Copyright © Curt Hill Musings on LMS, HCI, Clients and Native Programs Curt Hill and Razib Iqbal Computer Systems and Software Engineering Valley City State University

Introduction This paper started out as an implied dare The story His story: all the same My story: there is a reason for using something else Is there a significant difference? Copyright © Curt Hill

The Study Timings on data entry Start with a set of scores –Not organized –Usually in a test or on note paper Time the following: –Program start to ready to enter –The succession of entered scores Do this both for BlackBoard© or Microsoft Excel© Copyright © Curt Hill

Starting To start: –Excel 10.9 seconds –BlackBoard 32.4 seconds –N=14 Excel needs no login BlackBoard needs other server responses besides authentication Copyright © Curt Hill

Individual Entries A similar story –Excel 4.8 seconds –BlackBoard 7.1 seconds –N = 179 Both of these include the time to shuffle papers Copyright © Curt Hill

Other Delays BlackBoard seems to be much slower in creating a new gradebook column than Excel –About 23 seconds –Since this a one-time thing it does not seem to be significant It also appears that moving off the displayed values does require more than ordinary work –This is reflected in the entering scores averages Copyright © Curt Hill

Markets Market size comparison between these two programs is laughable Microsoft has an estimated 750 users worldwide BlackBoard LMS has a limited number of candidates Thus, what Microsoft has spent on Excel development dwarfs what BlackBoard could spend Copyright © Curt Hill

Clients and Natives The smaller market and many other factors has forced BlackBoard into a client server paradigm –This has many other benefits The client is any web browser This greatly impacts the program –Makes it platform independent –Damages the Human Computer Interface Copyright © Curt Hill

Damage: Speed and Speed Effects The client server paradigm inherently has network delays not seen in native programs Some of this is aided by scripts in the HTML files –These free the server of some operations and reduce the networking delays –They increase the load time of the page Copyright © Curt Hill

Script Issues Scripting languages are typically an order of magnitude slower than machine language –Of even pseudo machine language like Java byte code What typically results is a less desirable Human Computer Interface Copyright © Curt Hill

Example: Value Entry In Excel a value may be terminated by: –Enter –Tab –Any cursor key In BlackBoard only the Enter or Tab works –Enter leaves the cursor at the next cell below –Tab to the right Copyright © Curt Hill

Bad News Either Way BlackBoard could likely handle all of these other options on how to end an entry To do so would increase the size of the script and thus the initial load It might also slow other processing Thus, speed directly affects user interface Copyright © Curt Hill

Why BlackBoard? I have a lot of respect for BlackBoard and similar programs –Is there a faster way to do things? What bothers me are assertions that this is the only or best way to do things –Best for the institution or best for the faculty? –Faculty as a whole do not like to be told what they must do Copyright © Curt Hill

Finally The Human Computer Interface of many such programs is a problem –Especially slowness and awkwardness –It appears to be a giant step backwards We generally do not see this in ERPs and the like If such a program is seldom used, that is not a serious problem Is education again a second class citizen? Copyright © Curt Hill

Questions? Copyright © Curt Hill