we decided to interview the person or not (i.e. if they stated that they were not a Cal Poly student we would then move on to the next random person). We strived to get a sample from every year and college which is why we needed the opening question. Each member of the team decided where they wanted to find the interviewee and have the interview take place. As we did with our observational research, we each chose a different location so as to make the sample more random. We also had two members do the interview on a weekend and in the morning, while the other three interviewed on a weekday in the afternoon. This allowed us to have a more random sample. Each interviewer was able to meet our criteria and find a Cal Poly student to interview on our first attempt of approaching them. The following chart explains who each team member interviewed, their college and grade level, as well as where and what time each interview took place: Team Member Name, grade level and college of interviewee ~ 64 ~ Location of the interview Date and time of the interview

Jackie R.

Shelby, 4th year, College of Liberal Arts Jake, 1st year, College of Math & Science (transferring to Liberal Arts) Eric, 3rd year, College of Math & Science Ashley, 3rd year, College of Agriculture Melissa, 1st year, College of Business

2nd floor of the Library by Julians Starbucks tables outside of UU

May 1, 4:15-4:20 pm April 28, 12:00- 12:05 pm

Chelsea B.

Hannah H. Chris D.

2nd floor of Library on outside patio 3rd floor of the Library UU (inside)

May 1, 4:10-4:15 pm May 1, 4:30- 4:40pm April 28th, 11:45- 11:50 am

Ryan H.

We found our sample to be relevant to our research purpose. Although we didnt interview a second year, we were able to interview students from every other grade level. We also interviewed students from 4 different colleges, with one duplicate of the College of Math & Science. Because we had an opening question we were able to receive a diverse amount of responses and found the responses to be valid to our overall research purpose. What interview questions will be asked?
1. What do you use the My Cal Poly portal for most? a. Purpose of the question: By figuring out what students use the portal for

most, we can deduct the information that must remain apparent and usable on the portal. This may even lead us to determine which information should be on the main page. Most importantly, it will help us determine which links, tabs, etc the students of Cal Poly utilize most on the portal so we can decide what action should be taken from there.
2. What (other) functions do you currently use on the portal? a. Purpose of the question: By determining what features the interviewee

uses on the portal, we can note what information on the portal is being utilized. From this, we may be able to determine which items are trends that are used regularly and should therefore be either rearranged and put in a better location or made easier to use in some way. This will depend on what Mr. Kraker would like to do.

~ 65 ~

3. If you could add anything to the My Cal Poly Portal, what would you add and

why?
a. Purpose of the question: By allowing the students themselves to

determine the kinds of things that they would like to see on the portal, we can accomplish our goal of giving Mr. Kraker the information regarding what features students would want to see on the portal that are not currently there. It is vital to obtain this information from the students themselves in order to figure out what can make the portal more usable for them.
4. What college specific information would you like to see on the portal? a. Purpose of the question: Through this question, we will be able to

determine whether there is a need for college specific information on the portal. If there is, then figuring out what information the students of Cal Poly would be able to utilize most can be implemented into our pitch to Mr. Kraker. We want to determine how interested students are in college specific information being made available on the portal, without asking a close ended question.
5. Being a _____ year, what kinds of things would you like to see on the portal

specific to your grade level?

a. Purpose of the question: Similar to the college specific information, we

want to see whether students would like to have features available on the portal that are specific to their grade level. If there is a high interest here, we can determine that the portal should possibly be segmented based off of the students year at Cal Poly, offering different information/features for each grade level. What probes will be used? During the interview process, we plan on using probes that will allow us to get a better understanding of the answers originally given by the interviewees. These probes will include silent, clearinghouse, information, restatement, and reflective. By using the silent probe, it allows for there to be little influence on how the participant will answer the question. Clearinghouse probes can be used so that when a short answer is given, we can push to see if there is anything else that we can extract from the participant on the topic at hand. By using the information probe, we will be able to get a full, clear answer from an original answer that was short and had little depth to it. The restatement probe is helpful to the participant if the question was not initially clear when given by the researcher. Finally, the reflective probe has a double purpose: to allow us to ensure we understood the persons answer, as well as giving them an opportunity to elaborate. Together, these probes should elicit many useful responses from participants.

~ 66 ~

 How will interviews be recorded to ensure systematic data gathering? Each of our group members recorded their interviews either through a recording device on their computer or on their phone. This way, we were able to access our interviews after the actual conversation took place and were able to write a verbatim transcript. When synthesizing the information in part two of this assignment, we were all able to look back on our I3s in order to obtain quotes and direct information from the interview. We all recorded our conversations through a dialogue format similar to this: Interviewer: blah blah blah Interviewee: blah blah blah Interviewer: (PROBE TYPE) blah blah blah Directions for Approaching Students Criteria for choosing an interviewee within the interviewers given location: 1. The person is not in a group of people 2. The person does not have headphones in 3. The person does not seem heavily concentrated in their work We followed this script to ask permission to interview the individual: Screening Question Hi, are you a Cal Poly student? (permit answer) If the person answers yes then we moved on to state the following: My name is ____ and I am doing a marketing project for my business class. Would you mind if I interview you to gather some information? It will only take about ten minutes and I will be recording it, but your identity will be protected. (Once a student has consented, we moved on to the questions.) Opening (fact based) 1) Would you mind telling me a little bit about yourself: your grade level, your name, your age, and your college or major? Introductory (open ended questions to get a relationship on the topic) 1) What brings you to _____ today? 2) Are/Do you currently use the My Cal Poly Portal? Transition (moves to main purpose) ~ 67 ~

1) How often would you say you use the portal? Key Questions (specifically address research) 1) What do you use the My Cal Poly portal for most? (make sure to specify most!) 2) What (other) functions do you currently use on the portal? 3) If you could add anything to the My Cal Poly Portal, what would you add and why? 4) What college specific information would you like to see on the portal? 5) Being a _____ year, what kinds of things would you like to see on the portal specific to your grade level? Information Regarding Interview Questions We chose to include two closed questions (one was the screening question another was an introductory question) in order to gain some information from the interviewee, but we then followed each one with all open ended questions because we wanted to gain as much information as we could. We included primary questions (the key questions), but then added in probing questions to seek for information or further understand from the interviewees point of view. We tried to make each question as neutral as possible because we wanted the participant to answer honestly and lead us, rather than the other way around. We tried to adhere to the proper questioning route by beginning with an easy question and moving to a more difficult one, then going from general to more specific questions, and then keeping the questions in sequence to allow for a more easy flow. We did not make our questions too long, rather short and conversational in order to make the interviewee feel more comfortable. We had questions from every category and we each asked them in this order: open, introductory, transition, key, and ending. Part 2 Introduction After our group completed the interviews, we met to chat and compare the results that we acquired. We found common insights based off of what students expressed throughout the interviews. The following chart organizes the six trends that we came up with after reviewing our results and finding common elements. The chart also notes which research question(s) each trend addresses. The quotes in the evidence section were taken directly from our interview transcripts and serve as our justification for naming the trends. When considering the trends, we decided it would be best to break them down into the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of students in

~ 68 ~

regards to the My Cal Poly Portal. We took down some notes prior to organizing the chart: - Thoughts: Having grade specific information (i.e. a tutorial for freshman on how to use the portal; a progress report on what classes older students need to take to graduate; etc.....); Having a forum for students to chat about things (i.e. instant messenger). There are multiple ways to navigate to certain links within the portal. Itd be simpler to have one way to get to the link. - Feelings: Freshman are confused about where to find things and need help navigating. Seniors want information about graduation and employment opportunities. - Behaviors: Portal is unclear and unorganized causing students to click around until they find what they are looking for; My Classes (Polylearn) and Student Center are most commonly used. Although we identified multiple trends, we kept in mind that our implications cannot be generalized to the entire Cal Poly student population. For example, we cannot assume that because one freshman would like a tutorial on how to use the portal, all freshmen may want one also. Trend Thoughts on having gradespecific information Explanation Multiple students expressed a desire for grade-specific information available on the portal. Evidence Ryan- something that helps you budget your meal plan, and plus dollars to keep you on track of that. Chris- like once youve completed a quarter it changes. Itll help you plan out what you need to get done before you graduate. Jackie- umm graduation updates would be great. Chelsea- some kind of tutorial might be helpful...at the beginning.

Answers research question: What new information/functions, not already included, would students like to see on the portal? and What customization options do students want available on their portal?

~ 69 ~

Thoughts on implementing a social communication feature

Students mentioned wanting a chat feature, or forum of some sort to more easily communicate with students and faculty.

Ryan- or maybe there could be like, instant messaging chat... just like a really quick question so you dont have to go into office hours necessarily. Chris- if they were like interconnected, then yes I would use it. Hannah- I think I would add maybe like a forum thing where students can talk about ideas within the portal itself. Ryan- ...like for winter quarter, I didnt really know what I was doing. Chelsea- cause coming in for my first year it was really hard for me to figure out where to find things...

Answers research question: What new information/functions, not already included, would students like to see on the portal?

Lower-classmen feelings

We found that freshmen expressed feelings of uncertainty in navigating the portal and in knowing about available features.

Answers research question: Why might students not be confident in using the portal? Upper-classmen feelings We found that upper-classmen expressed feelings of being concerned about graduation and future employment.

Jackie- I know they have mustang jobs but it would be cool to have stuff outside of San Luis Obispo. Chris- itll help you plan out what you need to get done before you graduate. Hannah- I always get emails for workshops preparing for grad school and med school. So maybe if they had a section on the portal specific for med school and grad school that would be great! Jackie- I feel like Cal Poly is always difficult like its always kind of vague like a couple of

Answers research question: What customization options do students want available on their portal?

Desire for improved organization

We found that students were often confused on how to get to a particular page on the portal. ~ 70 ~

times Ive had like a fee due and it doesnt tell me what thats from so it would be nice to have a Answers research question: more specific information or Why might students not be exactly who I could contact if I confident in using the portal? have questions cause a lot of the and What new time I feel like it will tell me things information/functions, not and then I have to search around already included, would students a lot to find. like to see on the portal? Chris- Im a third year and still get lost. Chelsea- ...really hard for me to figure out where to find things. Commonly used applications There were a few common features that students seemed to access more than others, including Polylearn to check on My Classes and the Student Center to check on grades and applying for classes. Ryan- mostly for Polylearn, checking my classes, grades... and the student center. Chris- ummm, looking at what assignment is due on what day probably...I use the student center.... [and] PASS. Jackie- for getting to blackboard and just like doing PASS and registering for classes and checking where my classes are so I use it more at the beginning of the quarter than any other time to find out whats going on with my classes. Hannah- like checking grades and assignments that teachers post. Chelsea- to get to my student account, fromIthats how I get there to pay the bills that I need to for everything.

Answers research question: What do Cal Poly students use the portal for most?

