“Virtual Worlds” Goes Virtual (ISSOTL21 Poster Presentation)

Abstract

Virtual Worlds, an undergraduate DH course at the University of Toronto, is built around inquiry-based learning (IBL) in libraries, makerspaces, and museums. Covid-19 closed all these spaces. To compensate, a new project was developed:  students conducted a usability study of our webinar platform, BB Collaborate, and examined their experience in light of critical digital justice scholarship.  The project makes two moves towards sustainability.  First, practicing compassionate computing, the assignment uses and values the students’ own lived experience of online learning. Second, the assignment accommodates both pandemic conditions and future in-person students with interrupted campus access.

 

The Problem

Virtual Worlds, an undergraduate DH course at the University of Toronto, was built on inquiry-based learning: students learned about digital mapping, 3D printing, and virtual reality, in libraries, laboratories, and museums.

In 2020-2021, due to Covid-19, libraries, museums, and universities in Toronto went virtual.

Our Response

Course instructor Alexandra Bolintineanu and usability expert Komal Noor invited students to examine their own lived experience as virtual learners. Students carried out a usability workshop on our webinar platform, BB Collaborate.

The module draws on Miriam Posner’s Infrastructures project, “Digital Storytelling.”

Before the Usability Workshop

  • Readings in critical digital studies: students studied scholarship by Alan Galey and Stan Ruecker (2010), Safiya Umoja Noble (2018), and Joy Buolamwini (2021), describing how digital tools, platforms, and algorithms are cultural artifacts inscribed with the values, power dynamics, and biases of their creators and users.
  • User experience (UX) presentation: usability specialist Komal Noor introduced students to usability testing as “understanding your users, their behaviors and practices; uncovering problems in the design of a product; discovering opportunities to improve the design of the product, digital or physical” (Noor, 2021).

During the Usability Workshop

  • Students as UX experts: Students watched their course instructor using (and misusing) BB Collaborate (video; script).
    With Komal Noor’s guidance, students acted as UX experts and asked questions to uncover errors, difficulties, and glitches.

After the Usability Workshop

  • Students as pedagogy experts: based on lived experience and usability workshop data, students compared in-person with webinar-based learning. A scaffolded, guided reflection activated students’ metacognition and information literacy skills (Denke et al, 2020): students thoughtfully considered how they learn in class and digital platforms.
  • Students as critical digital media analysts: informed by course readings, students considered how to improve BB Collaborate and its user experiences.
    Students also examined how BB Collaborate reflects cultural understandings of knowledge transmission, learning, and power in the classroom.

Image: BB Collaborate Setup Window: Student Comments (Redacted)
– Instructors control session settings
– Instructors control who can speak, show their face, show their screen, use chat.
– Instructors can censor swearing in chat.

Learning Outcomes

Despite learning opportunities lost to Covid-19, this module:

  • introduced students to usability as a field and possible career;
  • reinforced digital justice course readings, by showing how digital platforms duplicate and amplify existing power hierarchies;
  • strengthened students’ metacognition skills through experiential learning about learning;
  • invited students to discuss, within the classroom community, the isolating lived experience of pandemic learning;
  • created an adaptable set of learning objects (script, video, reflection prompt: CC-NC-BY) for future use.

 

Further Resources

 

Works Cited

Alhadreti, Obead. “Assessing Academics’ Perceptions of Blackboard Usability Using SUS and CSUQ: A Case Study During the COVID-19 Pandemic.” International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction ahead-of-print, no. ahead-of-print (n.d.): 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2020.1861766.
Buolamwini, Joy. Warped Reality: Joy Buolamwini: How Do Biased Algorithms Damage Marginalized Communities? TED Radio Hour (Podcast). Washington: NPR, 2021.
Denke, Jessica; Jennifer Jarson; and Stefanie Sinno. “Making the Invisible Visible: Enhancing Information Literacy and Metacognition with a Constructivist Activity.” International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning 14, no. 2 (2020). https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2020.140207.
Galey, Alan, and Stan Ruecker. “How a Prototype Argues.” Literary and Linguistic Computing 25.4 (2010): 405-24.
Noble, Safiya Umoja. Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. New York: NYU Press, 2018.
Noor, Komal. “Usability and User Experience.” In-class presentation, Virtual Worlds, March 2021.
Posner, Miriam. “Digital Storytelling.” Course assignment for Systems & Infrastructures: Winter 2018, UCLA Information Studies.

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