The Inquiry Page is developed through a process of participatory design. That might be called "design through use." It aims to respond to human needs by democratic processes. Users are the developers, through their creation of the site content, their contributions to the interface, and their evaluation of usefulness -- Often simply by discussion within the inquiry community of its usefulness, reports of what works and what doesn't, in the context of their own settings of use. Workshops on Inquiry Page use conducted in a wide variety of settings, from academic conferences to small local settings of potential use, are one type of focused evaluation activity that is serving design through use quite well. Such workshops offer a window into use that helps anchor further design of inquiry-based learning technologies (social and digital) in authentic experiences, while stimulating creative extensions.

Here you can see articles and tools we have found helpful for evaluating the project itself, the web site, and use of the information resources it contains. The evaluations tend to be formative and forward-looking, with the goal of improving future practice.

Current interactive tools include a feedback form with automatic posting of feedback results. Inquiry participants also use methods such as case studies and participant observation to assess the use of the site as a whole and of inquiry units to meet specific needs. Results of these evaluations feed back into the site design and are also represented in articles about the project.

A number of the studies use situated evaluation as a way to take into account the fact that actual use is an interaction between specific, local circumstances and the introduction of new tools and ideas:

Situated evaluation is a "new framework for understanding innovation and change. This framework has several key ingredients: It emphasizes contrastive analysis and seeks to explore differences in use. It assumes that the object of study is neither the innovation alone nor its effects, but rather, the realization of the innovation--the innovation-in-use. Finally, it produces hypotheses supported by detailed analyses of actual practices. These hypotheses make possible informed plans for use and change of innovations" (Bruce & Rubin, 1993, p. 215).

Click here to view resources

evaluation main | participatory design intro | resources