~ 71 ~

Analysis of Synthesized Trends After our team meeting and collaboration, we found the six trends above to be the most apparent. We had two or more group members encounter one of these trends and, after much deliberation, decided that they were the most important trends to note. Trend #1: The first trend that we found was having grade-specific information available on each persons individual portal. When we asked the interview question Being a _____ year, what kinds of things would you like to see on the portal specific to your grade level? we got a variety of different answers depending on the respondents year level. Our interviewees expressed a high demand for a grade-specific feature and wanted things that stemmed from something that helps you budget your meal plan, and plus dollars to keep you on track, for freshman, to something that can help you plan out what you need to get done before you graduate, for seniors. These observations and evidence provide valuable information about two of our research questions: What new information/functions, not already included, would students like to see on the portal? and What customization options do students want available on their portal? Some of our members also took into account the speed in which the question was answered. In comparison to other questions, the participant seemed very ready and almost eager to answer and had no trouble coming up with an idea, leading us to believe that there is a big interest in having this additional segmentation added to the portal. These are only a few of the possible additions to be made, but we think a feature such as this would add great value to the portal for students and they would see it as helpful rather than confusing. Trend #2: A second function that students were adamant about including in the portal was some sort of a social communication feature. It seemed very important to these interviewees to be able to contact other students and faculty about any sorts of issues with scheduling, homework, or other class related materials, but to do so instantaneously (more so than e-mail or office hours). Ryans interviewee responded with a very clear example of this when she said, or maybe there could be like, instant messaging chat... just like a really quick question so you dont have to go into office hours necessarily. It seems as though if this communication ability was available to students they would be able to get information from other students and their teachers more quickly and efficiently so they could stay on top of their classwork and other related issues. This trend specifically answers our proposed research question which says, What new information/functions, not already included, would students like to see on the portal? Trend #3: Since Ryan and Chelsea were the only two group members that interviewed lowerclassmen , they were able to obtain the most information on the opinions of freshmen. They gathered such information as a lack of knowledge about available features and difficulty in navigating through the portal when first introduced to it. Chelseas interviewee stated, I havent really looked around on the portal so I am not ~ 72 ~

sure what is on there, therefore proving that he does not know much about what is already available to him. This made his answers about additions to the portal somewhat skewed because they could very well already be available. Ryans interviewee spoke about not really knowing what she was doing when registering for classes her freshman year. This indicates that she had trouble adjusting to the portal offerings when first coming to Cal Poly. These examples lead us to believe that a segmented portal, based on class level, would be very useful in helping out students of different years. Trend #4: The interviews with upperclassmen revealed that there are major concerns revolving around degree progress reports and employment after graduation. For example, one senior mentioned that it would be nice to have employers from, outside of San Luis Obispo. Many students at Cal Poly are not from the central coast and after graduation are likely to move back home or out of the area. Clearly there is a desire for information about jobs from different areas that could be beneficial to students. Also, there was an indication that a degree progress report that was easy to interpret would be a valuable feature. For juniors and seniors, this is especially important information. One interviewee stated that at one point, [she] wasnt even sure if she was graduating or not because there was no communication from Cal Poly. If the portal were to offer some sort of DPR feature, upperclassmen would have a much easier time staying on track. These desires should be duly noted when presenting to Mr. Kraker, as they are important features specifically for juniors and seniors at Cal Poly. Trend #5: Another trend we found was a desire for improved organization of the portal. We first noticed this trend from our I2 observational research when we asked our observant to complete a series of tasks and watched them navigate through the portal in order to complete them. From our interviews, we found that students expressed that there have been occasions when they have been confused on how to get to certain links. For example, one interviewee said she felt that its always kind of vague, like a couple of times Ive had like a fee due and it doesnt tell me what thats from so it would be nice to have a more specific information [...] a lot of the time I feel like it will tell me things and then I have to search around a lot to find. Not only do freshmen who are still learning how to use the portal get lost, but upperclassmen do too: Im a third year and still get lost. This trend answers our research questions Why might students not be confident in using the portal? and What new information/functions, not already included, would students like to see on the portal? We think that students may not be confident in using the portal because it is unorganized and that it can be improved by implementing new functions that make it easier to navigate. This could be a key cause of the frustration among students of all class levels, and not just the ones that we have interviewed or observed, in regards to the portal. Trend #6: The sixth trend we noticed between the respondents was the similarities in commonly used applications. Some of these common features included in our findings were links such as, PASS, the Student Center, and Polylearn. Most of these are common links for students to access since every student has to register for ~ 73 ~

classes through the Student Center, and most, if not all, classes have materials relevant to the class posted on the Polylearn page. For instance, when we asked the interviewees what they use the portal for most, they responded, Mostly for Polylearn, checking my classes, grades... And the student center, and also looking at what assignment is due on what day probably...I use the student center.... [and] PASS. These responses directly answer our research question, What do Cal Poly students use the portal for most? By finding out which links are most important for students, we can be sure to keep a main focus on what students utilize most on the portal, so we have an idea of what to include on the main page. Conclusion In conclusion, we have decided to narrow down our findings, and concentrate on a certain topic regarding the portal. We have agreed upon further researching the students desire for more grade specific information on their portal. It seems like a more relevant topic to address because if we chose to focus on colleges and majors instead, which also sparked an interest among our interviewees, it would be extremely difficult to add in specific customizations for each student (from the IT departments perspective). We also noticed that Jackie and Chelsea interviewed people from the same college, but they had different opinions as to what college information they would want to see. We therefore decided to specify our study on the year of the student because we discovered a larger, more relevant need for this. The students we interviewed all expressed similar opinions of wanting features/segmentation that is specific to their grade level. If we were to focus on this specifically, we would be able to include relevant information for all students in order to satisfy their needs and wants. We could include tutorials for freshmen on how to navigate the portal or even job searches for seniors, while keeping the IT departments capabilities in mind. We think that this solution will not only help with the organization issues that the portal currently faces, but also take into account what the students of Cal Poly want to see on their portal. We believe that the interview process helped us greatly in deciphering and coming to this realization.

C-2: Chelseas Interview Data

Part 1 Date: April 28, 2012 Time: 12:00 pm Location: Starbucks tables outside of UU Interviewer: Chelsea Brown Interviewee: Jake Observer: Ryan Hakes Key questions are highlighted in yellow Probes are highlighted in green ~ 74 ~

Transcript Opening Question Interviewer: Alright, so why dont you start off by just telling me a little bit about yourself: your grade level, your name, your age, and your college or major. Interviewee: My name is Jake DeFazio. I am a first year transferring to Journalism student. Im transferring from Kinesiology. Im from a small town called So far I am really enjoying the campus and the college life. Introductory Question Interviewer: Great. Um, what brings you outside, I guess, of here, Starbucks? Interviewee: Um, well I just got done at the gym. I went swimming this morning and its nice and sunny after having all of the crappy days, but, um, Im just eating lunch. Transition Question Interviewer: Okay. And I know that youre not using a laptop currently, but do you use the My Cal Poly portal? Interviewee: Yes. Interviewer: Okay, um how often do you use the portal? Interviewee: Um, I check it daily. Every day. Interviewer: [Clearinghouse probe] Okay, how many times a day would you say? Interviewee: Uh, probably twice. Key Questions Interviewer: Okay, um what do you use the Cal Poly portal for the most? Interviewee: To get to my e-mail. (Chelsea nods). Because I contact my teachers from there. Interviewer: [Clearinghouse probe] Okay and youre pretty comfortable using it to find your e-mail and everything like that? Interviewee: Yes. Interviewer: Okay. Um, what functions do you currently use on the portal, besides email? Interviewee: Um, to get to my student account, fromIthats how I get there to pay the bills that I need to for everything but I dont use it for much else. Interviewer: [Clearinghouse probe] Anything else that you can think of or that pops into your head? Interviewee: Uh, no, thats pretty much it. (He chuckles). Interviewer: Um, if you could add anything to the My Cal Poly portal what would you add and why? Interviewee: Um, Id like some kind of, uhhh, maybe tutorial, uh, at the beginning of cause coming in for my first year it was really hard for me to figure out where to find ~ 75 ~

things. Once I knew where they were it was easy for me but, um, some kind of tutorial might be helpful. Interviewer: [Silent probe] (I nod). Okay. And, um, what college specific information would you like to see on the portal? Interviewee: To Cal Poly or to the Liberal Art? Interviewer: [Restatement probe] Um, you said you were switching from, um, Kinesiology right to Liberal Arts so what, I guess, Liberal Arts because youre just coming into it, what kind of information would you want to see put on the portal? Interviewee: Um, well thats part of the thing is that I havent really looked around on the portal so I am not sure what is on there, but maybe access to um, just general teacher information rather than, cause I know you can go in that like index thing and um, type in a teachers name but a lot of times like spelling issues, its really sensitive its hard to find, so maybe just a page with that. Interviewer: [Information probe] Right. And you said index thing, can you describe that a little more please? Interviewee: Um, (motions with his hands) I know that you like can type in like a student name or teacher name and it gives you their, like their phone number and their college. Interviewer: And, um, being a first year, what kinds of things would you like to see on the portal that are specific to being a freshman? Interviewee: Maybe more resources. Like, peoplelike when I said you can look up students, maybe let you know which ones are available for tutoring, which ones, who can help you in what college, like who might be involved in your same career path. Interviewer: [Reflective probe] Okay so basically just things where students are involved in your same career? Interviewee: Yeah. Ending Question Interviewer: Is there anything else you might like to add about your experience with the My Cal Poly portal? Interviewee: Um, no that was pretty much it. Interviewer: [Silent probe] Okay, great. Well thank you so much for your time. Interviewee: No problem.

Analysis of Interviews
Background Information On Saturday, April 28th, 2012 at approximately 12:00 pm, Ryan Hakes and I set out to find interviewees in the UU. In reference to my groups interview guide, we wanted to create the least amount of bias as possible and capture a respondent in a natural environment. We chose to walk around and randomly approach a student who was alone and not listening to music, as we did not want to have the persons normal responses differ if someone else was with them, nor did we want to interrupt someone who seemed very concentrated. Although our group decided to include one closed ~ 76 ~

question, it was because we were following it with an open ended question and thought that it was an appropriate question to ask in order to lead into the open ended one. Therefore, the closed ended question was placed as a transition question and elicited a yes or no response which is considered a common question pitfall. After observing Ryans interview of a young woman inside of the UU plaza, I decided it would be best to walk around outside of the UU, since there were not very many people inside who met the criteria mentioned above. While walking around outside of Starbucks and the Cal Poly bookstore, I encountered a young man sitting at a table directly outside of Starbucks, eating his lunch. Trying as best I could to adhere to the interview guide, I walked up to him (assuming he may be a student) and politely said, Excuse me, are you a Cal Poly student? After hearing his reply, I decided to use the following introduction that my group and I came up with: My name is Chelsea and I am doing a marketing project for my business class. Would you mind if I interviewed you to gather some information? It will only take about ten minutes and I will be recording it, but your identity will be protected. He replied, Sure no problem at all. I know how difficult it is to find people that are willing to be interviewed. It was after this point that I took out my laptop to record the conversation using my webcam. The participant, Jake, was not in the frame of the shot and the camera was only used to record his voice. Ryan was my observer. Analysis of Personal Interview Content Through conducting this interview, I learned about the different experiences that Jake has had with the portal and also about additional features that he would like to see added to the portal. I gained some useful knowledge that will hopefully lead us to coming up with a better idea of what students are looking for in regards to the information on the portal, as well. I implemented five different kinds of probes that I am aware of. These include: clearinghouse, silent, restatement, information, and reflective. There are a series of things throughout the interview that I could have done much better, however there were also things that I believe I did well. The main things that I think I could have done better are adding in more probes, as well as different kinds of probes and not allowing my probe questions to be closed. I was very good at making the respondent feel comfortable and reassuring him that he was answering correctly. From the interview itself I gained many insights that pertained especially to organizing portal information based on college and also based on the class level of the student. From Jakes answers, I was able to see that there are ideas out there regarding additions to and/or segmentation of the My Cal Poly portal. Jake suggested such things as adding some sort of resource to let you know which [students] are available for tutoring [and] who might be involved in your same career path. Jake commented on the idea of having this connection according to the persons college. This can be useful information when we present Darren with the report containing what Cal Poly students are looking for on their portal.

