Copyright © 2015 - Curt Hill Musings on LMS, HCI, Clients and Native Programs Curt Hill and Razib Iqbal Computer Systems and Software Engineering Valley.

Copyright © 2015 - Curt Hill

Musings on LMS, HCI, Clients and Native

Programs

Curt Hill and Razib IqbalComputer Systems and Software Engineering

Valley City State University{Curt.Hill,Razib.Iqbal}@vcsu.edu

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?


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©


Starting

• To start:– Excel 10.9 seconds– BlackBoard 32.4 seconds– N=14

• Excel needs no login• BlackBoard needs other server

responses besides authentication


Individual Entries

• A similar story– Excel 4.8 seconds– BlackBoard 7.1 seconds– N = 179

• Both of these include the time to shuffle papers


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

averagesCopyright © 2015 - 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


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 © 2015 - 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


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


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


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


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


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?


[email protected]


Copyright © 2015 - Curt Hill Musings on LMS, HCI, Clients and Native Programs Curt Hill and Razib Iqbal Computer Systems and Software Engineering Valley.

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