d-projects   projects   organizations   people   content   technology   resources   [home | site map]

resources | schlusselberg & hopper, 1992 [research interview]

Evelyn Schlusselberg & Mary Hopper, Passages from Personal Interview, October 1, 1992

Passage 1
Schlusselberg: I tell people to try to forget about what technology can or cannot do, and to try to think only about what they want. The other thing I tell them is to think of themselves as the user of the application and figure out what they would want to do, what they would want to see and how they would like to interact.
Passage 2
Schlusselberg: I took a class in Instructional Design and Development. I absolutely do think of design before developing, but I do not do it formally. Which means I do not write it on paper. However, before I begin working I know what I want to accomplish and basically how things will be structured. When I work with students I know in my head what I want them to do. Obviously, as the project gets larger, more story boarding is needed to communicate better with the people working on the project. I think my style is biased though because I work at a research center. It's hard to initially structure things too much if your doing something for the first time or exploring possibilities. Usually you get a great idea right in the middle of your work. You need flexibility to implement those ideas. I like to think of it as, "We'll go from here, and then we'll go to there, and then this is what's going to happen there to get us way over there." And then once I'm in the middle, I like to be able to think, "Wouldn't it be great if you could go from here to way over there now!"
Passage 3
Schlusselberg: You create a structure, which you think incorporates everything that you would ever want to do, and then all of a sudden, you want to add one little element, which you think is going to be absolutely trivial, and, instead, it disrupts your whole organization. But it brings insight into how your old structure was wrong, and suggests ways for improving or making a more flexible structure. I think the development process is a spiral one, because you continue to go back to redefine and re-implement.
 
Initially, I just wanted to finish a project. Then I began to realize that there were structures that repeated. And as I did more projects, it became really important to get something that I could just plug into an environment. For one project it took me two months to just build the templates. Then another project came in and in about a week's time students were using the application. The quick turn around for this second project was possible because I reused the structures I had created for the first project, so all of a sudden production became much, much quicker.
Passage 4
Schlusselberg: My working patterns are based on what has to get done. If something is not finished, that's all I can think of. The projects have deadlines. And if I said it was going to get done, you can bet it's going to be done. Even if I have to stay till 2:00, until 4:00, if I don't sleep. I am very fortunate because the working schedule and conditions here are extremely flexible. If you need to shut your door, you shut your door. If you need to come in at 3 o'clock in the morning, you come in at 3:00. The thing is that, the administration has to really trust the people that are working for them. Obviously, if I'm coming in at 3:00 in the morning, nobody knows that I'm here. It's also hard to develop when you have many other "little things to do". What I usually try to do when I'm building an application is to just focus on the one project. You sit down, it takes you like a little time to get into it, and then you go on a roll.
Passage 5
Schlusselberg: There are many things which affect the end product. People are the most important thing. It really depends with whom your working, and sometimes it boils down to personalities. If people are not happy working together, it effects the project. It's important that people working together respect each other's interests and see each other as professionals. Some people think that because they were able to secure the funding that their ideas are worth more. In the Center, although there are organizational hierarchies, we try not to have them influence the way we work. So ideas are discussed. I also think that implementation people are very important. If they are not there, the project does not move. However, their contribution and influence is sometimes overlooked. You must give credit to the person with the idea, particularly in a research environment. I think that what sometimes happens in an academic setting where the hierarchy is made up of faculty members, doctoral students, master degree students and undergraduates, the top levels absorb a lot of the credit from the lower levels. So when I work with students, I make sure that their work gets acknowledged. I let them present their own work, which lets them take pride in what they do. Some people can use the analogy of a book where the author and the publisher get the credit. But I think movies are a better comparison where everybody who had anything to do with the movie get their name listed in the credits.
Passage 6
Schlusselberg: When you are developing a multimedia application people with different skills tend to get involved in the project and there needs to be one person who is the coordinator. This person does not have to be, and in many cases should not be, the content expert. I believe a new professional field is evolving. Although the coordinator may be the person implementing the application this does not mean they are just programmers. Their interests tend to extend and focus on interface issues, integrating and structuring information, and using technology to achieve desired outcomes. The content expert shouldn't necessarily have to worry about these issues. An analogy between interface design and desktop publishing can be drawn. Software enables everybody to desktop publish, but there will be designs which are more or less effective. In the same light, some content experts will be great at designing and coordinating their own applications. And, like desktop publishing, the software to enable them should be available. However, not everyone's strength nor interest lie in design and development. And not everyone has the time to learn about the issues and the technologies. Many faculty members are tapped out on their time and if they don't want to take on application development as a hobby they should be able to go to someone who specializes in it. Currently, the relationship between the content expert and the coordinator is not well defined. However, they both need to realize that they are a team or a partnership - where each one has different responsibilities and areas of expertise.
Passage 7
Schlusselberg: I learned how to use the authoring system by looking at what other people had done with it. And there were many times when I would go to people and say, "Hey, I've got a quick question." When I first came I saw all the cables and thought, "What are all these cables for?" But, as I saw people trouble-shooting and putting things together I would think, "Oh, I see." Then I would try and do it myself. You get to the point where you need to know things, like how things are connected to each other. You want to learn because you feel bad asking someone how to do the same thing 29 times. The other reason is that we have a demonstration room where we do presentations. People always switch the cables, and when you're planning on a doing a presentation you better know how to get the machines to work again. It's something that you need to know. You pick it up, because you need it.
© Mary E. Hopper [MEHopper] | MEHopper@TheWorld.com [posted 01/01/01 | revised 02/02/02]