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USER NEEDS AND ANALYSIS

of
Electronic Attendance System

Joseph Ng Chow <joseph.ng.chow@utoronto.ca>

Victoria Mui <victoria.mui@utoronto.ca>

Brian Shim <brian.shim@utoronto.ca>

Veronica Wong <veve.wong@utoronto.ca>

David Dearman
CSC318—The Design of Interactive Computational Media
October 8, 2008

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Executive Summary………………………………………………………...…3
2. Concept
o Vision Statement………………………………………………………...4
o Rationale…………………………………………………………………4
o Background and Motivation……………………………………….……5
o Stakeholders……………………………………………………………..5
o Assumptions…………………………………………………………..…6
3. Field studies
o Overview………………………………………………………………....6
o Questionnaires………………………………………………………..…7
o Interviews………………………………………………………………...7
o Observations………………………………………………………….…8
4. Analysis
o Stakeholder Descriptions………………………………………………9
o Personas……………………………………………………………..…12
o Essential Use Cases……………………………………………….….14
o Task analyses……………………………………………………….…16
5. Scenarios
o Scenario 1: The Late Student………………………………………...20
o Scenario 2: The Supply Teacher…………………………………….20
o Scenario 3: The Call Home………………………………………...…21
o Scenario 4: The Armed Intruder…………………………………...…21
6. Design requirements
o Functional requirements………………………………………………23
o User requirements……………………………………………………..24
o Usability requirements……………………………………………...…24
o Environmental requirements…………………………………………25
o Technical
requirements……………………………………………………….…..25
7. Appendices …………………………………………………..……………….27
o Group Responsibilities Breakdown
o Field study protocol…………………………………………………….
o Questionnaires………………………………………………………….
o Interview Protocol………………………………………………………
o Natural Observation Protocol………………………………………….
o Consent form……………………………………………………………
o Useful Raw Data………………………………………………………..
o Group Meeting Notes………………………………………………….

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Executive Summary
The objective of this study was to derive a more efficient and reliable way of taking the

attendance by understanding various schools’ existing system and its challenges. Our research

revealed that the current attendance system employed by schools around the GTA were

satisfactory, but could be improved. Presently, it poses two key problems; it regularly hinders

student learning, and it is a safety concern to have students in the hallways unsupervised

either because they were late or because they needed to deliver the attendance. We noticed

that it was an inefficient use of human resources in that a secretary was needed to scan in

records when it is a task that can be easily automated. After the interviews, we learned that

their current way of locating students during emergencies was unorganized. Specifically,

communicating between classrooms with school telephones proved limited and dangerous. With

these insights we hope to design a system where all the needs of the staff and students are

addressed.

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Concept
Introduction
School systems around the world are often regulated by strict rules and routines in order to

ensure that their staff and students have a safe environment to teach and learn in. Each

school's attendance system plays a vital role in ensuring school safety. It is the main way in

which schools keep track of where their students are at all times. For this reason, secondary

school teachers are required to take attendance for every class that they teach, and

elementary school teachers are required to take the attendance once in the morning, and once

in the afternoon. Administration staffs are then required to gather all of these records and

enter them into the system.

Vision
In order to alleviate some of the administrative and classroom tasks that office staff and

teachers are obliged to do everyday, we are proposing the Electronic Attendance System

(EAS). This system will: allow teachers to take attendance in an easy manner through the use

of a simple electronic device, remove the need for administration staff to manually enter each

classes' attendance into the school system, and make attendance records easily accessible

when needed by allowing the quick transfer of information between staff.

Rationale
Most schools in Toronto are employing the Trillium attendance system. With the use of this

system, teachers records student absences on machine-readable papers that are delivered to

the administration office by one or more students. However, many teachers and administration

staff feel that the system can be improved by being less prone to errors. For example, schools

using the Trillium system require teachers to bubble in the "Absent" column beside the names

of absent students on the machine-readable class list. But teachers often fail to fill the bubble

in entirely so that the machine fails to recognize the corresponding student’s

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status. Moreover, in the case of an emergency, teachers have to determine which students are

missing without access to an updated copy of the attendance on hand once it’s been delivered.

This is one of the many flaws with the current system. As these issues come to our attention,

we felt the need to develop a system that is capable of meeting all the needs of the staff and

students. That is, a system that is keeps a secure and accurate record of student attendance

where student data can be inputted in a fast, easy, and intuitive way. Furthermore, this system

should prove useful role in emergency situations such as a school fire or lockdown.

Background and Motivation


Our primary motivation behind the EAS project is school safety. School safety has become a

universal concern in recent years with the increased number of school shootings and other

security issues. For example, earlier this year five schools were forced to lock down when a

man with a gun was seen in the neighborhood. In emergency situations similar to this, we

learned that students are not allowed to use their cell phones. It is also worth noting that not

all students have cell phones. Panicked parents are left without means of contacting their

children. We hope to design a system that will help alleviate some of these concerns from

parents and school staff.

