Creating documentation is a challenging task in software engineering and most techniques involve the laborious and sometimes tedious job of writing text. This thesis explores an alternative to traditional text-based documentation, the screencast, which captures a developer’s screen while they narrate how a program or software tool works. This thesis presents a study investigating how developers produce and share developer-focused screencasts using the YouTube social platform. First, a set of development screencasts were identified and analyzed to determine how developers have adapted to the medium to meet the demands of development-related documen- tation needs. These videos raised questions regarding the techniques and strategies used for sharing software knowledge. Second, screencast producers were interviewed to understand their motivations for creating screencasts, and to uncover the perceived benefits and challenges in producing code-focused videos. From this study a theory was developed describing the techniques used by devel- opers in screencasts. This thesis also discusses YouTube’s role in the social developer ecosystem, and presents a list of best practices for future screencast creators. This work lays the groundwork for future studies exploring how screencasts can play a role in sharing software development knowledge. / Graduate / 0984 / lmacleod@uvic.ca

abstract: With changes in federal legislation and the proposed reauthorization of The Elementary and Secondary Education Act, school administrators are held to high standards in an attempt to improve achievement for all students. They no longer just manage their schools but must now be instructional leaders charged with observing and conferencing with teachers, leading professional development aligned to data, and measuring results. Classroom walkthroughs have become a way of assisting with these tasks while supporting the mission of each school. The purpose of this research was to describe how walkthroughs operate in practice and how they were experienced by school administration, teacher leaders, and teachers at two schools within the same suburban district. Interviews illustrated that experiences were varied using the classroom walkthrough protocol. Continued professional development needed to occur with administrators and teachers. Participants shared their thoughts on implementation and usage, as well as made recommendations to schools and/or districts considering implementing classroom walkthroughs. Results also indicated a great deal of attention paid to the collection of data within the schools but there was less consensus on the analysis and use of the collected data. There was also confusion with teachers as to the vision, purpose, and goals of using classroom walkthroughs. Changes in leadership during the five years since implementation and young administrators, who were relatively new in their positions, helped shape school experiences. Recommendations to schools and/or districts considering implementation focused on support from the district office, a need for help with data collection and analysis, and a clear vision for the use of the protocol. Interviewees mentioned it would benefit districts and schools to develop a shared vocabulary for instructional engagement, alignment, and rigor, as well as a focus for professional development. They also shared the view that calibration conferences and conversations, centered on instruction, provided a focus for teaching and learning within a school and/or district. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ed.D. Educational Administration and Supervision 2012

In order to support the new mission of education where students achieve at high levels, schools need infrastructure, in terms of processes, procedures, and capacity building, to support the collaboration between administrative instructional leadership and teachers' professional development with the goal of student learning and achievement. Walkthroughs are a tool used throughout school districts with a limited base of research. This mixed methods case study describes one middle school's journey with walkthroughs. This dissertation explores and describes three main aspects of walkthroughs: process, perspectives, and recommendations. Administrators and teachers shared their experiences through personal interviews, focus group interviews, the Concerns Based Adoption Model Stages of Concern Questionnaire, and documents. Findings suggest that classroom walkthroughs work best in school climates that have an established level of trust between administrators and teachers. Walkthroughs, with classroom observations led by all teachers in the school, allow teachers to engage in professional dialogue about expectations for teaching and learning for all students in all content settings. Walkthroughs are a process that takes time to implement, should be ongoing, and require a transparent flexible process to meet individual school needs. If the need or expectation is to change teaching practices, then teachers need to be involved in all aspects of instructional supervision in collaboration with administrators on a continual basis. / Ed. D.

A safe environment, conducive to productive and transparent conversations, makes possible the improvement of literacy practices and strengthens teacher/administrator relationships for more honest and vulnerable conversations. In this autoethnographic intrinsic case study I conducted a self-study of my use of language and communication with four literacy teachers during debrief, after classroom walkthroughs, when coaching each on literacy practice. Furthermore, the component under investigation was the debrief meeting where dialogue is the key ingredient for discussing teacher classroom practice. The study was approached through identifying characteristics from my personal and professional background, to my interactions with the four literacy teachers and the insights and perceptions of my role and style as their administrator. Findings revealed, teachers in this study desired positive recognition and praise as a result of my informal classroom walkthroughs. I was able to influence the teachers' beliefs through debriefing and nurture those beliefs about themselves to enhance their attempts to teach their students more effectively. Student engagement increased as the teachers began to unpack the why, what and the how of their teaching during debrief meetings. School wide improvement efforts were also supported as teachers were able to look past themselves when they reflected on connections made to the next grade level or the previous grade level to help understand literacy curricular decisions and goal setting. The findings were discussed as they apply to the debrief experiences realized by both administrator and teacher.