~ 77 ~

The hypothesis we created that students use the portal daily and sometimes multiple times a day was also reassured through this interview when Jake said I check it dailytwice a day. He also talked about the fact that he uses the portal the most to get to [his] e-mail because [he] contact[s] [his] teachers from there. This information made me think about the fact that he does not utilize the e-mail forwarding feature of the portal and made me wonder whether this is because he does not know about the feature or because he chooses not to utilize it. This may be important in determining whether there is a correlation between being a freshman and not having enough knowledge of the features offered on the portal or regarding the preferences of students in regards to the portal features. I think that the most important thing that I got out of the interview with Jake is that he, as a freshman, has trouble figuring out all of the offerings of the portal. I believe that it may be because he [hasnt] really looked around on the portal so [hes] not sure what is on there or it could be because coming in for [his] first year it was really hard for [him] to figure out where to find things. Either way, it proves the point that he does not know about many of the features that the portal currently offers, nor does he understand how to utilize many of the features. He spoke about not knowing enough about the portal when coming in his first quarter, and suggested some kind of maybe tutorial at the beginningmight be helpful so that it is easier to understand as an incoming freshman. This goes to show that as a freshman, it may take some time to acquire all of the knowledge that is needed to navigate the portal. Although I cannot say that every student has the same experiences as Jake does and I can therefore not make any generalizations, I do believe that once our group has gotten together to discuss our findings, we can conclude that these experiences are, in fact, trends among students. Analysis of Peers Interview Content Through Ryans interview with Melissa, I noted some key insights from her descriptions of her experiences/opinions on the portal. The first thing I realized was that she, just as my interviewee Jake, logs onto the portal more than once a day. This shows that the portal is something that is utilized very often by students and therefore should be catered to their liking, something that we also discovered in our observational research. The next thing I noticed was that she uses the portal mostly for Polylearn, checking classes, grades. This was another thing that we noted as a trend in our observational research. Therefore, it is apparent that the portal is used as a way to navigate through class communication. This should be something that we focus on during our conversation with Darren about potential issues regarding the portals use. Another thing that I noticed was that Melissa would like to see a feature offered on the portal that could help communicate with faculty. By this, she meant that it would help people in classes because quick questions could be answered without having to go into office hours. This was a very good suggestion because I believe that it would be utilized by many students. She also suggested an instant messaging chat which was ~ 78 ~

also brought up in our observation research. These two elements could be considered important trends if the rest of the interview findings contained similar suggestions. The last insight that I thought was relevant to our research was concerning the fact that she was a freshman. When Ryan asked the question about what kinds of things she would like to see on the portal that are specific to her grade level, she immediately responded with ideas regarding meal plans. This information, along with the other interview information, allowed our group to realize that segmenting the portal according to grade level is extremely important. In this case, Melissa stated that something that helps you budget your meal plan and plus dollars to keep you on track [and] first quarter registering for classes would be a very useful tools for incoming freshmen. I noticed that this was the only answer that was given immediately after the question was asked, therefore I think it is a really important subject that she feels strongly about. These trends have allowed me to think more deeply about what the student of Cal Poly would like to see on their portals.

C-3: Ryans Interview Data

Part 1 Date: Saturday, April 28, 2012 Time: 11:45am 11:50am Location: Inside the University Union study area Interviewer: Ryan Hakes Interviewee: Melissa Observer: Chelsea Brown Key questions highlighted in yellow Probes highlighted in green Screening Question Interviewer: Hi, are you a Cal Poly student? Interviewee: Yes Interviewer: My name is Ryan and I am doing a marketing project for my business class. Would you mind if I interview you to gather some information? It will only take about ten minutes and I will be recording it, but your identity will be protected. Interviewee: Okay thats fine. Opening Question Interviewer: Okay, so why dont you tell me a little bit about yourself: your grade level, your name, your age, and your college or major? Interviewee: Okay, my name is Melissa and I am a first year business major. I am from Colorado, and I am on the dance team here, and yeah. ~ 79 ~

Introductory Questions Interviewer: So what brings you to the UU here today? Interviewee: Uh, today I have some homework, its a struggle. Interviewer: Okay, well you dont have a computer up, but do you currently use the My Cal Poly portal? Interviewee: Yep Transition Question Interviewer: Okay, how often do you use the portal? Interviewee: I definitely log on at least twice a day. Key Questions Interviewer: What do you use the portal for most? Interviewee: Mostly for Polylearn, checking my classes, grades. Interviewer: (clearinghouse) Is there anything else you might be able to use it for? Interviewee: Well, like PASS, and theres polls that I take sometimes, and yea. Interviewer: Oh, okay. Interviewee: And the student center. Interviewer: So what functions would you say that you currently use on the portal? Interviewee: Like, Polylearn? Interviewer: (nudging) Anything other than that? Interviewee: Thats mostly what I use. Interviewer: Okay. If you could add anything to the portal, what would you add and why? Interviewee: Um, I dont know. Interviewer: (restatement) Maybe like, easier access to links lets say? Interviewee: Sure. Interviewer: (nudging) Is there anything else you can think of? Interviewee: Oh, I use the library service one that takes me to links of like databases and stuff. Interviewer: Mhhmm Interviewee: I use that one, thats helpful. And Im trying to think like the money matters tab, figuring out if I owe any fees and stuff. Interviewer: (silent) Silence Interviewee: Also, like the housing one, since Im going to be living in PCV next year. So Id use the housing one for when I would have to register for that with my roommates and stuff. Interviewer: Yeah. Interviewee: So, I dont know what I would add, though. Im not sure. Interviewer: Thanks okay. What college specific information would you like to see on the portal? Interviewee: Um (silence) Im sorry! I dont know. Interviewer: (nudging) Maybe something like an advising center option, or something relating to your classes? ~ 80 ~

Interviewee: Sure. Interviewer: (information) Is there anything that you may want to expand on that with those kind of options? Interviewee: Um, maybe something that could help communicate with faculty. Interviewer: (reflective) Can you further explain that? Like how would you communicate with faculty? Interviewee: Um, (silence) Interviewer: (restatement) Sorry, for what reasons would you communicate with faculty? Interviewee: If you have a question on homework, or if there is a blog or something that you could talk with college classmates about it, or maybe people that lead study sessions or tutors could be useful. Interviewer: Mhhmm. Interviewee: Or maybe there could be like, instant messaging chat, or something you could go on. Interviewer: (clearinghouse) What benefits do you think that could give to you? Interviewee: I think that would help people in classes, maybe just like a really quick question so you dont have to go into office hours necessarily, so that would be like right then and there you could get some feedback. Interviewer: Okay. So being a first year, what kinds of things would you like to see on the portal specific to your grade level? Interviewee: Hmm, maybe something that helps you budget your meal plan, and plus dollars to keep you on track of that because I always forget how many meals I have left. And definitely, but I kind of have the hang of it now, but like first quarter registering for classes, like for winter quarter, I didnt really know what I was doing. Interviewer: Mhhmm. Interviewee: Or something that helps with that. Interviewer: (reflective) Okay, so you say that maybe ease of access to these materials would be key for this portal? Interviewee: Yeah! Closing Question Interviewer: Okay. Are there any other suggestions you would like to give for the people that might be improvising on the portal? Interviewee: Um, none that I can think of right now. Interviewer: Okay thats fine. Well, thank you for your time. That was great. Interviewee: Yeah no problem.

Analysis of Interviews
Analysis of Personal Interview Content On Saturday, April 28, 2012 at 11:45am, I interviewed a first year business student named Melissa who was by herself and working on some managerial accounting homework in the University Union. She was compliant with me giving the interview to her, which made it easy for me since she was the first person I approached. ~ 81 ~

Based on my interview, I have narrowed it down to a few key points. For one, my interviewee responded with some comments about how the information needs to be organized more thoroughly so that there is an ease of access on the portal. She seemed to have accessed many links throughout her time on the portal, like the money matters tab, Polylearn, PASS, and the student center. With a more organized profile for students to go on when they enter the portal, searching for information through a welldeveloped screen page could give much more ease to students. Another relevant piece of information which my respondent suggested was to incorporate some sort of social aspect to the portal. She noted that if there was a way to contact other students in her class about materials that she may have missed, it would have made it much easier for her to acquire those needs without having to work around her schedule to make a quick trip to office hours. She stated, there could be like, instant messaging chat which would answer this relevant question. Along those lines, a similar device, like a blog which all students in a certain class could access, would be beneficial to them when they have questions on a homework assignment, so that they could collaborate or seek information about tutors on the subject. Another insight which is relevant to first year students is the budgeting of the meal plan. Students should be able to check their available plus dollar balance online so that instead of walking to VGs or Metro to get a confirmation, they can do it straight from their laptops in their room. This could allow for a better allocation of their money because students are inclined to spend their plus dollars when they go to these eating facilities. Finally, the last point that I would like to address is the navigation of the portal itself. My respondent was concerned with how to navigate the portal when she first arrived to Poly, and stated first quarter registering for classes I didnt really know what I was doing. To fix this, implementing a tutorial when students initially use the portal could alleviate this major problem and cause the portal to be easily used by any new student. Analysis of Peer Interview Content I observed Chelsea Browns interview which was conducted outside of Starbucks on the same day as me, Saturday April 28, 2012, at 12:00pm. She approached and interviewed a first year as well, but instead he was a male and liberal arts major. He was eating a pastry and drinking a coffee, both from the Starbucks shop that we sat outside of. Chelsea conducted her interview with the same guidelines as me. I would have to say that the outcome of information that she got was less than mine though. Her respondent didnt seem to give many clear answers to most of the questions asked. This may have been because he was not very familiar with the portal itself, or that he felt uncomfortable with the interview. For instance, when she asked him about the ~ 82 ~

functions that he uses on the portal, he only gave one answer which was to get to his student account to pay bills. This may have been a result of a strange environment for the interview, since it was conducted outside with many distractions, like people walking by or because he was more focused on eating his food at the time. One thing I would like to highlight with Chelseas content in her transcript though was her notifications of all hand movements, head nods, and other non-verbal communications. This allows for a more detailed response as to what actually happened during the interview and may give good data concerning the reactions of either the respondent or the interviewer. She noted this many times, like while Chelsea was listening to him speak after she asked a question, she labeled her head nod as an acceptance of his answer.

C-4: Hannahs Interview Data

Part 1 Date: May 1, 2012 Time: 4:10 pm Location: Robert Kennedy Library 2nd floor outside patio Interviewer: Hannah Hughes Interviewee: Eric Observer: Jacqueline Rainey Key questions are highlighted in yellow Probes are highlighted in green Transcript Screening Question Interviewer: Hi, are you a Cal Poly student? Interviewee: (permit answer) Interviewer: My name is Hannah and I am doing a marketing project for my business class. Would you mind if I interview you to gather some information about the Cal Poly Portal? It will only take a few minutes I will be recording it, but your identity will be protected. Opening Question Interviewer: Would you mind telling me a little bit about yourself: your grade level, your name, your age, and your college or major? ~ 83 ~

Interviewee: My name is Eric, I am a junior, and am in the College of Science and Math. Interviewer: And whats your age? Interviewee: 20 Introductory Question Interviewer: What brings you to the library today? Interviewee: Reading for my English 251 class. Interviewer: Do you currently use the Cal Poly portal? Interviewee: Yes I do. Interviewer: You do? [Restatement Probe] Interviewee: For Blackboard, for Poly Learn, and for class stuff. Transition Question Interviewer: How often would you say you use the portal? Interviewee: Probably once a day. Interviewer: Just once? [Restatement probe] Interviewee: yah just once. Key Questions Interviewer: Okay. What do you use the Cal Poly portal for most? Interviewee: Probably like checking grades and assignments that teachers post. Interviewer: Do you do that for all of your classes? [Information Probe] Interviewee: Yeah. Interviewer: What other functions do you currently use on the portal? Interviewee: Uh Student Center that part. Interviewer: The student center? [Restatement Probe] Interviewee: Yeah like Financial Aid and all that stuff. Interviewer: Any other specifics? [Information probe] Interviewee: PASS, Money matters, and I guess from time to time I look at the poll. Interviewer: Why do you look at the poll? [Reflective probe] Interviewee: Im interested to see what kind of questions there are and I answer it. Interviewer: Okay. If you could add anything to the Portal what would you add and why? Interviewee: Umm thats a hard one. I think I would add maybe like a forum thing where students can talk about ideas within the portal itself. Interviewer: [Silent Probe] Interviewee: Maybe sub forums for different majors or like different colleges.

~ 84 ~

Interviewer: yah! What college specific information would you like to see on the portal? Kind of like the forum you suggested? Interviewee: Yeah. Interviewer: Would there be anything specific for the College of Science and Math you would like to see? [Reflective Probe] Interviewee: Maybe like advising hours so I dont have to go look them up. Itd be easier to just go to the portal and find it there. Interviewer: Being a third year, what kinds of things would you like to see on the portal specific to your grade level? Interviewee: I always get emails for workshops preparing for grad school and med school. So maybe if they had a section on the portal specific for med school and grad school that would be great! Ending Question Interviewer: okay. Do you have any final comments or ideas? [Reflective Probe] Interviewee: Nope. Interviewer: Is there anything that bugs you about the portal? Interviewee: sometimes its really slow but cant really help that because theres so many people trying to log on. But thats it! Interviewer: Okay, thanks for your time I appreciate it!