This is in addition to the amount of time staff spend on repetitive routines that can be carried

out by a machine.

Stakeholders
With the EAS, most of these tasks will be automated, allowing teachers and administration

staff to have more time to address other responsibilities. In addition, students will not have to

deliver class attendance and parents will receive earlier notices about the absence of their

child; calls will be made at the end of each period as opposed to the end of the day.

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Assumptions
Before researching we made the following assumptions:

• The current attendance system requires the teacher to devote a significant amount of

class time to duties relating to attendance.

• Teachers and administration staff would prefer to use a more convenient way of taking

attendance and managing student attendance records.

• All schools currently using the Trillium attendance system

• EAS will save the valuable time of teachers, administration staff, and students.

• Students spend lot of time loitering in the hallways and it will be safer if we can

minimize the amount of time that students spend in unsupervised environments.

• Teachers and office administration use a telephone or public address (PA) system to

communicate with each other.

After acquiring a deeper understanding of our target users through field work, we have either

validated or falsified these assumptions. These will be discussed in the sections to follow.

Field Studies
The field studies conducted by our group consisted of questionnaires, interviews and

observations. To carry out our research we contacted and visited many schools within the

Greater Toronto Area.

It proved difficult to gain formal admittance to schools as principals did not wish to disrupt

their routine. After contacting over 30 schools through phone calls and emails, we were

granted a meeting with 4 schools.

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Questionnaires
The questionnaires were designed to gather information about various schools’ present

attendance systems and the technical capabilities of their staff. It was a valuable tool in

obtaining data when interviews were not possible. Using a written technique allowed our

participants to sit down and formulate their thoughts—something that interviews and

observations prohibit by nature. The questionnaires were typed out and distributed during

school visits.

To summarize, we found that most schools are on the Trillium system which is consistent with

our initial assumption. Although we thought wasted time was the major flaw of their existing

system (with safety being something we could only enhance), our research indicates that the

lack of communication during emergencies in terms of accounting for missing students was a

bigger problem that needed to be addressed.

On the technology front, the majority of participants interact with PCs on a daily basis. Those

who are less technically sound were familiar with interfaces such as ATMs and microwaves.

Interviews
We conducted a structured interview based on our questionnaire with one teacher from four

different schools across the GTA. Using a structured interview gave us a uniform way to

approach teachers from the different schools. Furthermore, we did not want to bog down

teachers with long questions that required in-depth answers. It allowed us to follow up with

questions only on the topics that peaked our curiosity. This proved to be an effective

supplement to our less detailed questionnaire responses.

Contrary to our initial assumptions, taking the attendance is not a time-consuming task;

however, one teacher expressed concerns about the disruptions that are associated with the

task. Between calls from the main office if they forget to bring down the attendance and

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sending students for admit slip if they are late, the system cuts into the student’s learning

time.

Additionally, in elementary schools, a class list is expected to travel with the class as they

move from period-to-period as a way of ensuring students are attending all classes. This

burdens the student with responsibilities that are unrelated to their studies.

When prompted about the school’s emergency procedures, we were informed that all schools

have an emergency class list located near the exit. The shortcomings, though, included not

having an up-to-date record of students who were present that day and the inability to track

students who were not immediately in the classroom.

Observations
It was inconvenient for us to observe classroom operations, but we had the opportunity to

observe a staff of the administration process the attendance forms. Our protocol involved

noting the specific tasks and the times that it took to complete them, prompting them with

questions whenever we didn’t understand something. The advantage of observations is that it

allows us to see patterns and behaviours that the participants themselves weren’t aware of.

Through this technique, we learned that all elementary schools under the Toronto District

School Board (TDSB) have their own Safe Arrival Program (SAP) which is used to locate absent

students. The details of the SAP program differs from school to school, and often are

confidential.

In the school that we visited, the administration staff was required to contact all

parents/guardians of absent students within 30 minutes of the time that all machine-readable

attendance sheets are to be entered into the system. Specifically, in the morning, all

attendance sheets need to be scanned into the system at 10:00am. Similarly, in the afternoon,

all attendance sheets need to be scanned into the system at 2:00pm. Within 30 minutes of

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these times, the administration staff are to locate the absent students and take note of their

cause of absence. If the student or parent/guardian cannot be reached, the matter escalates

and safety precautions are taken to ensure the safety of the student. Again, the natures of

these precautions are different at each school and such information were not disclosed to us.

Through this observation, we learned that the administration staff are required to personally

call the parent/guardian of the missing children. The administration staff that we observed

knew three different languages, but this will most definitely be a problem for those

administration staffs who are not fluent in as many languages. Again this task can be

automated.

Analysis
Stakeholder Descriptions
The use of the attendance system is two-fold; the teachers must take the attendance, and the

administration must process it. However, as we will discuss in the following descriptions,

teachers are our primary stakeholders and the administration staff are our secondary

stakeholders.

