Next: Budget
Up: Proposal to Create a
Previous: Discussion and Summary.
It seems to me that if we are evaluate the quality of
the proposed site at an appropriate moment after work has had a chance to
accomplish something, there are a number of possible ways to go about this.
We must bear in mind different needs and different perspectives, as well as
such perameters as might be set by people whose expertise is in the
construction of multimedia materials, but who might have no knowledge of Tamil
or its resources. I therefore propose several ways to measure the quality of
the work done.
- User Evaluations. One way to determine whether the site and its
materials are meeting the needs of the users we have in mind is to establish a
comment `box' somewhere on the site, where users can send us email messages of
various sorts, responding to questions we put to them, or allowing for
open-ended commentary. We would establish this box after the first three
months of operation, and begin to take these comments into consideration when
constructing future elements of the system.
- Teacher Evaluation. The number of people professionally involved
in teaching Tamil in North America, Japan, and Europe is very
small, and we all know each other. I propose to circularize them after we have
been in operation for three months, and ask for their opinions. Many of
them will in fact be contributors to the site, so they will have personal
opinions about how we have used their materials, as well as about other
materials. We will focus on the balance between written and spoken materials,
the pedagogy and methodology of the materials and how they could be improved,
and what gaps they perceive to exist between the existing materials and
desiderata for the future.
- Multimedia Professionals. A third metric of quality would be to
ask a multimedia professional (as yet unnamed) to evaluate the site, as an
outside consultant. Funds to do this are requested in the budget. This would
be done before the annual deadline for new requests, in order to strengthen our
argument for renewed funding. (I envisage this as a multi-year project;
subsequent years might involve a request for funds to finish the English
Dictionary of the Tamil Verb project that is now about two-thirds done,
allowing us to put this dictionary on line as an additional teaching tool.
Next: Budget
Up: Proposal to Create a
Previous: Discussion and Summary.
Harold Schiffman
Mon Apr 1 09:56:50 EST 1996