Design a service for online hospitality of TU Delft online education

Abstract

Delft University of Technology is playing a leading role worldwide in the development of open and online education. The university started to offer online education since 2012 and in September 2015, the first 60 online students followed paid online courses. The university expected to accommodate two thousand paying online students in 2017. In order to create an excellent student experience for these online learners, a “warm touch” is proposed by the university corporate offices (from the presentation, “TU Delft Online Learning”, 2015). To comply with the goal of the university in providing better online education for the growing number of audience worldwide, the client of this project, the TU Delft library, wants to contribute to the online learning experience of this new customer segment. The goal of the assignment is to create a “warm touch” which shows the hospitality of the university and makes the online learners feel being part of the TU Delft community. The “warm” is further defined by research on students’ needs and wishes in the online learning environment. Interviews with different stakeholders were carried out to understand (1) the experiences and needs of online students and (2) the process of delivering an online course. A service blueprint was made to show how the learners interact with the current course system (front end) and how the stakeholders are involved in supporting the system (back end). Based on this service blueprint, four opportunities were identified for the library to provide their service for the online learners. This project focused on the direction of how the library can enhance the online learning experience by facilitating the interaction between the online learners during the course. User research was carried out to gather insights from the online learners and define the “warm touch”. Observations were conducted on the current forum of four ongoing online master courses in September 2015. It is shown that online learners were open to talk about who they are and they showed interest to each other’s professions and motivations. There is a need for seeking connection and recognition. However, the TU Delft online learning platform did not provide a space encouraging these discussions. Thus, the design goal is to create a warm environment which they can share their personal luggage. The interaction qualities in the warm environment includes (1) belongingness and support; (2) self-expression and appreciation and (3) curiosity. Based on these insights, the following concepts were created: (1) Talk of the week; (2) Co-note and (3) Give a hand. People who had online learning experiences were invited for individual sessions. The aim of the session was to gather more insights on their online learning experience and evaluate if the concepts meet the design goal. The third concept “Give a hand” was selected to be further developed because it enables the learners to express their feelings and emotions and encourages them to help out other people or ask for advice. With all the insights gathered from the evaluation, the final design of an online course platform came to form. This course platform creates a welcoming feeling for the learners and gives a sense of togetherness in the beginning. The user profile evokes curiosity about other learners and broader knowledge. After completing the course of the week. It enables the learners to express their feeling about the course and connect to other learners The design was prototyped and evaluated with the users and the stakeholders. The user evaluation was conducted with six people who had online learning experiences to understand if the design meets the design goal and gather further recommendations. The evaluation consisted of two parts: an individual user testing and a group session. The design received positive feedback and the results of the evaluation gave a lot of rich insights into the design of how the learners connect to others. Another evaluation was held in the Extension School with other stakeholders in the online education. All the suggestions was collected and recommendations for the further design was made. Recommendations for the library and the roadmap of implementation were proposed in the end of this project.