Primary Stakeholders

The user group, teachers, would be the ones who will interact with our attendance system the

most. All teachers are required to take the attendance at least once for each class that they

hold. Although it is a simple task that takes no more than five minutes to complete, it is

repetitive and mistakes are easy to make due to the design of the current Trillium system

(which tracks student attendance via machine readable sheets).

Under the Trillium system, teachers interact with rows of bubbles beside a student's name.

There are three bubbles for 'present', 'late', and 'absent' for five days of the week. Errors can

arise from filling the bubbles in incorrectly, misaligning the rows, or filling in the bubbles for

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the wrong date. Theoretically to save time, only late or absent students are recorded but it

takes time for the teacher to figure out who's not here. Until a student shows up late, they are

marked 'absent' which requires revision allowing for more opportunities to make mistakes. One

participant suggested they should record students who are present by responding to the

student's voice when their name is called. Although they are honest mistakes, both

administration and students have expressed frustrations at times.

Solution and consequence: two buttons for 'present' and 'late'; students with no marker are

defaulted as 'absent'. This design eliminates the problems of filling out a bubble incorrectly

and the need to adjust a student from 'absent' to 'late' by erasing and re-bubbling.

Secondary Stakeholders

Administration staff is the smaller user group and they deal with attendance at most twice a

day. In elementary school, calls are made to the parents of the students who are absent in the

morning and in the afternoon once all the classes have been accounted for. In high school, calls

are made at the end of the day. It is also the responsibility of the administration to remind

teachers who fail to deliver the attendance in time. This is a disruption in their work as well as

the lesson that's taking place in class.

As a safety concern, administration needs a way to account for students who are not currently

in the classroom during emergency procedures. For example, during a lockdown, teachers are

instructed to lock the doors, relocate the students away from the doors and windows, and be

quiet. Students in the hallway or in the washrooms are directed to seek safety in the nearest

classroom. Once the doors are locked and the teachers are away from the entrances, students

are left to fend for themselves until they reach the office. In the office, there is no way safe

way to determine all the students who are missing. Teachers may inform the administration via

telephone, but there are risks (e.g. signs of life inside a classroom if there's an intruder in the

building) and restrictions (e.g. available phone lines, secretary to teacher ratio) .

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Solution and consequence: attendance records are transmitted directly to the office when

the teacher takes it. It alleviates the problem of the teacher forgetting to deliver the

records when it's done. The instantaneous nature of the EAS ensures an up-to-date record

of student attendance is available at all times.

During an emergency procedure, the administration and the teachers can communicate

silently via the system. The teacher will forward all the students in his classroom to the

central database. The system will compare these results to all the students who are at

school on that day. The system will also relay the safety of students who were adopted into

another classroom back to the teacher who is responsible for them. In other words, the

administration will know where all students are, and the teachers will know where all his

students are.

Tertiary Stakeholders

Parents and students are our tertiary stakeholders. Once the attendance is processed, the

results are relayed to the parents who may or may not be aware of their children's whereabouts

during school hours. Students who will be absent for a known period of time can have their

guardian notify the school to have their absence noted on the system.

In order to evaluate the needs of the students, we need to divide them into elementary and

high school students. The current system in elementary school requires one student to carry a

daily attendance sheet from period to period to verify that students are attending all classes.

Since classes move as a unit, the attendance moves with the class. Records are delivered to the

administration office twice in a day-the first period in the morning and the first period in the

afternoon.

The current system in high school requires the teacher to have an attendance sheet for each

class that they teach. Since the groups of student vary from period to period, the attendance

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moves with the instructor. Records are delivered to the administration office on a period-to-

period basis by a student.

In both cases physical artifacts are being transported and involve students missing a portion of

the class either from delivering the attendance or updating their status from 'absent' to 'late'

once the attendance has been delivered.

Parents and guardians need to be aware of their children’s whereabouts and behaviour at all

times. This is especially vital when a school is threatened, or when missing/being late for

classes become a habit for a child.

Solution and consequence: class lists are pulled from the system on a device that is located

in each classroom therefore lifting these non-academic responsibilities off the students.

Up-to-date records of students under adult supervision will be available at any given time

with an electronic attendance system that operates in real time. It gives parents that extra

little peace of mind.

Personas

The following personas are based on our ideal and observed targets during the study.

Persona 1

Mary Reynolds (Primary):


Grade 3 teacher, age 40.
“I want something that helps keep track of my students in emergencies.”

Mary is a middle aged woman with a good education, a fair amount of teaching experience

and some technical skills with modern technology. Mary is a kind hearted person who takes

her responsibilities over her students very seriously. Due to recent events in the news about

violent intruders entering schools, she has become increasingly concerned. With her two

children (one in elementary school and one in high school), she can easily understand how

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parents may feel during an emergency. Mary wants the school to know her children’s

whereabouts at all times. If they were in trouble, she would want to know about it as soon as

possible. However, as a parent and a teacher, she must also extend her dismay towards the

time that is taken every day for the attendance and the disruptions that come with it.