Analysis of Interviews
Background Information On Monday, May 5, 2012 at 4:10 PM, I approached and randomly interviewed Eric, a third year student of the College of Science and Math. The interview was conducted on the second floor at the outside patio of the Robert E. Kennedy Library. I saw Eric sitting outside clicking around on his iPhone so I assumed I wouldnt be bothering him. I approached him with Jacqueline Rainey as my observer. He eagerly accepted my offer to interview him and gave me permission to record the conversation. I was excited to get a third year Science and Math student because other members of my group had already interviewed freshman Liberal Arts and Business students and we were looking for diversity in our interviewees. I was pleased that my interviewee was kind and eager to help me with my interview.

~ 85 ~

Analysis of Personal Interview Content From my interview I gained great insight as to students use most on the portal and what they would like to add to the portal. My first insight was with what students use most on the portal. My subject said he most often used the portal to check grades and assignments, which are found through Polylearn on the My Classes section of the main page of the portal. This is something that I noticed through my observations too that many students use the My Classes section frequently. He also claimed to use the Student Center, PASS, and the Money Matters tab within in the portal. I found it interesting that he said he checks the poll from time to time to see what kind of questions there are and vote. I didnt think many students took advantage of this feature, but after my interview I see that some students do actually look at it and are interested in participating in it. My second insight was about what students would like to add to the portal. As my group had predicted, students want to see a forum type application within the portal to communicate with other students. My interviewee said I think I would add maybe like a forum thing where students can talk about ideas within the portal itself after I asked him if you could add anything to the Portal what would you add and why? Also, In follow up to my question of what college specific information would you like to see on the portal?, my interviewee suggested maybe having a forum for different majors or colleges or having advising hours listed. My subject also suggested after I asked him what kinds of things would you like to see on the portal specific to your grade level? that it would be great to have a section specific for workshops preparing for grad school and med school. It seems as though students really like the idea of having a communication center within the portal to communicate with other students and also to have pertinent grade and college specific information and announcements as well. Analysis of Peers Interview Content Chris also gained great insight from his interview on how to improve the portal. After Chris asked what college specific information would you like to see on the portal? his interviewee stated that she wanted it more specific to my major because Ag isnt really affiliated with my major. I found this interesting because being a business major I assume that everyone in the Orfalea College of Business is pursuing some sort of business related career. However in much broader colleges like the College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences, college specific information may not be as beneficial to all students within it. Also, his subject suggested having an easier way to manage the progress of like how many classes you need, because [she] go[es] into ~ 86 ~

[her] counselor like once a quarter to figure it out. I thought a feature to manage your degree progress would be a great idea and is something we should definitely suggest to Darren about possibly implementing.

C-5: Jackies Interview Data

Part 1 Date: May 1, 2012 Time: 4:15 p.m. Location: 2nd floor Library Interviewer: Jackie Rainey Interviewee: Shelby Observer: Chris DaCruz Key questions will be highlighted in yellow Probes highlighted in green Transcript Screening Question Interviewer: Would you mind telling me a little bit about yourself such as your name college, age? Interviewee: Okay, Im Shelby, Im a child development major and Im a senior graduating in June and what else do I have to say? Interviewer: Age. Interviewee: 21 Introductory Question Interviewer: Okay, so what brings you to the library today? Interviewee: Im working on my senior project. Im writing a part of my paper. Interviewer: Thats great. Umm do you currently use the MyCalPoly Portal? Interviewee: I do not as often right now because the classes I am taking right now dont use it, but I go on to you know check payments and grades and whatever. But right now my classes dont use it Transition Question ~ 87 ~

Interviewer: Okay, how often would you say you used the portal before your classes did not require you to use it? Interviewee: You mean when I was taking classes that did have it? Interviewer: Yeah Interviewee: I would say a lot of my teachers used blackboard so I would go on there probably 3 times a week and do homework off of there and readings off of there, yeah Id say 3 times a week. Interviewer: (Information) So it was mostly to get to Poly Learn or Blackboard rather than utilize the functions within it? Interviewee: Right. Every one and a while I use other things like I have to log in to go to the library website and I do that a lot because I am doing a lot of research for my project but I dont explore the portal page that often. Key Questions Interviewer: Okay, and what do you use it for the most would you say? Interviewee: For getting to blackboard and just like doing PASS and registering for classes and checking where my classes are so I use it more at the beginning of the quarter than any other time to find out whats going on with my classes Interviewer: (Information) Ok and what other functions besides PASS and PolyLearn do you use on the portal? Interviewee: ummm What other from like the tabs across the top? Interviewer: Sure. Interviewee: I sometimes add money to my card like my.. Interviewer: Campus Express? Interviewee: Yeah, but that hasnt been working recently so I stopped doing that and umm Ive had to find out my ID information so Ill go look that up. I go on there to deal with tuition but my parents help me out so I go on to find out when its due so Im not actually entering that information. Then I dont know what else I use it for other than homework and classes. Interviewer: Okay If you could add anything to the portal what would you add and why? Interviewee: Ummm hmmm I dont know Thats a good question I wish the email I guess was.. like I use my Yahoo email for mostly everything cause the Cal Poly email goes straight to my Yahoo so that would be cool if that was my primary email that I could go check through the portal just so that would make it so I was on the portal more often and maybe saw more updates that Cal Poly had Interviewer: (Reflection) Okay so just to be clear you want it to instead of your email link on the portal taking you to Zimbra it would take you to your Yahoo? Interviewee: Right. ~ 88 ~

Interviewer: (Restatement) So to have them more integrated. Interviewee: Right. Interviewer: (Clearinghouse) Ok so could you tell me more about that? Interviewee: It would just make it so that like right now I know that I never go on my portal and so I missed the elections just because I was oblivious to it so it would be cool to instead of going into my Yahoo to check my email I was going into my portal to check my email which I could do but not all my emails get sent there to my cal Poly email address. Most go to just my Yahoo. So it would be cool to check my email and see what was going on at Cal Poly at the same time. Interviewer: Definitely. And would there be any college-specific information that you would like to have on your portal? Interviewee: I feel like Cal Poly is always difficult like its always kind of vague like a couple of times Ive had like a fee due and it doesnt tell me what thats from so it would be nice to have a more specific information or exactly who I could contact if I have questions cause a lot of the time I feel like it will tell me things and then I have to search around a lot to find. Interviewer: (Restatement) So youre looking for more clarity of information rather that just more information? Interviewee: Right, more clarity would be great! Ending Question Interviewer: Excellent and as a fourth year, what kinds of things specific to your grade level would you like to see on the portal? Interviewee: Umm graduation updates would be great umm Im getting emails but they are few and far between and for a while I was concerned that I wasnt graduating because I wasnt getting any emails so just more graduation information. Also, because there are those days in the bookstore where you can buy all the stuff you need and Im not positive when they are so yeah. And I dont even know how to use the new version of Blackboard so Im not really sure how that works so I dont really know... I guess ummjob stuff. I know they have mustang jobs but it would be cool to have stuff outside of San Luis Obispo. Interviewer: Thats a good one Interviewee: Yeah Im planning on going back to the bay area so it would be cool if people were like posting. Maybe they are- I havent been looking into it that much but that would be something I would utilize. Interviewer: Sure. And is there anything that really, really bugs you about the portal? Interviewee: Ummm the password? That its so impossible to log on to. Like when I created my password it took me like 20 times to and now its so long and difficult it ~ 89 ~

would be nice to just use my regular password. Other than that I think that its pretty good and everythings clear for the most part. Interviewer: (Clearinghouse) Anything else youd like to add in there? Interviewee: Nope, I think thats all. Interviewer: (Silent probe) Well thank you for your time.

Analysis of Interviews
Background Information This interview is meant to gather further information for the improvement of the MyCalPoly web portal. The purpose is to discover what an individual students experience with the portal is and how that individual would improve the portal. The following interview was conducted at the library on the second floor at about 4:15 p.m. This student was working alone but did not have headphones in. She is an upperclassman and was using a rented laptop from the library. I introduced myself, told her what I was interested in, and got informed consent to record our conversation. Analysis of Personal Interview Content Overall, I feel that my interview went fairly well. I had a participant who was relatively responsive and I was able to elicit some useful information. As a senior, my interviewees insight was useful because she has had four years of experience with the portal. From the information I got from the interview, I was able to come up with some useful information to bring to the team and form recommendations for improving the portal. Our team has been debating whether it would be preferred by students to customize the portal based on grade level or college affiliation. From the interview I conducted, it is my impression that grade level customization would be optimal. For example, my interviewee noted that at one point she was concerned about her graduation status due to a lack of communication from the university and that she would have liked to have been able to reference the portal for more information. She also expressed an interest in, being able to see job postings from outside of San Luis Obispo. Since many graduating seniors plan on moving back home, or at least out of the area, it might be helpful to see employment opportunities from different geographical locations. These responses lead me to believe that a grade-specific layout of the portal could be beneficial to students in the next version. The interview process went much like other interviews I have conducted. Given the product in question, I expected m\y participant to need a lot of probing and prompting. However, my participant was more forthcoming than I had anticipated and I ~ 90 ~

found myself having a hard time coming up with probes on the spot. This interview was a little different than most others I have done, though, in that I was unsure as to how much emotion I should try to get from my participant. I kept wanting to ask how a particular feature made her feel. For example, when she said she was not sure if she was graduating because of the lack of communication from Cal Poly, my initial response was to ask how she felt at that point, but I refrained from doing so because I felt that probe would not elicit a relevant response for the given research purpose. It may take some adjusting from my traditional interview training for Psychology when I am conducting market research. I also found that I tend to use reflective and restatement probes. I also noticed that I need to improve on not jumping in and answering questions for the participant. I noticed I did that a couple times, for example she could not think of the name of the account on her Poly Card and I suggested Campus Express. I need to be careful with this in the future or it may greatly bias the data I collect. Analysis of Peer Interview Content Hannah was the first of our group that went to the library to interview someone. During her interview I kept record of how many of each type of probe she used throughout her conversation with Eric. I noticed two of each of the following: reflective, clearinghouse, and information. I also took note of a silent probe. Hannah seemed to feel comfortable with interviewing a random participant and she seamlessly wove her probes in with the primary questions. If I were to give one word for the interview it would be, natural. The variety of probes used was commendable and useful since her participant, though willing, was not particularly loquacious. She was able to get useful insight from her interviewee and it did not feel awkward or forced. I do have two recommendations for Hannah for the next interview she conducts. One is that she had a tendency to interrupt him or cut him off. However, this is not a glaring problem since the interviews were supposed to be kept relatively short. The other is that she tended to have confirming gestures such as nodding her head in agreement with a statement made by the interviewee. These gestures were subtle, but in interest of keeping responses as unbiased as possible, confirming gestures should be kept to a minimum.

