Hellos to All in the University Testbed from the University of Toronto Project. Sept. 10, 1998.

The University of Toronto AMICO testbed study is underway this week under Professor Lynne Teather with the assistance of the Project Team. Most importantly, Kelly Wilhelm has come on board as Project Coordinator Intern, and will be working for the next seven months on various parts of the study and we hope will be joined by some research volunteers from museum Studies and the Faculty of Info. Studies, along with our Project Team, spread out on three campuses.

We are working through some of the issues for the design of our user evaluation and have identified a need for more information on the database itself. Specifically, if we are going to test AMICO's usability or success, it would help us to know its objectives, the intended uses of the various functions and fields, and its information architecture design. Anything then that defines goals, objectives of the web page elements, the institutional database ingredients and interrelationships would be of great help.

We've identified three levels at which this information is relevant:

1. At the AMICO level: the broad objectives of the project, intended audiences and uses, etc.

2. At the RLG level: the design of the database itself, intended navigational paths, intended uses for functions, etc. The software and its structures an intended impact on use.

3. At the level of the participant art museums: how the museums have individually interpreted the functions and fields of the database while adding their information. ( I know this may not be answerable but thought we'd try.)

Some of this information is likely easier to gather than other sections, but we'd appreciate anything you can send us or if you could point us in the right direction. Of course we can access the basic documentation available on background for the project but hoped there might be more.

We would appreciate any assistance in clarifying these points. back to the listserve.

To contact us directly, email address kwilhelm@chass.utoronto.ca

Snail mail can go to: Kelly Wilhelm, AMICO Project Coordinator Intern, Centre for Academic and Adaptive Technologies, Robarts Library, University of Toronto, C/O 110 Robert St. Toronto, Ontario Canada M5S 2K3

And FYI, Kelly can be reached at (416) 978-4043 (Lynn Holden's office) at this point.

Prof. Teather is on an extended sabbatical until Jan.1 to continue with research and writing but will be supervising the AMICO /U.of T. work.You can reach her at the ususal places until Jan.1:
    58 Melrose Ave.
    Toronto, Ont.
    M5M 1Y5 
Phone: 416-487-8667
lteather@chass.utoronto.ca 

Or through Kelly.

As indicated earlier we are planning a paper for M&Web for March on User Study and AMICO and the Testbed, etc. Therefore this enquiry will be quite useful to that process.

Right now we are gathering our resources for the study including: user study/usability; human-computer interface; web evaluation; as well as visitor/audience research and evaluation from the museum field and existing web evaluation work. We will be compiling a fairly comprehensive bib. based on both Kelly and Prof. Teather's previous work around these topics. We would be happy to do this with and for the Testbed group and would appreciate discussion of material.

Next, we will pin point the elements of our research design, etc. and evaluation methodology. We hope to use a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods.

Where is everyone else on evaluation methods?

Thanks,

Kelly Wilhelm and Lynne Teather