Education and Experience: Technical Skills: Family:


-Masters degree in English -experienced in email, and -married
- 15 years of teaching navigation around the -2 children, ages 12 and 14.
experience (grade 3 teacher) computer and internet
Goals: Motivation: Needs:
-see students succeed -horror of the recent school - a means of taking the
-ensure the safety of students attacks attendance quickly with less
time wasted in the process
-simplicity

Persona 2

Michael Tao (Secondary):


High school computer science teacher, age 25.
“I want something that is fast, reliable and automated. It would be nice to have something
that can also accommodate for a person’s multi-lingual ability.”

Michael is an extremely intelligent person. His competence in technology and computing is

second to none as he graduated top of his class back in China. Michael only recently moved to

Canada in the last few years from his home of Guangzhou, China. Although he was able to

attain a job teaching, it sometimes takes him a bit longer to comprehend English. Translating

what he understands in English into his instinctive Chinese thought process is usually what

takes more time.

Education and Experience: Technical Skills: Family:


-BSC in computer engineering -very comfortable with -no children
computers and technology -un-married
-skilled in computer -parents live in Guangzhou,
programming and electronics China
Goals: Motivation: Needs:
-bring the school systems into -efficiency -fast and reliable
the 21 century. -support for a multilingual
person

Persona 3

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Joanne Varty (Secondary):
High school vice-principal, age 63.
“I want something that even I can use to help keep my school orderly and organized.”

Joanne is the kind of person who likes to keep her school in order. She is getting tired of all the students

barging into her office to get a late slip after being sent down by their teacher for tardiness. Due to

Joanne’s responsibilities as vice-principal, it is her duty to have a hand in preventing anything that can

disrupt the school's routine. Such disruptions in her opinion are robbing students of an ideal learning

environment and therefore should be eliminated. These ideals are spurred on by her 30 years of experience

teaching before modern media and electronic gadgets began to litter schools. However, not growing up in

the technology boom has prevented her having a firmer grasp on modern electronics.

Education and Experience: Technical Skills: Family:


-Masters in philosophy -does not own a cell phone -Married
-taught history for 30 years -minimal experience with -3 children
computers -2 grandchildren
Goals: Motivation: Needs:
-minimize teaching and -seeing many students wander -fast and reliable
administrative disruptions. down to the office. -simple to use system

Essential Use Cases


We have two essential use cases: daily use and emergency use. We will further break down the

uses by primary and secondary users.

Case 1 - Daily Use: A daily record of who is present and who is absent. If a student is absent,

the system needs to determine the reason for his absence.

Case 2 - Emergency Use: Means of communication between the administration and the

teaching staff to keep track of where students are in the school building during an emergency

situation.

Use cases are abstracted in the sense that user intentions are separated from system

responsibilities so that the 'system' can either refer to the current Trillium system or our

proposed EAS. The EAS will require the user to do less work in facilitating the system

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procedures whereas many of the ‘system’ responsibilities are carried out by people in the

Trillium system.

Case 1a: Daily Use--Taking the Attendance

User Intentions System Responsibilities


Wants to take the attendance for a class
Provides a class list
Wants to identify which students are present, late, or
absent
Records present, late and absent
students
Wants to notify main office of students' whereabouts
delivers the attendance records

Case 1b: Daily Use--Processing the Data

User Intentions System Responsibilities


Wants to select absent students from all classes
Generates list of absent students
Wants to select students who are absent for unknown
reasons
Checks list of absent students for
note of absence
Wants to call parents of absent students who are
unaccounted with unknown reasons

Provide contact information for


those students
Leaves a message for parents
Wants to standby for notifications of absent students
Records note of absence for missing
students

Case 2a: Emergency Use--Accounting for Present Students

User Intentions System Responsibilities


Wants to ensure all present students are accounted for
Provides class list of a present students
Wants to identify all the students that are safe and
those that are missing
Record safe and missing students
Wants to identify all students that are adopted
Record names of the adopted students
Wants to notify main office of missing students
Delivers list of safe, missing and
adopted students

Case 2b: Emergency Use--Synchronizing Records

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User Intentions System Responsibilities
Wants to find all adopted students
Generates a list of all adopted students
Wants to notify teachers whose
students have been adopted that
their students are safe
Update record on teacher's end
Wants to find all students who are
unaccounted for
Generates a list of missing students (students that were
neither marked off by the teacher who is responsible
for them nor an adopted teacher).

