Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Upcoming Student Focus Group: Tuition Statement

The University of Washington's Office of Information Management (http://www.washington.edu/uwit/im/) is seeking student participation and feedback on the tuition statement at UW. We're interested in putting together a few focus group sessions at the beginning of October with students about what works well, what doesn't work at all, and everything in between when it comes to these systems.

When
We are holding 2 sessions. Participants can select the session that best fits their schedule.
· October 27th from 12:00 PM-2:00PM
· October 27th from 5:30PM-7:30PM

Where
Both sessions will be held in the UW Tower (4333 Brooklyn Ave NE). Specific room location will be shared in advance with participants after they select a date.

Why
Not only will student feedback help modernize and improve existing systems, the responses will be part of building the Kuali Student project (http://student.kuali.org/), which is an initiative to implement "community source" student service systems. This is also an opportunity for students to participate in a research study and make a difference to the UW community.

What
Focus groups are structured conversations with 6 to 8 other people, which often last between one and two hours. There are open-ended questions that are meant to prompt feedback, moderated by one of the project team members to help enable a constructive dialog. Some sessions may have website modification prototypes or current system walkthroughs. Participation is completely voluntary and responses will be kept confidential by the research team.

Who
We are looking for current UW students (undergrad, grad, distance, professional) from as many programs and disciplines to participate in one of these focus groups. The time commitment would be 1 to 2 hours at the beginning of October (must be available to come to the main UW campus in-person), and then ideally be able to participate 2 to 3 hours a month for a few months for follow-up feedback, though this is not required. If you cannot participate in October, but you might be available at another time, please let us know as well.

If you are interested or have any questions, please contact the team at sisinput@uw.edu. Please feel free to forward this information on to any additional students who may be interested. We are interested in a diverse sampling of students as possible.