The original virtual advisor was built to solve a common problem - students needing the answers to important questions about what classes to take and how to fulfill their major requirements, but physical advisors being too busy and overworked to answer these simple yet vital questions from all of their students. The first iteration of the solution did a great job at solving this problem for students in the public and professional writing major by creating a straightforward website that allows students to easily navigate the intricacies of their course requirements. However, it would take a lot of effort and HTML knowledge to translate this solution to all of the departments at Pitt. Therefore, we will solve this problem by creating a simple fill-in-the blank GitHub page and accompanying tutorial, so that advisors can individually create a similar website for their department, with no HTML knowledge required.
Definition
To solve the problem, we made a github template and accompanying tutorial that would allow someone with minimal HTML knowledge to create a virtual advisor website. We did this by building off of the previous virtual advisor that was created for the PPW major. We impoved the layout of multiple pages to be more straightforward and allow for flexibility in changes. In additon, we carefully commented our code with numbered changes to indicate to the user exactly how and where changes need to be made to create their own personalized website. We also created a README that lists the line number where each change needs to made, and a short description on how to make each change. Finally, we creted a video tutorial documenting how to go through the whole process, from forking the repository to committing the final change. The simplicity of our design combined with the many resources we have created supporting the user allow for the user to seamlessly create their own virtual advisor.
To function effectively as a team, we divided the work so that we could each contribute to the project. We made sure to take team members strengths into account; for example, those more familiar with HTML wrote more code while others took responsibility of documentaton and tutorial creation. We had a total of 6 scrums where we collaborated and made important decisions, and recorded personal and group tasks on Trello. Using these methods, we were able to effectively collaborate and successfully complete this project.
Quality
Our project makes it easier for departments to create individualized virtual advising websites without extensive HTML knowledge. This project helps students understand what major requirements must be completed for graduation. Students benefit the most from our project which allows them to answer their own questions prior to physical advisor intervention. Advisors also benefit from having more uniform advising websites that list offered classes. If nothing changes, students will continue to struggle to fully understand which classes fulfill degree requirements. Physical advisors will continue to receive floods of messages from students asking questions regarding their schedules. Physical advisors save plenty of time by first having students utilize our virtual advisor. This filters out repetitive and simple questions from ever reaching physical advisors unless extenuating circumstances occur.
Policy
The next steps in this project would be to advertise the template and tutorial combination to the advisors in different departments at Pitt. By learning how they use the system, we could learn how it could be improved given their feedback. Using what we learn, we could modify the design to be more straighforward and easier to customize for different departments.
In addition, our next steps will include a usability study. This will help us understand if our template and tutorial are clear and adhere to the elements of design. By creating a thoughtful usability test, we can gather data that will help us improve the product in the future.