Task Analysis

Daily Attendance: teachers

0. Taking Attendance
1. Get the class list
1.1. Open up the attendance folder
1.2. Find the attendance sheet corresponding to the class that
they are teaching.
2. Call out a student’s name
2.1 Listen for the student’s response
2.2 Mark off the student: Bubble in or recognize that the
student is present
2.3 Mark off the student: Bubble in that the student is absent
3. Wait until it is time to deliver the attendance
3.1 Open up the attendance folder
3.2 Mark off the student: Bubble in that the student is late
4. Get a student to deliver the attendance to the administration to the
administration office
5. Send the student to the administration office to get a late slip in order to
correct his/her attendance record

Daily Attendance: administration

0. Processing the attendance records


1. Make sure all attendance records have been received
1.1 Sort the attendance into some appropriate order

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1.2 Remind teachers to submit their attendance records if
theirs is missing from the current set
2. Put the machine-readable attendance sheets through an appropriate scanning
device
3. Start up the Trillium software to generate the results of the gathered machine-
readable attendance sheets
3.1 Generate the list of absent students
4. Make phone calls to the parents/guardians of absent students
4.1 Update the note of absence for that student
4.2 Leave a message on the parent/guardian’s voicemail if a
voicemail box is activated
5. Update the attendance records with note of lateness

Note: Please see the next two pages for the corresponding task analysis trees. The plans
associated with each task analysis can also be found on the next two pages.

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0
Plan 0:
Daily Attendance: Taking
Do 1-2-3-4.
Attendance
If student arrives late, then do 5.

1 2 3 4 5
Get the class list Call out a student’s name Wait until it is time to Get a student to deliver the Send the student to the
deliver the attendance attendance to the administration office to
administration office get a late slip in order to
correct his/her attendance
Plan 3: record
Plan 1: If a student arrives late, do
1.1 – 1.2 3.1-3.2

1.1 1.2 3.1 3.2


Open up attendance folder Find the attendance sheet Open up the attendance Mark off the student:
corresponding to the class folder Bubble in that the student
that they are teaching is late

Plan 2:
Do 2.1
Do 2.2 or 2.3 depending on the student’s attendance.
Repeat Plan 2 until the class list is exhausted.

2.1 2.2 2.3


Listen for the student’s Mark off the student: Mark off the student:
response Bubble in or recognize that Bubble in that the student
the student is present is absent

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0 Plan 0:
Daily Attendance: Processing When it is time to process the attendance records,
do 1-2-3-4.
the Attendance Records
If a student arrives late, do 5.

1 2 3 4 5
Make sure all attendance Put the machine-readable Start up the Trillium software to Make phone calls to the Update the attendance
records have been attendance sheets through generate the results of the parents/guardians of absent records with note of
received an appropriate scanning gathered machine-readable students lateness
device attendance sheets

Plan 3:
Do 3.1.

Plan 1: 3.1 Plan 4:


Do 1.1. If a parent/guardian is
If some attendance sheets are Generate the list of absent successfully contacted, do
missing, do 1.2. students 4.1.
Otherwise, do 4.2.

1.1 1.2 4.1 4.2


Sort the attendance Remind teachers to submit Leave a message on the
sheets into some their attendance records if Update the note of absence parent/guardian’s voicemail
appropriate order theirs is missing from the for that student if a voicemail box is
current set activated

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Scenarios
Scenario 1: The Late Student

It is a Thursday morning at Morningwood High School. It is 9 a.m. and the bell rings for classes

to begin. Meanwhile, Joseph rushes to school after accidentally sleeping in. He runs down the

hall and opens the door to his first class, computer science with Mr. Michael Tao.

Unfortunately, the clock reads 9:30 a.m.; he is late. Mr. Tao stops his lesson on algorithm

complexity to confront Joseph. Arriving late for class after the attendance is done without a

note warrants a trip back to the office to get a late slip. As a result, Joseph is sent down to

the office to gain admittance. The secretary at the desk, Victoria, sends Joseph to the vice-

principal. Joseph waits in line to see him. Eventually, it is his turn and he approaches the vice-

principal's desk. After a brief explanation, Joseph is given a late slip and his status is updated

on the school system. Joseph leaves the main office and heads back to class. After showing Mr.

Tao his late slip, Joseph sits down in his seat to begin his studies. Mr. Tao glances at the clock

on the wall. It is 9:47.

Scenario 2: The Supply Teacher

It is a snowy morning at Morningwood High School. All students of Mr. Michael Tao's software

engineering class are awaiting their teacher. Five minutes into class with no teacher, the door

opens and a woman walks in. The woman speaks, “Hello, my name is Mrs. Erica Cheran and I

will be your supply teacher for today. Unfortunately, your regular teacher is having car

troubles and will not be able to be here until later on.” After this explanation, she begins

reading off names from the class list. The morning roll call was uneventful except for one

student playing hooky. Unknown to the supply teacher, one of the missing student's friends

acknowledged that he was present when Erica called the absent student's name. As a result, a

student was marked present when he was actually skipping class.

