yorkuPACT

=PACT analysis of York U=

People:
//Who?// People who spent time at York are mainly students, professors, staff and vendors. Since our research aimed to enhance student learning and socializing experience, the following analysis is mainly about students.

//Physical differences:// York University has a wide range of students in terms of their age, appearances, cultural background, languages, but generally they are all adults and small portion of them are disabled. Students usually carry bags, books, labtops with them, some also carry large instruments and portfolios that are quite heavy.
 * Requirement idea--providing more physical space for students to leisure, work and socialize on campus

//Psychological differences:// York is a mulitcultural insititution, although students at York may have some degree of communicating in english, most of them prefer speaking in their own first language when it comes to express something more complex and personal. Students also prefer staying in their own cultural group/language group which in a way the cultural and language differences may create barriers for exchanging ideas in the whole community. Even if there’s a group project, ideas may not be articulated by the students that are not good at speaking english, which makes the whole collective learning experience ineffective.

//*Requirement idea—a communication system that can work on any languages//

Like a small version of the society, students at york varies in abilities, knowledge and interests. Being in the same program does not mean they have the same interests; someone in a science program may be interested in chinese zodiac, but hardly have a chance to meet someone physically outside his faculty. Based on the interviews, we found students usually make friends within their program which means they are missing out students that are outside their program who may have very similar interests or working in some interesting projects that may stimulate thoughts since it offers different perspectives. //*Requirement idea—link and connect students of different interests, clubs, programs and groups//

Generally, students are pretty good at using computers and systems such as emailing, messenging, web browsing. They also have some degree of writing skills in whatever language they prefer. Students however have different preferences in studying depending on the task, they may prefer more personal studies, other times may prefer collective study groups. They also work in different ways, i.e. different time-management skills, so if group wants to meet in a set time and date in a physical place, some of them may not “in the mood” of working since each groupmate has their own schedule. Also, some students may take a more athoratative role that dominates other groupmates, if meeting is taken in a face to face communication, some people with less commuinication skills may force to accept which again makes collective learning ineffective.

//* Requirement idea—an equal chance/space for everyone to articulate their thoughts at anytime they like to.//

Activities:
//What they do?// Students usually attend classes, walk between buildings, talk and socialize with friends, professors, classmates, use the computer to browse, chat, check mails, do homework, read, study and sit in the campus. Some student who commute to York also needs to wait the buses, before classes and stay after class. Some students said they also sleep in the campus since they are exhausted.

//Frequency:// The most frequent and main activities of the student are to learn through attending classes and researching and to browse in the internet. Across the school year, the frequency of those activities will increases especially during the time when assignments are due and exams are coming up. So, more students will go to library to search for books, go on the internet to find resources and usually find frustrated when dealing with lots of search results that are not useful to their focuses.

//*Requirement idea—to find useful resources quickly and a better search system to sort resources clearly.//

Some students may seek help (tuition, study groups) during exams.

//*Requirment idea—a way to know what other’s are doing in the same assignement, exams, or upcoming events//

//Cooperation:// there are both group activities and individual ones. Students usually chat, eat and do activities that are more relaxed, non-school related with friends, while they do group projects, discuss, research and study with classmates.

Context:
//Physical:// Student usually studies ( if they have to stay at school) in libraries, Vari Hall and TEL buildings. But most of them prefer studying at home and head back home right after school. They find that the library is too noisy and sitting is not comfortable.

//Social:// There’s learning assistence at York such as mentors, tuition and meeting with professors, but they are limited to physical meetings and some students do not have time to do so.

//Organization:////How does York organize student activities?// There’s apparently lack of community settings at York, even there’s colleges and clubs, they do not have a major affect on student’s networking and learning. The clubs in fact, may create alienation between clubs and discourage cross-group communication. As York is a big campus, buildings are scattered all over the place, some students never go to other side of the campus because all their classes are in one building. Again, the physical place limits interactions,which an online space offers more opportunities. However in the York’s web, there’s no networking system between students and students can only check their personal profiles, grades, timetables in the York website. There’s nothing that helps enhance learning.

Technologies:
There are computer lab avaliable to all students in library, but it is always insufficient and only provides limited software and access. There’s study places in library for individual learning and also meeting rooms, but not alot of people use it as an effective learning space. Many students have labtops but there are also many of them that doesnt. They may miss out the whole online community if the technology at York doesn’t allow programs like MSN. York also has some online system like moodle, webct.. those have some restrictions as in who can contribute to the sites. Also, they are not weidely used unless the instructor ask the student to use it and the topics/relationships between students/professors are really limited to class materials. The computers, technologies avaliable at york generally offers less personalizationand freedom, which further seperates student life at York and their life outside York. The technology at york gears to be only school and course related which makes most students see York is just a place for school and nothing else.