~ 91 ~

C-6: Chriss Interview Data

Part 1 Date: 5-1-12 Time: 4:30PM Location: Library 3rd floor Interviewer: Chris DaCruz Interviewee: Ashley Brunello Observer: Hannah Hughes Key questions will be highlighted in yellow Probes highlighted in green Screening Questions Interviewer: First of all, would you mind telling us your name, grade level, age, major, or college? Interviewee: Ok, Ashley Brunello, I am a Parks and Rec major concentrating in event planning, which is a part of the Ag department, and I am 21. Introductory Questions Interviewer: What brings you to the library today? Interviewee: Im writing a paper for philosophy. Interviewer: Have you used the portal for it at all? Interviewee: Mmmmm yes, just to print the assignment. Interviewer: [Information Probe] So basically it was just for looking up the assignment? Interviewee: Yeah. Interviewer: Ummmmm ok. So, are you or do you currently use the My Cal Poly Portal? Interviewee: Yes Interviewer: [Clearinghouse Probe] What for? Interviewee: A lot of my teachers post my assignments on it, and to check my grades, and to check what ever is due, or for a syllabus or something. Transition Questions Interviewer: Ok. How often would you say that you use the portal? Interviewee: At least once a day, or more. Interviewer: [Nudging Probe] Could you put a number on or more? ~ 92 ~

Interviewee: On Monday and Wednesday probably like 4 to 5 times, and on Tuesday or Thursday, probably once. Key Questions Interviewer: Ok, I like it, very specific (laughing from both parties) Ummm what do you use the My Cal Poly Portal for most? Interviewee: Ummm, looking at what assignment is due on what day probably. Interviewer: [Restatement Probe] So just for poly learn? Interviewee: Yeah. Interviewer: What other functions do you currently use on the portal? Interviewee: Umm I use the student center. I just checked my degree progress report today Interviewer: There ya go. Interviewee: I dont know what else I use..... Interviewer: [Silent Probe] ....... Interviewee: I use pass and I guess I use the maps sometimes too because Im a third year and still get lost (laughing by both parties). Interviewer: If you could add anything to the My Cal Poly Portal what would it be and why? Interviewee: I would make it so every teacher had to insert your grades in the same place so you could see them all at the same time. Its really annoying when theyre all over place and difficult to track down. Interviewer: [Clearinghouse Probe] Any thing else other than class-oriented functions? Interviewee: I dont know because I dont really use any of the other stuff. Interviewer: [Clearinghouse Probe] Would you use it if they incorporated a social networking function? Interviewee: Like a Facebook? Interviewer: Ya. Interviewee: If they were like interconnected, then yes I would use it. Interviewer: What college specific information would you like to see on the portal? Interviewee: I want it more specific to my major because Ag isnt really affiliated with my major. Ending Questions Interviewer: Being a 3rd year, what grade specific information would you like to see on your portal? Interviewee: An easier way to manage the progress of like how many classes you need, because I go into my counselor like once a quarter to figure it out. ~ 93 ~

Interviewer: [Reflective Probe] So just to clarify, you would want to see it change from year to year? Interviewee: Ya, but, like every quarter almost. Like once youve completed a quarter it changes. Itll help you plan out what you need to get done before you graduate. Interviewer: Alright I think thats good. Thank you for your time. Analysis of Interviews Background Information At 4:30 PM, on May 1, 2012, I interviewed Ashley Brunello on the third floor of the library. Ashley is a 3rd year Parks and Recreation Major with a focus in event planning. I saw Ashley sitting at a rather large table with a few other people, who looked like they were taking a break from studying, and asked her if she had a minute for an interview. I informed her of our purpose and she very interested and obliged to take part in our observational research. It was Ashley and two of her friends, along with Hannah, my observer, and me at the table. There was a decent amount of people in the library but not overwhelming by any means. Ashley comes to the library frequently to work on homework and study because it is a more productive atmosphere than her house. She gave me her consent to record the interview and we started. Analysis of Personal Interview Content After reviewing the interview, I feel that it gave us some great customer insight into how the portal is most used, what they dont like about it, and what they want to see on the new version. The first insight I gained from interviewing Ashley was that people use the portal mostly for homework. When I asked her Are you or do you currently use the My Cal Poly Portal? she replied with Yes, and when I asked, What for? she said, A lot of my teachers post my assignments on it, and to check my grades, and to check what ever is due, or for a syllabus or something. This short series of questions and answers lead me to believe that the portal is mainly utilized for Poly Learn. I feel like this information has been the conclusion of our observational research thus far, and the more it appears the more obvious it is becoming that most students use the portal for little else. The second was what people do not like about the portal. Ashley stated that if she could change one thing about the portal she would make it so every teacher had to insert your grades in the same place so you could see them all at the same time. Its ~ 94 ~

really annoying when theyre all over place and difficult to track down. I think that this resonates the confusion the portal can sometime cause. There are many ways to do one thing and I think that confuses people. If they were to make everything accessible in one place, the same way every time then people would learn how to do it and continue to use the function. After all, humans are creatures of habit. The third insight I gained was what people want to see in the new version of the portal. Ashley said that she would use a social feature on the portal if it were linked to Facebook, and I think that is true for a majority of young adults in college. She then stated, I want it [the portal] more specific to my major and that she wanted An easier way to manage the progress of like how many classes you need. This suggests that students want to see more change in the portal as they go through school. They want it to cater the information it shows them to their respective years and majors so they know what is going on and coming up. This would help all students be more readily prepared and could help them graduate on time. Analysis of Peer Interview Content Jacquelines interview process also taught me a few things about student uses and preferences of the portal. First off, her interviewee also stated that she, would say a lot of my teachers used blackboard. When Jackie asked, Okay, and what do you use it for the most would you say?, the interviewee stated, For getting to blackboard and just like doing PASS and registering for classes and checking where my classes are so I use it more at the beginning of the quarter than any other time to find out whats going on with my classes. This again leads me to the conclusion that students mainly use the portal for class work. The second thing I learned from her interview was that students want the email to be more user friendly. The interviewee stated that she wish[ed] the email I guess was like I use my Yahoo email for mostly everything cause the Cal Poly email goes straight to my Yahoo so that would be cool if that was my primary email that I could go check through the portal just so that would make it so I was on the portal more often and maybe saw more updates that Cal Poly had. This suggests that students would be more likely to access the portal if it were more integrated with the social applications such as Facebook and primary email. Jacqueline used silent, clearinghouse, and nudging probes in her interview, and based on the content of her interview she used them rather effectively. Her interviewee ~ 95 ~

was rather talkative so the silent probe worked best for Jacqueline because if she just didnt say anything, her subject just kept on talking. Jacqueline could have asked a few more questions to get the most out of the interview. She moved relatively quickly from main question to main question. All in all, her interview was very useful and I think it will lend us valuable information when we collaborate for T3.

C-7: Additional Interview Data

Introduction We decided to have Hannah interview one more student after completing each of our assignments. We wanted to verify our research by asking a student about our conclusions and recommendations for the new portal and see what his/her reaction and/or opinion would be. Hannah interviewed a third year female Liberal Arts major, who will be graduating early in the fall. The interview was conducted at 5:00 pm on May 21, 2012 on the third floor of the library. Below is the verbatim transcript of the interview. Interviewer: Hi, would you mind taking a few minutes to answer a few questions about the Cal Poly Portal? Interviewee: Yes, I dont mind. I actually have a lot of opinions about it. Interviewer: Great! The interview will be recorded and your identity will be kept confidential. Interviewee: Okay. Interviewer: What do you think of the portal now? Interviewee: Umm its more complicated than Blackboard. I dont like Polylearn I liked Blackboard more. And I think the way the home page is set up is busy and not designed well. I think its stupid that you can scroll down a lot on the main page. I dont like the poll on the right hand side and it doesnt change often. I dont really like much about it. Interviewer: What are your first impressions of the new portal? (shows subject the new portal and clicks around to show the subject the new tabs and main page) Interviewee: Its way cuter! I like this. I think its a lot more visually attractive, and simpler. I know on the portal right now they try and have all of our colors and I think it looks really juvenile. Theres a lot going on that is unnecessary like all the icons and stuff. Interviewer: okay great. What do you think about the portal being organized by year? Interviewee: That would be a lot better.

~ 96 ~

Interviewer: If it were organized by your year or by college, how would you like it to look? Interviewee: I think that your Cal Poly news should be primarily for your major or college because I dont care about what other colleges are doing. I would like to have my colleges news first. As for my year, it would be nice because my standing is senior standing if the warning page thing would have things like you need to buy your cap and gown or dont forget to do this. Interviewer: that is kind of what my group was thinking of. Where would you like to view that information on your portal? Interviewee: I would like to have a tab that said like senior stuff or something like that where everything is congregated in one. So you can easily see financial things and upcoming events on campus. Interviewer: thats great. We were thinking like for example, for freshman they could have tutorials on the portal because freshmen dont really know all the things that are on it. For sophomores, there would be flowcharts for concentrations. For juniors, it would change to things like having degree progress report. Interviewee: That all sounds great. I would love to even have like a checklist maybe even if its permanent to check things off because you do everything on your portal anyways. It would be cool to see how many units you have left to take or like you have to do our grad evaluation form four quarters in advance so it would be nice to have the portal tell you when to do it and then check it off when you have it completed. Because you dont think about those things until its too late. It would be nice to show if youre on track financially, with all your forms, and to be up to date with things on campus. There are so many links on the portal right now where you have to go through four different things to find out if youre on track. Interviewer: thats all great. We also got a lot of feedback from students who wanted a social communication feature where they could either have a forum with students in their college or even on the front page of the portal who are talking about things going on in the college Interviewee: I would like to see trending topics somewhere. Just to see in student discussions where there would be like trending topics going on right then. Just so that you could ask a question and see it being responded by people who know what they are doing or by students who have done it before because you pretty much take student advice already and itd be easier than Googling it. Interviewer: Okay, we also found that there was a desire to have a chat feature that you could chat advisors, kind of like how you can chat the librarians. Interviewee: I LOVE chatting librarians Interviewer: We were thinking of having an advisor chat where there is always one advisor on there to chat students.

~ 97 ~

Interviewee: I like that idea a lot. Even if its a student advisor, I would just like to hear from someone more quickly because sometimes I panic about things and itd be nice to have someone answer any random questions hard to find. My biggest pet peeve is when advisors email me back saying I can find it on the website and Im like well I cant find it on the website! Interviewer: Where do you think would be a good place on the new portal for the chat feature to be displayed? On the main page? on a tab? Interviewee: (points to the new portal prototype) I think it would be good if it went under your warnings or under the cal poly news. It would be cool to have it little on the side. Interviewer: okay great! Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions. Conclusion I was pleased to get such positive feedback from my interviewee on the recommendations we had for the portal. The interviewee was very opinionated and gave a lot of great ideas and insight as to what she thought of the current portal. She claimed, like many other students have, that the current portal is busy and poorly designed and that the new portal appears to be simple and more visually attractive. The interviewee was also enthusiastic about having college and grade specific information on the portal. She suggested having a senior section which is basically what we already implemented and came up with before even talking to her. We decided to implement her idea of having a checklist, but we made it a to-do list for each grade level with things that they should have completed. The interviewee was excited about the chat function as well and we decided to place the chat box under the news section on the main page of the portal. Overall, we were please with our responses received from this last interview and are excited about our recommendations for the portal.

Appendix D: Questionnaire Research

D-1: Group Questionnaire Data
Part 1 Introduction The goal of this questionnaire is to gain more knowledge and understanding concerning the attitudes, beliefs, and/or behaviors of My Cal Poly Portal student users. After speaking with Mr. Kraker and his colleague, we were able to narrow down the information that they would like us to still gather in terms of the class level segmentation of the portal. In gaining this knowledge, we sought to ask the appropriate questions that ~ 98 ~

included both key questions to help answer our research questions, as well as demographic questions to associate with the key question answers. We had a total of ten questions that were all closed ended and the majority of the included questions measure customer satisfaction. Our main goal in distributing the questionnaire is to find out the answers to these questions so that we can associate the respondents grade level with their answer choices and hopefully be able to provide generalizations regarding our ideas. We begin by stating our research purpose because that is what our entire research process, including this questionnaire, is about and it has also changed since our last assignment. Questions

What are the research questions that the questionnaire will seek to answer? 1) How do students want the information on the portal to be organized? *Side note: For this question, we are not directly asking the respondents how they want the information on the portal to be organized, rather we are taking the information we gather from the question that says please rate the degree to which you use the following MyCalPoly Portal features and using this to offer suggestions on how to better organize the information on the main portal page. We are correlating what features students use most to where that information should be placed when reorganizing the portal. 2) What customization options do students want available on their portal? 3) What new information/functions, not already included, would students like to see on the portal?

What will be the sampling strategy for selecting respondents?