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Scenario 3: The Call Home

It is 3:30 p.m. and the end of classes at Morningwood High School. Calvin rushes home from

school with a very worried look on his face. He opens his front door and throws his school

things on the kitchen table. Calvin sits and waits by the phone. Minutes later, the phone rings

and Calvin immediately picks it up. Unaware to Calvin, his mother is home and also picks up

the phone.

“This is Morningwood High school...” Calvin hangs up the phone. Calvin's mother Veronica, on

the other hand, continues to listen to the message. It is an automated message from her son's

school. She listens intently to the rest of the message. “This is Morningwood High School. Your

child, Calvin, missed periods one and three today. Please talk to your child about this.”

Shocked, she hangs up the phone. Slowly, she walks into the kitchen to talk to her son. She

asks who was on the phone. He lies and tells her it was a wrong number. It seems that Calvin

will not be going out to the movies this weekend.

Scenario 4: The Armed Intruder

It is a Monday morning at Greenwood Public School. The sun is shining and all the school

children are busy learning. In the main office, secretaries, principal and vice-principal alike

are going on about their regular administrative duties. Joanne is one such individual and is

dealing with the inaccuracies that appeared in the daily attendance records. Every so often,

she glances up to look at the clock in her room. When she takes a second to look at the

surveillance video of the school's exits, she notices something out of the ordinary. She sees an

unidentifiable man enter the school concealing something in his jacket. With the possibility of

it being a weapon, she announces over the intercom, “Attention, code red lock down. I

repeat, code red lock down. This is not a drill.” Immediately, one of the school secretaries,

Margaret, locks the main office door, turns off the lights and closes the blinds on all windows.

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Meanwhile, the other secretary, Victoria, calls the local authorities. The sounds of doors

closing begin to be heard all throughout the halls of the school. Different groups of people are

isolated within the school.

Perspective 1: The Classroom

“Attention, code red lock down. I repeat, code red lock down. This is not a drill.”

Mary Reynolds, a grade 3 teacher, hears the announcement and acts. After locking the door,

turning off the lights and covering the windows, Mary quiets her class and urges them to sit

quietly on the ground, and away from the door and windows. After a quick head count, she

realizes there is one child missing. However, she cannot tell who it is. She goes through the

list of children again, having to double checking as she goes along. Then she realizes that little

Angus is out of the room in the bathroom. Mary grabs the phone and frantically calls nearby

classrooms to see if little Angus ran into one of their classrooms. Unfortunately, every teacher

tells her that all their students are accounted for and that they would not know what Angus

looks like anyway.

After Mary hangs up the phone on her last call, she hears banging on the door. Everyone in the

room gasps as the intruder tries to force the door open. After a few seconds of struggle with

the door, the intruder gives up and moves on. That was a close call on Mary’s part. It seems

that because she was unaware of the whereabouts of one of her students, the intruder almost

broke in after overhearing her voice on the phone.

Perspective 2: The missing child

“Attention, code red lock down. I repeat, code red lock down. This is not a drill.”

The lights in the bathroom suddenly dim. Angus, busy washing his hands, becomes dazed with

the shock of darkness and the announcement. Consumed by fear, Angus begins to panic. His

loud cries turn to sobs as no one comes to his aid. With all the noise, someone unwanted may

have heard it also.

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Perspective 3: Outside School Grounds

“This is Greenwood Public School. A potential armed intruder has entered the school. We

have implemented code red procedures, but we require immediate assistance.”

An operator at the local police station receives the message and forwards it to the chief of the

department, Carl. Carl sends the order for all nearby units to proceed to the school. Minutes

later, Greenwood is isolated by police. The contingent of police is led by Sergeant Leonard Tse.

Orders are issued to all able bodies. The most important task is to obtain an accurate list of

the student body and staff. The list of missing students and staff is requested by Sergeant Tse.

Unfortunately, the current up-to-date list of students and staff is unavailable. It takes time to

request information from classrooms via the room phones. Sergeant Tse has the tough decision

to either wait for an up-to-date list or to go in with the attendance taken earlier that morning.

Perspective 4: The Main Office 10 Minutes After the Initial Announcement

“Tell me your class number and any students that may be missing.”

All the secretaries, vice-principal and even the principal, Roy Johnson, are taking calls from

teachers to record their present students. Calls are backed up awaiting someone to attend to

them in the main office.

“This is the special forces outside. We are going to make our move in five minutes. Let all

teachers know that they are not to open their doors. Don’t even open it for a voice announcing

they are with the police.”

The principal receives this call from the outside. Unfortunately, there is no way to relay that

information to all the classrooms in five minutes without alerting the intruder. If there was

only a way to let the classrooms know all at once without announcing it.

Page 23
Design Requirements
Functional Requirements:

Description: • The device must provide accurate and up-to date attendance listings.

• The device must be able to silently communicate between rooms and to


emergency services (e.g. Police, Fire services).

