As part of its search for a common email/calendar system for the college, ITS is conducting focus group research in which we have equal representation of students, staff and faculty. This group will help the ITS workgroup complete their evaluation process by participating in a demonstration of the candidate systems, spending a period of 10 days using one of the demo systems, and then providing us with feedback on their experiences. The ITS workgroup will then use this data to provide an informed recommendation for our new email/calendar system.

Tasks of the Focus Group

• To test and evaluate 5 potential email/calendar packages under consideration
• Provide feedback to the ITS workgroup in charge of making a purchasing recommendation to the college

Who is participating?

We sought a balanced group of about 20 people representing students, staff and faculty. Some of the testers were either volunteers from our advisory groups or nominated by them. The Call for Participation from faculty was made via the Faculty Affairs Committee. We worked with the CSA subgroup on information technology to identify student testers. We sought additional employee participation through all-staff emails and Currently @ Carleton. We advertised for volunteers on a "splash page" on the academic webmail site CarlMail. We even offered a free lunch to focus group participants who could make it to our kick-off meeting

We ended up with a mix of Mac and PC users, as well as people with different comfort levels with technology. We also have individuals who have had experience with email/calendar systems external to Carleton, and users who have somewhat more demanding needs, such as organizing calendars for other people.

Focus group participants have been asked to:

• Attend a kick-off meeting on Feb 5th, 10 am – 1pm in which all systems were be demonstrated
• Test drive one of the candidate systems for 10 days, performing assigned tasks and attempting to work within the system as much as possible during the demo period
• Complete a feedback form based on their experience
• Participate in a wrap-up meeting in late February or early March (TBA)

Other notes:

• During the trial period, all focus group members’ email is being directed to their current mail system and all other systems being tested.
• All email sent via the new systems will appear to look as if it comes from an @carleton.edu or @acs.carleton.edu address (whichever is appropriate), so all email responses will be routed appropriately.
• At any time during the evaluation period, focus group members may choose to leave their demo system and revert back to their current email package.
• For each trial system, ITS will have an “expert support person,” a.k.a. Package Captain. The Package Captain is serving as the go-to person for problems and questions regarding his or her trial system. Many of these systems are new to us, too, but we are working hard to learn these systems so that we can support them appropriately.
• We provided focused support documentation for the key features of each of the systems to the focus group participants at the very beginning in an effort to make the experience as easy as possible.

Please feel free to contact Carly Born (x7010) with questions. The volunteer period has been closed. If you volunteered but were not chosen to participate, thank you for your very kind offer to help!