Efficient methods for rapid evaluation of television (TV) interaction devices are missing. This thesis presents how the Cognitive Walkthrough method can be modified to suit the demands of engineers in a development process. Moreover, the thesis also investigates how Personas can be applied to support the Cognitive Walkthrough method. The Modified Cognitive Walkthrough method was applied and tested in an actual development project on remote control design. The study suggests that the method can detect usability problems on TV interaction devices at an early stage of development. Further, the results indicate that it is easy to understand the method and apply it as part of the engineering practices.

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Die vorliegende Arbeit befasst sich mit dem Vorgehen des Prototyping und wie dieses in die Softwareentwicklung integriert werden kann. Dies wird anhand eines praktischen Beispiels erläutert, indem Prototypen für ein mobiles, projektbasiertes Zeiterfassungssystem erstellt und anschließend evaluiert werden. Zu Beginn erfolgt die Einordnung des Begriffs Prototyp und eine Beschreibung, wie Prototypen kategorisiert werden können. Prozessmodelle des Usability Engineering, zum Beispiel nach Jakob Nielsen, werden aufgegriffen und die Rolle des Prototyping innerhalb dieser Prozesse erläutert, was die Grundlage für den praktischen Teil der Arbeit bildet. Weiterhin setzt sich der theoretische Teil mit den Gründen für das Prototyping sowie geeigneten Evaluationsmethoden auseinander. Im praktischen Teil erfolgt die Erstellung von Prototypen für das mobile Zeiterfassungssystem auf Basis einer Konkurrenzanalyse. Dabei bilden die Prototypen unterschiedliche User Journeys ab. Die anschließende Evaluation, bestehend aus einem Cognitive Walkthrough sowie einem vergleichenden, nutzerbasierten Usability-Test, ermittelt, welche Verbesserungen an der Gestaltung vorgenommen werden müssen und welche User Journey von Benutzern bevorzugt wird. Ein Ausblick zeigt, hinsichtlich welcher Aspekte die mobile Zeiterfassung verbessert sowie erweitert werden könnte und wie weitere Erkenntnisse über die Gebrauchstauglichkeit gewonnen werden können.:Abkürzungsverzeichnis Abbildungsverzeichnis Tabellenverzeichnis Glossar 1 Einleitung 1.1 Relevanz des Themas 1.2 Ziel der Arbeit 1.3 Methodisches Vorgehen und Aufbau der Arbeit 2 Einführung in den Prozess des Prototyping 2.1 Einordnung des Begriffs „Prototyp“ 2.2 Prototyping als Teil des Usability Engineering 2.2.1 Prozessmodell „Usability Engineering“ nach Sarodnick und Brau 2.2.2 Usability Engineering Lifecycle nach Nielsen 2.3 Kategorisierung von Prototypen 2.3.1 nach Funktionsumfang und -tiefe 2.3.2 nach Darstellungstreue 2.4 Gründe für das Prototyping 3 Evaluation von Prototypen 3.1 Gründe für die Evaluation von Prototypen 3.2 Geeignete Evaluationsmethoden 3.2.1 Prüfung mit Benutzern 3.2.2 Inspektionsbasierte Evaluierung 4 Vorgehensweise und Methodik 4.1 Konkretisierung der Problemstellung 4.2 Anforderungen des Unternehmens 4.3 Ausführliche Beschreibung der Untersuchungsmethodik 5 Erstellung von Prototypen für ein mobiles Zeiterfassungssystem 5.1 Zweck der Prototypen im Projekt NewTimePLUS 5.2 Konkurrenzanalyse und Ableitung von Anforderungen 5.3 Erläuterung der Gestaltung der Prototypen 5.3.1 Gestaltung der User Journey 1 5.3.2 Gestaltung der User Journey 2 5.3.3 Gestaltung der User Journey 3 5.3.4 Gestaltung der Suchfunktion 6 Evaluation der Prototypen 6.1 Beschreibung des Evaluationsverfahrens 6.1.1 Cognitive Walkthrough 6.1.1.1 Vorbereitungsphase 6.1.1.2 Analysephase 6.1.2 Usability-Test mit System Usability Scale 6.2 Darstellung der Ergebnisse 6.2.1 Ergebnisse des Cognitive Walkthroughs 6.2.2 Ergebnisse des Usability-Tests 7 Diskussion der Ergebnisse 7.1 Bewertung der Ergebnisse 7.2 Schlussfolgerungen 8 Fazit der Untersuchung 8.1 Zusammenfassung der Ergebnisse 8.2 Ausblick Literaturverzeichnis Selbstständigkeitserklärung Anlagenverzeichnis

Published Article / The objective of the study was to assess the medical waste management practices used by clinics located in the Polokwane Municipality, South Africa. The clinic personnel were not informed prior to the visit. A walkthrough survey was conducted on-site where potential health and safety risks were identified and noted. The health care personnel in charge of specific clinics completed the questionnaires providing general and detailed information about the treatment and disposal of medical waste. Frequencies and percentages were calculated from the data obtained. Data obtained indicate that (i) medical waste was not segregated from general waste in most of the clinics, (ii) rural clinics were burning medical waste with general waste inside the clinic yard (iii) there was no sufficient collection and transport of medical waste in clinics, (iv) sharps were disposed at various hospital incinerators and (v) most of the clinics did not have storage facilities for medical waste.