• The device must provide up-to-date information on the school’s status


(normal, lockdown).

• The device must reduce the chance of user error and make it easier to
correct any mistakes.

• The device must contain all the necessary features while remaining
affordable for many schools.

• The system must be modular and additions to the system should be


made easily.

Reasoning: • This would reduce wasted time and provide an accurate report to track
of students during a high stress situation. (e.g. lockdown).

Method of • Testing will be done in parallel to the current system in real world
Evaluation: situations like everyday attendance and lockdown drills.

User Requirements:

Description: • Teachers and administrative staff, who handle the attendance, must
have some knowledge with electronic devices.

• The user must not have any serious disabilities.

Reasoning: • It would not be feasible to make a device to accommodate for all types
of devices.

Usability Requirements:

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Description: • The device must require little or no training to use device.

• The device must have a simple and intuitive interface for people with
little technical knowledge.

• The number of button presses to complete the task must be kept low.

Reasoning: • Most people would prefer that the interface resembles some device that
they currently use. This would reduce the time taken to get accustomed
to the device.

• The system must be efficient and quick to use as teachers would like to
minimize time used in taking attendance.

Method of • Prototype testing, will determine what each user liked/ disliked about
Evaluation: the interface.

Environmental Requirements:

Description: • The device must be useable indoors.

• The device must be easy to setup and maintain.

• The device must be able to withstand daily usage without needing


maintenance for a long time

Reasoning: • The attendance is taken indoors or in a classroom environment.

• It is not feasible for a school to allow for long down times to install the
system.

• Constant replacement due to wear and tear costs time and money.

Method of • Feasibility study to determine how easily the system can be installed
Evaluation: and a cost evaluation on maintenance of system over time period.

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Technical Requirements:

Description: • The device must have wireless connectivity to the main server.

• The wireless connection must be encrypted to ensure the data is secure.

• The device must have a method of input: Buttons, touch screen or some
combination.

• The device must have a fairly large screen to maintain font readability
while displaying lists.

• The device must have a speaker and microphone for voice


communication between other rooms.

• The device must also support text message communication between


other rooms.

• The device must be light and simple to mount on a wall, without the
need for complex support.

• The device must have a battery and portable in the event of an


emergency.

Reasoning: • The panels need to be used fairly often so it is vital that the device does
not cause eye strain to the user.

• In the case of a fire drill, the panel needs to have enough battery life to
take attendance outdoors. The device also needs to be light weight so
that it is easy to carry.

• The wireless connectivity would allow for easy and cheap installation
into the classrooms.

• Text message communication is necessary since voice communication


may not always be possible (e.g. lockdown) or convenient.

Method of • Testing during real world situations.


Evaluation:

Page 26
APPENDICES

Page 27
Group Responsibilities Breakdown
Name Tasks and Time Taken Total
Estimated
Time
Spent
Victoria Mui - Designed and distributed survey (3 hour)
- Data collection (interviews etc...) (6 hours)
- Editing (4 hours)
- Organizing appendices (1 hour)
- Contacted potential users (schools) (5 hours) 25 hours
- Scheduled prototype testing with schools (2 hours)
- Concept mapping and introduction (3 hours)
- Created task analysis tree visualization (1 hours)
Brian Shim - design basic section outline for write-up (1 hour)
- Personas section (3 hours)
- Situations section (4 hours)
- Data collection (interviews etc...) (6 hours)
- Distributed survey (1 hour) 23 hours
- Made survey available online (1 hour)
- Editing (4 hours)
- Contacted potential users (schools) (3 hours)
Veronica - Data collection (interviews etc...) (6 hours)
Wong - Designed and distributed survey (3 hours)
- Editing (4 hours)
- Led the meeting when distributing tasks (1 hour) 23 hours
- Stakeholder descriptions (3 hours)
- Raw task analysis tree (vision) (4 hours)
- Essential use cases (2 hours)
Joseph Ng - Design Requirements (5 hours)
Chow - Data collection (interviews etc...) (6 hours)
- Editing (4 hours)
- Distributed survey (1 hour) 22 hours
- Contacted potential users (schools) (1 hour)
- Research potential system designs (3 hours)
- Minute taker at meetings (2 hours)

Page 28
Field Study Protocol
1. Project Title: Interviews and Observations of teachers and administration

2. Investigators:

Joseph Ng Chow <joseph.ng.chow@utoronto.ca>

Victoria Mui <victoria.mui@utoronto.ca>

Brian Shim <brian.shim@utoronto.ca>

Veronica Wong <veve.wong@utoronto.ca>

3. Purpose: The purpose of our research is to understand the duties of teachers and
administration staff in the TDSB to help us derive requirements for the design of novel
interactive computational media that are intended to be useful to the aforementioned
teachers and administration staff. A brief description of our design concept is: an electronic
attendance system that will collaborate data between administration and teaching staff.

