Agency, invention, and sympatric design platforms

ABSTRACT

This project investigates the problems associated with course software platforms from the perspective of user-centered design, examining student agency and invention specifically in environments like WebCT, Wikis, and MS SharePoint 3.0. I argue for course design platforms that are structured on informed technogogies at the instructor and curricular levels. Drawing on concepts from biological evolution and anthropology, I propose that instructors, researchers, and administrators promote and create design platforms that are sympatric, that foster student agency and invention through user localization technologies that also embrace rhetorically complex social interaction. I further argue that researchers in Rhetoric and Writing Studies are particularly well positioned to write and/or co-create sympatric course platforms.

REFERENCES

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: User-centered design

General Terms:
Design, Human Factors, Theory

Keywords:
agency, delivery platforms, invention, sympatry, technogogy