The sampling method that we utilized in sending out our questionnaires consisted of creating a Facebook event page, in which we invited students to participate in taking the survey. Each one of our group members sent the survey to a large amount of people, ranging from 60 to 200, using the event page format, in order to guarantee that we received enough respondents to meet the sample size criteria. Although the assignment only required five to ten survey completions per group member, we decided to gather twenty five responses total, from each grade level (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, fifth year, and graduate). We attempted to differentiate not only between grade levels, but between colleges as well, in order to get a more diverse sample, therefore our strategy was partially purposive. However, we also consider our sample to be a convenience sample because we chose to create the event and give the survey out via the internet. It was the easiest and most readily available way for us to get a sample from students. Although we may have gotten ~ 99 ~

different results from handing out physical surveys in different classrooms (or another method along those lines), this was the best way to synthesize all of the information and made it more convenient for the respondent who took the survey, which is why we chose to implement the survey this way. The introduction to the questionnaire indicates that the survey is ten questions long, which allowed for a higher number of respondents since it is rather short and did not take much time to complete. Given our online strategy, we were unable to obtain samples at different times and days, rather we focused heavily on making sure that our samples came from a variety of students from different colleges within Cal Poly.

What questions will be asked and what response options will be provided? *Side note: Although this is not the same format as the questionnaire that we administered, the questions and answer options are verbatim from the actual given questionnaire.

1. How satisfied are you with the Cal Poly Portal? 1. Completely dissatisfied 2. Somewhat dissatisfied 3. Neutral 4. Somewhat satisfied 5. Extremely satisfied 2. How often do you use the portal? 1. Once daily 2. 2-3 times daily 3. 4+ times daily 4. 1-5 per week 5. 1-5 times per month 6. I never use the portal 3. Please rate the degree to which you use the following MyCalPoly Portal features. Never My Classes Email Student Center Student Assistant Timesheet 1 1 1 1 Not very often 2 2 2 2 Sometimes 3 3 3 3 Often 4 4 4 4 Always 5 5 5 5

~ 100 ~

ASI Money Matters Housing Registration and Enrollment Personal information Library Services Technology Notifications Mustang Jobs PASS

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3

4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4

5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5

4. How satisfied are you with the following portal features available on the MyCalPoly Portal? Not at all Satisfied My Classes Polls Cal Poly News Forum Cal Poly-specific information 1 1 1 Not satisfied 2 2 2 Somewhat satisfied 4 4 4 Extremely satisfied 5 5 5

Neutral 3 3 3

5. Please indicate how useful you would find each of the following features that are not currently available on the Portal. Not useful Not useful Somewhat Useful Extremely Useful

Neutral

~ 101 ~

at all Portal tutorials Job opportunities outside of SLO Degree progress report Concentration information Professor Office Hours Social communication feature (like a chatroom between students and teachers) 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 5

1 1 1 1

2 2 2 2

3 3 3 3

4 4 4 4

5 5 5 5

6. What kind of social communication features would you like to see implemented on the MyCalPoly Portal? (Please rank each option in order (from 1-5) with 5 being the most important and 1 being the least important.) Blog Group Chat Forum Document Sharing Instant Messaging 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 4 5 5 5 5 5

7. Would you like your Facebook to be integrated with your Portal? Yes/No 8. What year are you in at Cal Poly? 9. Which college do you belong to? 1. Orfalea College of Business 2. College of Liberal Arts 3. College of Architecture and Environmental Design ~ 102 ~ 1 2 3 4 5+ Graduate

4. College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Science 5. College of Science and Mathematics 6. College of Engineering 10. Please indicate your gender. a. female b. male The chart below states our reasons for choosing the particular questions above: Questions Q1 Purpose This question was general enough to be a good introduction to the survey. From this, we wanted to gain knowledge in how pleased students are with the current state of the portal. It does not specifically answer any of our research questions, but it can at least help us indicate how many changes need to be made in the portal over time (the higher the dissatisfaction = the more changes that need to be made). This question was another, more general, introduction question. This question helped us determine how popular the portal is and will help us to see whether the traffic has increased or not after the suggested changes have been implemented. In other words, if the changes on the portal prove effective, it will be shown by the increased usage of the portal in comparison to the numbers we obtain. We want to know what features students use the most. It helped us answer the research question: How do students want the information on the portal to be organized? because it allowed us to associate high usage with main portal page offerings. This helped us determine what information to keep on the portal in general and what needs to be redesigned or altered in terms of location on the portal. This question helped us determine how satisfied students are with some of the main aspects of the portal. This helped us decide what needs to be redesigned or altered because if the students rate most items poorly, we can conclude that serious changes need to be made to this information/feature. This is one of our most important, and more specific, questions. From our interviews, we were able to obtain some suggestions as to what features students would like to see made available on the portal. At this point, we ~ 103 ~

Q2

Q3

Q4

Q5

would like to see if there is a correlation between the students year level and which features they would find useful if available. This helps us answer our third research question: What new information/functions, not already included, would students like to see on the portal? Q6 From previous research, we have noticed a strong desire for some sort of social communication/forum feature. We now want to make this a generalization and prove that many students would utilize such a feature.This question will help us determine whether or not to suggest a social aspect of the portal to be implemented at all. It also helps us answer the research question: What new information/functions, not already included, would students like to see on the portal? Some competitor portals offer the integration of social sites and portals. We want to know if Cal Poly students would want this feature available to them. Mr. Kraker also said that he found that students said they didnt want Facebook to be linked with their portals, but then asked us to research this once again, in order to see what students want now. This, again, helps answer the research question: What new information/functions, not already included, would students like to see on the portal? The entire point of this survey rests in correlating the students year with the information they have given us by answering the above questions. We need this information in order to prove our theory/recommendation. This question helped us to see how the college of each student correlates with their preferences and also ensured that we had a sample that was random enough. This question helped us determine how the gender of the respondent correlates to his/her preferences and ensured that we had a random sample in terms of male/female respondents. What instructions will be given to respondents?

Q7

Q8

Q9

Q10

Introduction: Thank you for participating in this study for the BUS 418 class. Your participation will help us in the reconstruction of the My Cal Poly Portal. The results will provide insights into what the students of Cal Poly would like to see on their portals. Your attitudes and opinions are important to this study. All of your answers will be kept strictly confidential. Directions: Please read each question carefully and answer to the best of your abilities. ~ 104 ~

How will the questions be sequenced?

The design of our questionnaire focuses on the flow of questions from general to more specific and we ended with questions regarding demographic data. We chose this order because we wanted to ensure that the questionnaire is completed by all of the respondents that chose to take part in it. According to our readings and from the discussion in class, demographic questions should go last because they are personal and may be too personal and possibly lead the respondent to change his/her mind about taking the survey if it makes him/her uncomfortable. If they are placed at the end, however, the person has already completed the majority of the survey and will likely feel more comfortable finishing it. We also placed more complex questions later in the survey and easier questions at the beginning in order to avoid scaring people away from completion.

How will the questionnaire be distributed?

We decided that the easiest method to distributing the questionnaire was via a Facebook event page. Each group member created their own event page and invited only those students that currently attend Cal Poly. We did not have each member segment who they were going to send the survey to based on their class level because it would have been too difficult to obtain the correct people from each group member. Rather, we chose to have each member gain information from as many students as he/she could, and then came together in order to combine the number of the freshman, sophomores, juniors, seniors, fifth years and graduates that each member was able to survey. We also made the events at different times of day and on different days and the responses varied as to when the students conveniently answered it. As stated in the sampling strategy section, we did not distribute in any other way besides by computer because of information synthesization purposes. In using the GoogleDoc Questionnaire, we were able to have each survey response automatically entered into a spreadsheet similar to Excel. In this way, each member did not have to individually enter their responses into an Excel sheet. From this data, we were able to copy the data into an actual Excel sheet and create all of our graphs and charts that are analyzed in part two. The data collection was made much easier this way and allowed for a more thorough synthesis. Part 2 Sample Representativeness We ended our survey with a total of 102 responses. Although our goal was to get 25 respondents from each grade level, we were unable to meet this criteria because there were very few seniors who chose to participate in the survey. There are two reasons that could have been the cause of this: 1) seniors are not concerned with the portal because they will no longer have to use it after graduating, 2) since the sample was a convenience sample and we let the respondents choose whether to participate or ~ 105 ~

not, (rather than ask them directly) we did not obtain as many respondents. We also had a few missing responses from questions that were not answered by certain participants. Unfortunately, the data collection method we used was not conducive to analyzing what features each grade level found most useful. Since Google recorded the responses in written form, not numerically, we could not do certain statistical tests on the data through Excel without going back through and re-coding hundreds of responses. However, we were still able to make several useful inferences from the data we collected. The following section of our paper is organized as follows: the question is stated as it appeared in the questionnaire, followed by a graph that we created about the responses to the question, then a description of what the graph means, and finally, what we concluded from it. 1) How satisfied are you with the My Cal Poly Portal?

Portal Satisfaction
50 45 Number of Respondents 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Somewhat satisfied Neutral Somewhat dissatisfied Satisfaction Level Completely dissatisfied Extremely satisfied 4 2 29 20 Total 46

From this graph, we can conclude that a majority of Cal Poly students are satisfied with the current offerings of the portal. 24% of students were completely dissatisfied or somewhat dissatisfied, 29% were neutral, and 48% were somewhat satisfied or extremely satisfied. This suggests that major reconstruction is not necessary, but the addition of new features and enhancement of old features could be extremely valuable to the students. Although this did not directly answer one of our research questions, it helped us note that there is room for improvement on the portal and that new features may be added to help with this.

~ 106 ~

2) How often do you use the portal?

Portal Usage
60 51 50 Number of Respondents 40 30 20 10 0 2-3 times daily 4+ times daily Uses Once daily 1-5 times per week 19 Total 17 14

When we decided to ask this question, we were concerned with how often students used the portal because we want to make it more user friendly so students will use it more often and with ease. The numbers in the graph are directly representative of their rounded percentages, so a majority of 70% of students use the portal more than twice a day. This suggest that students find the portal useful, but we want to know what we can do to entice the other 30% to implement the portal more often. This question did not directly answer any of our research questions, but can be tied into the point of our research purpose, which states that we want to reorganize the portal information and add new features in order to please the students that utilize it. The following questions explore different new options for the portal and seek to discover which ones will be seen as most useful by the students.

~ 107 ~

3) Please rate the degree to which you use each of the following My Cal Poly Portal features.

Degree of Use
100% 90% 80% 70% 97% 95% 94% 92%

Percentage

60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

56% 51% 50% 47% 42%

25% 17% 14% 13% 10%

Features *Side Note: For this graph, we took the sum of all responses that were either sometimes,often, or always, and divided that number by total responses to that question. Each column, therefore, represents the percentage of respondents that answered sometimes or above for each feature. Based on the information that respondents gave to us concerning the features on the portal, we have deduced that the most important features used were My Classes, Student Center, Registration and Enrollment, and PASS, all ranking in the 90th percentile. It is reasonable to state that these are the most important features on the site because all students need to use these features every quarter to prepare for registration, actually registering, and keeping up to date with those classes they registered for. This leads us to believe that these should be some of the important features displayed on the main page of the new portal to allow easier access of them to students. Other notable features ranking in the 40th and 50th percentile were Email, Money Matters, Personal Information, Library Services, and Mustang Jobs. It might be relevant to still include these features on the main page not as the main tabs, but maybe ~ 108 ~

as side links that are still accessible to students. An interesting thing that we noted was that Housing, Technology, the Student Assistant Timesheet, and Notifications all had small degrees of use. We think that it may be a good idea to either take these features out completely or adjust them so that students are more satisfied with them/utilize them more. 4) How satisfied are you with the following features available on the My Cal Poly Portal?

Satisfaction of Available Features

100% 90% 80% 70% 63%

Percentage

60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% PolyLearn Links Polls CP Specific Info. CP News Forum 24% 14% 11%

Features

*Side Note: This graph notes all responses that were either satisfied or extremely satisfied with the given feature. Since 63% of students were satisfied or extremely satisfied with the PolyLearn Links, we feel this is a feature that students like and should therefore be kept on the portal. In contrast, only 11% of students were satisfied with the current news forum feature. This does not necessarily mean that the entire feature should be terminated, rather it means that ITS should research further as to whether or not it is a feature that students find useful at all. They should figure out whether they need to put a concerted effort into improving the way in which news is delivered or just get rid of the feature entirely. Cal Poly Specific information refers to any information available on the portal that students might need to look up, such as their personal information or library hours. Overall, students were not very satisfied with the information available on the Portal. ~ 109 ~

Although this may be due to the fact that students find it difficult to navigate to such information, it may also be because the information needs some adjusting or further analysis. As for the polls, people did not seem particularly satisfied, even though several people during the interviews said they really enjoyed them. If only 14% of people use this feature and satisfied with it then this may not be something to continue having in the next portal. 5) Please indicate how useful you would find each of the following features that are not currently available on the Portal?

