This message went out in September in response to the mail from the group at U. Toronto who are working on AMICO user evaluation. It must not have made it to this list, so I'm re-posting it here. Date: Sat, 19 Sep 1998 08:36:27 -0500 (CDT) From: Beth Sandore <sandore@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> To: lteather@chass.utoronto.ca Cc: webmaster@amn.org Subject: Re: Question: AMICO ASSUMPTIONS AND USER STUDY Dear Kelly and Lynne (and other testbed evaluators)-- Your proposed evaluation of the uses and users of the AMICO Testbed looks very well-considered, and I think you are asking worthwhile and interesting questions. I am writing to offer some background to the user evaluation component that I conducted for the MESL project, along with a link to the evaluation instruments and documents and some of the preliminary results information. The URL for the MESL Evaluation Working Group page that contains this information is: http://images.grainger.uiuc.edu/mesl/evalwg/activities.html The documents in which you may be primarily interested might include the group under the header "Survey Instruments." Here we include a rationale for a 2 student and 2 instructor questionnaire designs (pre- and post), the survey instruments themselves, and diagrams that indicate how the information we intended to collect was linked to each individual user. The surveys that you will see on this site were implemented in two waves (at the beginning and the end of the term), and they were administered in classes that used MESL images--either displayed in the classroom or used outside the classroom for one or more assignments. The objective of the instructional evaluation was to establish a baseline of visual resource use, gain some understanding of technology expertise within the user populations, and assess the attitudes of those who used the MESL images. Finally we were able to analyze attitudinal data from the pre- to the post-surveys to determine whether there had been any change in attitudes toward using digital images over the course of the term. The surveys generated quite a dearth of data, which is the prayer and the scourge of any evaluation. I think we were reasonably successful in analyzing that information, and we found some interesting results. The results of the study were issued as a _very long_ unexpurgated report. I synthesized the results and they are forthcoming as section of the long-awaited and forthcoming 2-volume Getty publication that describes the MESL project and the three evaluation studies that were conducted. During the MESL project the working group pages were restricted access, but this one is now publicly accessible. I hesitated to make this information available before I was assured by Jennifer that Kathleen McDonnell at Getty had agreed to release it. I am delighted to learn that it is the Getty's intention that this information be shared widely so that others involved in evaluation do not need to reinvent some wheels. I'd be happy to talk further about the study results with anyone who is interested. I'd also be interested in talking with fellow evaluators. Thanks, Beth Beth Sandore Associate Professor Coordinator, Digital Imaging Initiative 454 Grainger Engineering Library Information Center 1301 W. Springfield Ave. University of Illinois Urbana, Illinois 61801 Tel. 217.333.2592 Fax 217.244.7764 Net sandore@uiuc.edu http://www.library.uiuc.edu/faculty/sandore.htm http://images.grainger.uiuc.edu |