4. Process to be followed: We will brief the participants about the purpose of the study,
explain the consent form to them, and ensure that they sign the consent form. We will then
engage the participants in <data gathering techniques to be used, for example, an hour-long,
semi-structured interview>. We will also with their permission make observations as follows:
<description of observation procedures to be used and the workplace or living space or
environment in which the study will be conducted>.

5. Participant selection: Participants will be chosen from teachers and administration. They
will be identified via school visits and selected according to schedule availability. In general,
they will be characterized by responsibilities.

6. Relationships: Our relationship to the participants may be described as follows: no


relationship

7. Risk and benefit: There will be minimal risk to the participants, for example that they feel
that they have wasted their time. The only benefit will be to contribute to the education of
the investigators. Participants are free to withdraw before or at any time during the study
without the need to give any explanation.

8. Consent details: We will brief the participants about the purpose of the study, and explain
the attached consent form to them, and ensure that they consent to participate and sign the
consent form.

9. Compensation: Participants will receive no compensation.

10. Information sought: The information to be sought is described in the attached


questionnaire, interview and observation protocols.

11. Confidentiality: Information will be kept confidential by the investigators. Names or other
identifying or identified information will not be kept with the data. The only other use will be

Page 29
to include excerpts or copies in the assignment submitted, but names and other identifying or
identified information will not be submitted.

Page 30
Questionnaires/Interview Protocol
Interview Protocol:

- Follow the questionnaire to ensure that you touch on all the

required topics

- If a response intrigues you, request more information

Teachers:

Electronic Attendance System: Research


Questionnaire

In which age group do you belong?

20-30 years old 31-40 41-50 51-60 61-70 over


70

How long have you been teaching?

What grade and/or subject do you teach?

Grade:
Subject:

Regarding Attendance
Briefly describe your school’s current attendance system.

How do you update attendance records with regards to late students?

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How often do you take the attendance each day?

How much time is required to take the attendance for each class?

0-5 minutes 5-10 minutes more than 10 minutes

At what time is the attendance taken down to the administration office?


__ 5 minutes after the start of class
__ 10 minutes after the start of class
__ 15 minutes after the start of class
__ at the end of class
__ when the administration staff asks for it

How did the attendance delivered to the administration office?

In the case of an emergency, how do you make sure all your students are
accounted for?

Is your classroom located within the school building or in a portable?

Regarding Technology
How often do you interact with a computer?

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1 (rarely) 2 3 4 5 (very often)

Which of the following interfaces are you more familiar with (check all that apply)?

__ an Automated Teller Machine (ATM)


__ a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA)
__ a mobile phone
__ a personal computer
__ a Global Positioning System (GPS)
__ a microwave
__ an MP3 player
__ a gaming console

Additional Comments

Thank you very much for your time!

Administration Staff:

Electronic Attendance System: Research


Questionnaire

In which age group do you belong?

20-30 years old 31-40 41-50 51-60 61-70 over


70

How long have you been in administration?

Page 33
Regarding Attendance
Briefly describe your school’s current attendance system.

Given student attendance, what administrative tasks do you carry out?

For each day, how much time is allotted towards organizing attendance records?

0-5 minutes 5-10 minutes more than 10 minutes

On average, by what time do you receive all the attendance in the building?

__ 5 minutes from when it’s required


__ 10 minutes from when it’s required
__ 20 minutes from when it’s required
__ 30 minutes from when it’s required

In the case of an emergency, how does the current system account for all the
students?

Regarding Technology
How often do you interact with a computer?

1 (rarely) 2 3 4 5 (very often)

Which of the following interfaces are you more familiar with (check all that apply)?

__ an Automated Teller Machine (ATM)


__ a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA)

Page 34
__ a mobile phone
__ a personal computer
__ a Global Positioning System (GPS)
__ a microwave
__ an MP3 player
__ a gaming console

Additional Comments

Thank you very much for your time!

Page 35
Natural Observation Protocol
Take note of:

- All the specific task that the participants performs.

- The time that each task required

- Mark down procedures that you don’t understand. It is at your discretion whether to ask

the questions then or save them for the end.

Page 36
Consent Form
I hereby consent to participate in a research study conducted by Victoria Mui, Joseph Ng
Chow, Brian Shim, and Veronica Wong.

I understand that the purpose of this study is to better understand the current school
attendance system.

I further understand that:


• The procedures that are used include interviews, questionnaires, and physical
artifact analyses.
• I will receive no compensation for my participation.
• I am free to withdraw before, or at any time during the study without the need to
give any explanation.
• All materials and results will be kept confidential. In particular, my name and any
identifying or identified information will not be associated with the data.

Participant:

Name (Please Print)


_____________________________________________________________

Signature ______________________________ Place and Date


_________________________

Investigator(s):

Name (Please Print)


_____________________________________________________________

Signature ______________________________

Page 37
Useful Raw Data

Page 38
Group Meeting Notes

Page 39

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