A rápida evolução tecnológica tem proporcionado que a população mundial vivencie novas formas de interação. Um fenômeno que também tem ocorrido em escala global é o envelhecimento populacional, que faz com que grande parte da população seja afetada por limitações decorrentes da idade. Jogos digitais podem oferecer diversos benefícios para um envelhecimento saudável, tais como bem-estar físico e mental, sociabilização com outros jogadores, relaxamento e entretenimento. A literatura apresenta esforços em direção a abordagens visando tornar as aplicações cada vez mais usáveis, por meio de diferentes métodos de avaliação de usabilidade. O Percurso Cognitivo (PC) é um desses métodos, que tem como finalidade a avaliação da facilidade de aprendizado. No entanto, o declínio cognitivo, especialmente quando decorrente do envelhecimento, dificulta o aprendizado pelos usuários. Assim, faz-se necessário uma investigação sobre o método PC para que considere também acessibilidade, devido a barreiras enfrentadas por pessoas idosas. O objetivo deste projeto foi propor um método de avaliação por inspeção, que considere questões de usabilidade e acessibilidade, com ênfase na facilidade de aprendizado, de modo a apoiar desenvolvedores e especialistas nas avaliações de jogos para o público idoso. Assim, foram realizados procedimentos metodológicos, tais como pesquisa bibliográfica e três Estudos de Caso (EC) para embasar o método proposto, nomeado Percurso de Barreiras Cognitivas (PBC). O primeiro EC foi realizado para analisar a aplicação do método PC, bem como identificar as possíveis vulnerabilidades do método ao avaliar jogos tendo como público alvo os idosos. Com base na primeira versão do método PBC, no segundo EC foi analisada sua aplicabilidade e foram coletadas sugestões de melhorias. A segunda versão do PBC foi então desenvolvida. No terceiro EC, foi analisada a viabilidade da aplicação da segunda versão do PBC em uma situação real. Finalmente, por incluir integralmente as questões do método PC tradicional, no PBC é esperado que um mesmo especialista ao avaliar um jogo, encontre (seja com base no PBC ou PC), no mínimo, os mesmos problemas, independente da experiência deste especialista. Foram evidenciadas que as questões e procedimentos do método PBC tendem a auxiliar o especialista a encontrar mais problemas do que encontraria com o método PC tradicional. / Fast technological evolution has provided the world population with new forms of interaction. A phenomenon that also occurred on a global scale is population aging, which causes a large part of the population to be affected by age-related disabilities. Digital games can offer several benefits for healthy aging including improvement of mental and physical condition of their players. Games also help users to improve personal capabilities, to become more sociable and relaxed, and to increase interaction with other users. The literature presents efforts that consider different usability evaluation methods to make applications even more usable, Cognitive Walkthrough (CW) is one of these methods. However, while CW proposes the evaluation of ease of learning, Cognitive decline, especially due aging, hinders users learning. Thus, it is necessary to extend CW, usually applied to usability domain, in order to consider issues involving accessibility. The objective of this project was to propose an inspection method for evaluating games regarding the usability and accessibility issues for the older public, with emphasis on ease of learning. Thus, methodological procedures, such as bibliographic research and three case studies (CS) were used to support the proposed method, called Cognitive Barriers Walkthrough (CBW). The first CS was performed to analyze the application of the CW method, as well to identify its possible vulnerabilities for evaluating games with the target audience as the elderly people. In the second CS, the applicability of the first version of the CBW method was analyzed and suggestions for improvements were collected, and then the second version of CBW was then developed. In the third CS, the feasibility of applying the second version of CBW was analyzed in a real situation. Finally, since the traditional CW questions were all included in CBW, it is expected that the same expert will find at least the same problems, regardless of the evaluators level of expertise. It was evidenced that the questions and procedures of the CBW method tend to help the experts to find more problems than they would find with the traditional CW method.

Complex urban scene rendering is not feasible without culling invisible geometry before the rendering actually takes place. Visibility culling can be performed on predefined regions of scene where for each region a potential visible set of scene geometry is computed. Rendering cost is reduced since instead of a bigger set only a single PVS which is associated with the region of the viewer is rendered. However, when the viewer leaves a region and enters one of its neighbors, disposing currently loaded PVS and loading the new PVS causes stalls. Prefetching policies are utilized to overcome stalls by loading PVS of a region before the viewer enters it. This study presents a prefetching method for interactive urban walkthroughs. Regions and transitions among them are represented as a graph where the regions are the nodes and transitions are the edges. Groups of nodes are formed according to statistical data of transitions and used as the prefetching policy. Some heuristics for constructing groups of nodes are developed and Simulated Annealing is utilized for constructing optimized groups based on developed heuristics. The proposed method and underlying application of Simulated Annealing are customized for minimizing average transition cost.