Additions to the Portal

100% 90% 80% 70% 83% 83% 79% 70% 65%

Percentage

60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 22%

Features

*Side Note: For this graph, we took the percentages of students that answered somewhat useful or extremely useful for each additional feature. With this question we were trying to find what features we could suggest to include in the new portal in order to increase student satisfaction. We found that students wanted to be able to access their Degree Progress Report directly from the Portal and that they wanted professors office hours to be more readily available. The low response to the portal tutorials really surprised us. In our previous research, they were approved by all grade levels but in this survey they were the least popular at 22%. These results suggest that there are still many improvements to be made to the portal, ~ 110 ~

but if the features with the highest approval percentages are integrated, student satisfaction can be increased. This directly correlated with our research question that strived to discover what new features students would like to see made available on the portal. 6) What kind of social communication features would you like to see implemented on the My Cal Poly Portal?

Social Communication Features

100% 90% 80% 70% 69% 63% 60% 88%

Percentage

60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Document Sharing Instant Messaging Forum Group Chat Blog 36%

Features

*Side Note: For this graph we decided to gather the percentages of the features that students rated as a 3, 4 or 5 (on a scale from 1-5) in terms of what social communication features they would want to see implemented on the portal the most. Document sharing was the most popular response, with 88% of respondents indicating that they would like to see this feature implemented. For the social connection type features, like the group chat, the forum, and the instant messaging, students showed a high demand with 60%, 63%, and 69% interest in them. A blog type feature received only 36%. Based on this data, we can conclude that the importance of social communication from student to student, or student to faculty, could be a strong new feature which would generate positive feedback from students about the new portal. This also helped answer our research question concerning what new features, not already available, students would want to see on the portal.

~ 111 ~

7) Would you like Facebook to be integrated with your Portal?

From this graph we have deduced that integrating Facebook into the new portal is not of the utmost demand. Only 21% of students from our survey said they would use it. This result surprised us because in our interviews students seemed to answer yes to this question. Also, other competitors in the portal industry have offered this option and had success. It doesnt seem to be in high demand at Cal Poly and would therefore not be worth the time, effort, and cost required to include it in the new portal. We can now assure Mr. Kraker that the students dont, in fact, want this integration added to the portal. This did not help us directly answer our research question concerning customization options, rather it showed us which options they did not want to integrate.

~ 112 ~

8) What year are you at Cal Poly?

We were satisfied with our response level because we met our goal of 100 responses, however we didnt obtain exactly 25 from each grade level. The majority of our responses were from second and third years with 32% and 30%, respectively. We believe that the reason we received more second year responses was because 3 out of 5 group members are also second years and may have sent the survey to more people in their grade level. There was a response rate of about 21% for first years and 12% for fourth years. We noted that we didnt get enough fourth year responses. We think this is due to the fact that fourth years dont care as much about the future of the portal because they are graduating soon, as we stated above. We also obtained 3 fifth year responses and 2 graduate responses. We didnt have the goal of receiving responses from fifth year and graduate students because we felt it would be difficult to reach them but we were pleased to see responses from them because their opinions are valid and important to have nonetheless. We still believe that we were able to get a representative sample, though, because of the amount of people that answered, the differences in colleges, and the different year levels that we were able to obtain.

~ 113 ~

9) Which college do you belong to?

From this graph we can conclude that we had a fairly even spread of recipients from multiple colleges. We had the most from the College of Agriculture, Food, and Environmental Science at 23%, and the least from the College of Architecture and Environmental Design at 8%. This even sample distribution among colleges ensured that we got an unbiased and purposive sample. We wanted to obtain as much variation in our sample as to ensure its randomness, and this distribution among colleges shows that we achieved our goal. 10) Please indicate your gender.

~ 114 ~

Our sample overrepresented women and underrepresented men in comparison to the actual composition of the Cal Poly student body. However, we agree that this probably did not have a major impact on our data composition because we still received a large number of respondents from both genders. Summary of Key Findings After quantifying the data that we received from the questionnaire, we were able to distinguish three key findings that the new version of the portal should update and implement to make it more organized for all students and faculty. The main themes are bolded in the paragraphs below. One aspect that was prominent throughout the questionnaire was the availability and ease of access of features. For one, students were not as satisfied with the current version of the portal as we thought they would be. We determined that with the enhancement of old features and availability of new ones, their feedback with the portal would become more positive all around. Expanding on the topic of new features, there was a high percentage of students who would like to see the degree progress report (83%) and concentration information (79%) available on the portal in a form that is easily accessible and easy to interpret (see question #5). This would allow for students to have resources available on the front page so they would not have to click around aimlessly to try and find these links. This helped answer our research question What new information/functions, not already included, would students like to see on the portal? because we were able to see that there is a high percentage coordinated with the implementation of these features. Another important feature which students seemed to express was very important to them is a social communication feature addition to the portal. Our question, which asked about the importance of social communication features, came back positive for almost all of our features that we offered, including document sharing, group chat, instant messaging, and forums, all landing above 60% (see question #6). This new feature would allow students and faculty to be more organized with any questions students have for their teachers, and future assignment and testing dates. However, students do not want to mix work with fun and would prefer to keep Facebook and the portal separate. This, again, helped us answer our research question What new information/functions, not already included, would students like to see on the portal? and allowed us to deduce that the customization feature of integrating Facebook is not wanted. Furthermore, the localization of important features on the homepage was another insight we gained from our data. Features like My Classes, PASS, and the Student Center were all used by respondents very often according to our third question in our questionnaire, which concerned the usage of features. This organization feature could improve the ease of navigation around the portal for students, making the portal a more straightforward site to use. ~ 115 ~

All students seem to be looking for a more relatable, manageable portal where they can find all their school resources easily. Our findings have shown the need for improvement of organization is strongly recommended by students, and should be utilized in the new version.

Appendix E: Focus Group Research

E-1: Group Focus Group Data
Part 1 Introduction The focus group sessions allowed my group to gain more insight into students needs, expectations and perceptions regarding the My Cal Poly portal. Not only does it allow a student group to collaborate on their ideas and express their thoughts, but it provides an environment where these students can do so without judgment. In reviewing both focus group sessions, I have discovered a few themes that were apparent among the students. Below is the breakdown of the Focus Group Guide, as well as the themes that I discovered. Focus Group Strategy The class, as a group, decided that it would be best to put lowerclassmen (freshmen and sophomores) in one group, and upperclassmen (juniors and seniors) in another. We knew that it was important for the members participating to have something in common in order to relate to each other better and feel more comfortable, thus we determined that organizing the groups in this fashion was a good idea to solve this issue. The first group, which was held from 2:10-3:00pm, consisted of the lowerclassmen and the second group, which was held from 3:10-4:00pm, consisted of upperclassmen. Each team (1-8) chose one lowerclassman and one upperclassman to participate in each session. Each team was then responsible for posting their choices, on a first come first serve basis, to the forum or by e-mail to Robert, one of the focus group managers. Because we wanted to ensure that we were obtaining a diverse sample, we had the focus group team gather information from each group, making sure that there were not too many people enlisted from one major. The focus group teams requirements in the Focus Group Guide stated, Taking the number of teams and the number of participants needed into account, we will have no more than three people from each college. The mix of genders was not something that the focus group team nor our class decided to take into account, therefore the composition of gender was not ~ 116 ~

a requirement in terms of choosing participants. We were able to obtain a very diverse sample, which can be viewed in the student background information as follows: # (1=lower classman, 2=upperclassman) 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 Focus Group #1 The first focus group that took place was on May 15th, 2012 from approximately 2:10-3:00pm in the Business building, room 207. As you can see in the chart above, there were a total of four first years and four second years, making our sample equally distributed in terms of lowerclassmen status. We had a variety of colleges represented as well, such as the College of Business and the College of Engineering. There were a total of two girls and five boys in this group, therefore the data may be skewed in some way. One participant did not show up. Focus Group #2 The second focus group, which also took place on May 15 th, 2012, was help from approximately 3:10-4:00pm in the same location as the first focus group. This sample consisted of three third years and five fourth years and although this was not a perfectly even split among upperclassmen, I believe that the sample can still be considered random and representative because of the different colleges that each participant was from. These consisted of the College of Business and the College of Math and Science, as well as the College of Engineering and the College of Liberal Arts. There were a total ~ 117 ~

College Biology Materials Engineering Engineering Graphic Communications Business GRC Biomedical engineering Ag Engineering Business Liberal Arts Political Science Civil Engineering Business Agriculture Engineering Kinesiology

Year 1 4 2 3 2 4 1 4 2 3 1 4 2 4 1 3

of five girls and two boys in this group, therefore the data may be skewed. One participant did not show up. Focus Group Logistics The incentives chosen by Dr. Neill and the class included donuts, water bottles, juice, and a $5 gift card to a place on campus provided by Mr. Kraker. The moderators for the first group consisted of Meagan McCall and Tanner Lauringson. The second group consisted of Jackie Rainey and Ali Amirvand. The managers of the focus group team were Cesar Santizo and Robert Lee. A pre-survey was given to the students that participated in each focus group before the focus group session began. The information included in the survey was demographic.

Research Question The research question that our group specifically sought to answer was: How would students like the information on the portal to be organized?" *Side Note: At this point in time, we had narrowed down our main focus which was the segmentation of the portal based on a students class level. However, we knew that the organization of the portal was still an important issue that we wanted to address because many students had expressed their frustrations in regards to the organization of the portal information. Therefore, we decided that this was a good question to have answered by the focus group because we were not going to be addressing it in our questionnaire and did not have any research thus far pertaining to this subject. Focus Group Guide Below is a copy of the Focus Group Guide that was put together by the managers and moderators of the focus group team. It describes the questioning route that took place, as well as the activities that were used to gather information. The numerical format states the topics and schedule of the focus group. Below each number is/are a bullet(s) stating what the moderators said to the focus group, as well as any explanation of activities that took place. Focus Group Flowchart: 1. Welcome:

~ 118 ~

Good afternoon and thanks for joining our discussion regarding the Cal Poly Portal. My name is ___________.

2. Overview: Weve been asked by the information technology services department to help them get information from their students about how the university can better serve you. You were invited here because we would like to get your input.

3. Ground Rules: There are no right or wrong answers. We expect that you will have different points of view. Please feel free to share these even if they differ from what others have said. Were here to express our opinions and ideas. We will be recording the discussion because we dont want to miss any of your comments. So, please speak up, and lets have one speaker at a time. Your comments are confidential, and no names will be included in any reports. (They filled out a survey before the moderators began, in order to get demographic information).

4. Introductory Questions: Please tell us your name, year, major and social security number. If you have not already, please go pick a donut of your choice, and tell us which one you picked. Now, please tell us how your donut reflects your personality.

5. Main uses: (frequency of portal usage is incorporated into pre-survey) Listing: On a piece of paper, please write down your 3 main uses, why you use them, and the problems that you encounter when using them. - This activity required the students to write down their three main uses of the Cal Poly Portal. This is simply to make discussion easier and should not take up much time. Discussion followed.

6. Mobile: Please raise your hand if you are currently using any Cal Poly apps. - What do you use them for? What would you like to see on a mobile app? Why?

7. Customizability:

~ 119 ~

How many of you know of the customizable option of the Cal Poly Portal? Would you find it beneficial to have the homepage customized to your year and major? What would you like to do with the portal that you currently cannot?

8. Improvement: Paired activity: Discuss with the person to your left, to come up with what improvement will benefit you two the most in terms of changing the portal: 2 in each of the following categories: i. Class/PolyLearn ii. Communication iii. Academic (grade/registration/DPR) iv. Community Students were asked to work with a partner to their left to come up with two potential improvements in each of the four listed categories. This activity is aimed to initiate more discussion and incorporate group thinking in order to gain more insights to the students expectations of the new portal.

9. Tutorial: How do you usually learn to use new web applications? What do you think would be the best way to find information? Would video tutorials help? What would be the best way to transition between the old and new versions of the portal?

10. New prototype: Word Association: On a piece of paper, please write down 3 words that come to mind when you see the current portal, and 3 words about the new prototype. - Participants were shown the current portal and were asked to write down three words that describe it. Discussion followed.

11. Miscellaneous: Scenario Imagination: Imagine the portal was a person sitting right in front of you, and you can say 1 sentence to him. What would you say? (clearinghouse probe)

~ 120 ~

In this activity, students were asked to imagine the portal as a person sitting right in front of them; they can say one sentence to the portalbe it a question, a complaint, or advice. This activity was used to identify what the students perceive as the most important issue regarding the portal. Discussion followed. Part 2

Because we wanted to find out more about how students want the information on the portal to be organized, I tried to look for the main issues that students expressed concerning this idea. There were many examples given from students and the following chart states the theme, explanation, evidence supporting it, and analysis of each theme. If the quotes have come from focus group one, I have used F1 as the header, as well as stated the participant numbers. If the quotes have come from group two I have used F2 as the header, as well as stated the participant number. Each quote in the evidence section should be read in order, since some quotes are associated with ones that precede it. Theme Problems and main uses for the portal Explanation The students of both focus groups explained their 3 main uses for the portal. Many students spoke about their concerns/ problems with these features that they use very often, therefore it is important to look further into fixing these issues. Evidence F1: -Participant #2: I dont like how PASS logs off on you every so often. -Participant #5: Same thing with her, with PASS it would be cool if you could edit your saved schedules -Participant #7: My three main uses were for PASS, accessing PolyLearn, and like the directory. -Participants #1,2,7: Student Center. -Participants #5,7: PolyLearn. F2: -Participant #1: Cause on the other one, what does it say, registration and enrollment and you can click over to like your um enrollment appointments and all that stuff through that link on ~ 121 ~ Analysis In answering our research question, this can help us very much in determining what information should be kept on the portal, where it should be placed, and how user-friendly it should be. Since each student named different aspects of the portal that they utilize, we can use this information to explain to Darren how we think the information should be organized on the new portal. Given that these are the main things that students

the old one [portal]. I know I use that a lot.

use, they should be placed in an obvious or easy to find place -Participant #2: I dont use housing, because of the announcements. frequent use of them. Students expressed -Participant #8: I do like the search on problems with being it though like how you can look up able to find and use peoples e-mail addresses. (many these applications, agreed with him but too jumbled for me therefore they should to tell who said what) be made more userfriendly. Since PASS -Participant #1: PASS to make class is something that was schedules. mentioned by many students, who -Participant #3: Using PolyLearn and expressed concern PASS about it, and it is something that the -Participant #5: umm for registration ITS department can like to connect to PASS control, that is also something that -Participation #8: and then also should be looked into registering for classes using PASS further.

Customizability Students were of the portal asked about the ability to customize certain aspects of the portal and spoke about their feelings towards it. They also mentioned certain things that they would like to have customized that are not currently available on the

F1: - Participant #1: I changed the picture and that definitely made it cooler. - Participant #7: Having the option, I feel like, is just beneficial. -Participant #5: Yeah its a cool little option. -Participant #7: (when asked if they would want the portal customized to their year or major) Yeah thats a cool idea! ~ 122 ~

This relates directly to our research question concerning organization because it explains how students enjoy having the customization option. From the evidence provided, it is easy to determine that the customization option is something that students like having

portal. -Participant #1: Yeah I agree. -Participant #2: We want custom updateslike for the clubs like your specific club that you go to. F2: -Participant #1: Yeah like depending on what you click on the most it would automatically like sort it. -Participant #2: (when speaking about the new portal) And I mean like if you still have the option to customize it and add stuff to it I think thatd be okay cause Im sure some people use it -Participant #8: You could add your own background or like a banner at the topthatd be interesting. -Participant #1: I think that people definitely use it. -Participant #8: For the freshmen, you could show how to customize everything -Participant #7: (when asked if they would want the portal customized to their year or major) Maybe for just the freshmen because I know that Im still finding parts of the portal that I did not know, like I just found the Polyprofile three weeks ago when I was trying to register. So I think that that would be beneficial. -Participant #3: (when asked if they ~ 123 ~

available to them and should therefore be kept on the portal. Although the students did not directly mention how they would like the customization option to be organized on the portal, the fact that they spoke about its use means that they would like to have it be accessible to them on the new portal. They also expressed much interest in features that would allow the portal to be customized by the students year or major. Some seemed to think that it would make their student life much easier and more organized if this was available to them. However, one participant did not like this idea because of the difference in years of her and her friends.

would want the portal customized to their year or major) And then like maybe seniors letting you know what you need to do when you graduate, like I dont talk to an advisor so I kinda found out on my own or through friends. So it would be nice to have that. -Participant #2: (when asked if they would want the portal customized to their year or major) Maybe just have your own little section for you year on the main page, because I know that a lot of the time when me or my friends are trying to figure out where something is a lot of the time we sit down together and say oh you go here. So if everyones is different it would be hard to figure out where everything is. Students F1: expressed -Participant #3: It would be cool to opinions regarding have your course guideline, I dont additions that they know what thats called, itd just be would like to see nice to have that right there because on the new portal. every time I am about to register I have They were also to go on and try to find that and asked a question maybe, I just thought of this, some regarding the form of instant communication with an implementation of advisor um almost like an instant a tutorial video that message or a quicker form of e-mail would allow them maybe so that the advisor or maybe an to understand how assistant to an advisor always has to use the new access to it and can answer your portal. questions -Participant #7: I agree just exactly with that. -Participant #6: To have the dates and ~ 124 ~

Additions to the portal

Although this does not directly answer the research question that we sought to answer with the focus group, it does help us answer another research question concerning what new features/information students would like to see implemented on the portal. It also allowed us to see that no matter what the new reorganization of the portal will look like, these features should be implemented if

times of all the workshops and like clubs specific to your major. To have like all of that information on there. Like if youre gonna make it specific then you want it to be all encompassing you dont want it to be just like facts. So like everything thats going on with the business building.

possible because students expressed interest in them. Since students mentioned such things as tutorials, instant messaging, and blogs, which were also additions -Participant #4: And office hours that we had come up maybe too. with from our previous research, -Participant #3: And tutor hours like for we feel that students your classes that youre taking that can really utilize quarter. something like these features because -Participant #6: So maybe like an they are showing a online tutorial or something to make it genuine interest in easier to navigate also because its them and have such a huge, massive website that offered these as youre intimidated by. improvements to the portal. They clearly -Participant #3: I was thinking stated that they class/major blogs or forums. would like an easy communication -Participant #4: Combining ASI feature to events. communicate with friends and faculty. -Participant #7: (when asked if he Students expressed would utilize a video tutorial) I differing opinions definitely feel if you actually really about the video wanna learn how to do it a video would tutorial, however definitely help. most agreed that if it was short and useful, -Participant #5: Yeah like a couple of then they would take minutes maybe nothing very long. the time to watch it and would utilize it. -Participant #4: Yeah if it was a short video Id watch it, otherwise probably not. ~ 125 ~

-Participant #1: I think like just a page of information like this is whats new I would definitely look at that more than I would a video. -Participant #4: Maybe like a commonly asked questions like if people are really struggling with something like a lot F2: -Participant #6: It might be nice to have a section with like news or like notifications like if you actually were going to go look on that page you can click on it to like look at it instead of it just being like there -Participant #6: I think it would be neat like I remember on the old portal..or the one we have now..it shows like student center and then it shows the entire paragraph of what it is but maybe just like little links to the side and that would catch peoples attention more because it wouldnt be as cluttered -Participant #1: Yeah I agree like on the current portal theres lots of paragraphs just on the, on like whateverits like no one reads thosejust like keep it simple with links. -Participant #2: Put in a graduation requestWe thought that they could put in a tutorial for the professors on how to ~ 126 ~

use PolyLearnTell seniors what they need to do to graduate Have a direct link to the progress of your degree Have an email alert when a new grade is posted... Having an events link for community. -Participant #5: A tutorial for not only teachers but for students as well for PolyLearn so just a link or something. And then for communication we thought that what we were talking about earlier an advisors section by major so that way you can more easily know who your advisor is. -Participant #6: Then for academics having easier access to degree progress, like your standings as far as units, just highlight some of those things before you have to search through it. And then a link to maybe assist.org as far like how to take the right classes for like other school for like summer that would relate to Cal Poly. And then same thing for community, like a sports health just something that keeps everyone updated on Cal Poly. New portal information organization Students expressed directly how they would want the portal information to be organized on the new portal. Also, after seeing the new prototype of F1: -Participant #1: and Poly Connect uhhh can definitely be organized a little bit better. -Participant #2: We want ASI and Cal Poly to be on the same website. Students expressed many concerns regarding the organization of the current portal, whether that be the available features of it or the actual information itself. The

~ 127 ~

the 4.0 portal, students expressed feelings towards it and also about the current version of the portal.

-Participant #7: Just a tab at the top like everything elseI dont know what to title it but just something so that its easily seen and easily like accessible. -Participant #6: I agree. -Participant #3: I like the tab idea. -Participant #2: Tab or e-mail. -Participant #1: I agree. -Participant #7: (when asked to describe the old portal) I just remember my first time looking at it theres so much there, I was like wow. -Participant #6: (when asked to describe the old portal) Cluttered -Participant #5: (when asked to describe the old portal) Really really busy -Participant #4: (when asked to describe the old portal) Messy, overdone and confusingits hard to find like which ones of those little pictures and stuff are like the important ones and which ones are kinda like the ones that youll never use. Like they are all kinda mixed in there. -Participant #3: (when asked to describe the old portal) I also put overwhelming and I dont think the information is as relevant to my life at least as this new [version]. ~ 128 ~

answers that students gave regarding the new and old portal directly answer our research question in terms of how students want the information on the portal to be organized. Each student expressed similar opinions as to how they want the information to be viewed. An overall theme of clean, easily accessible, and uncluttered information arose among the groups.

F2: -Participant #6: (when looking at the new portal version) I like the calendar and events. (others agreedtoo jumbled to tell who said what at this point). -Participant #8: (when looking at the new portal version) I like that it looks similar but its not too busy like the current portal is Participant #1: Especially if its supposed to appeal to like thousands of people I think the more simple the better. It shouldnt be too complex. -Participant #5: (when looking at the new portal version) It makes it look like they are two separate links like the student and centerso I dont think that really works -Participant #8: (when looking at the new portal version) The old one kind of shouts Cal Poly and this one kind of whispersif it could find some sort of medium. New portal version Students expressed opinions on where they would like the information to be placed about the new portal and how they would like it to be arranged. F1: -Participant #7: a link that lists all the pages and maybe just like pictures that show like what is new and how to use it. -Participant #5: I would keep the same general layout like how they have the tabs set upkeep those categories the same as far as like how things are organized for each one ~ 129 ~ Students have directly expressed how they would like the new information on the portal to be organized. They all seemed to agree on the general idea of keeping the same tabs as the current portal, which is

-Participant #1: Maybe even have just like a feature that people could actually like go back to the old version or something if they really want to. F2: -Participant #8: If there was some way to have the option to either keep the old portal at least for some transition period or try out the new one

something that deals directly with the organization scheme our research question seeks to answer. One student expressed an interest in being able to revert back to the old version of the portal which may be helpful for some students. Overall, students liked the idea of the new portal very much and have different ways of wanting to see the new information organized and put together.

*Side Note: For the first and second focus groups, the participant numbers were assigned in a circular fashion, starting from the left of the moderators (#1) and ending at numbers seven or eight on the right. One thing that I wanted to note was that all students, of both focus groups, seemed genuinely excited and interested in the new portal. They were all enthusiastic in some way, asking questions and looking into the different availabilities that were demonstrated by the moderators.

~ 130 ~