in this issue

2005 PCD Awards!

Innovations in eLearning Symposium

Folksonomies: A User-Driven Approach to Organizing Content

Medical Usability: How to Kill Patients Through Bad Design

Evangelizing Usability: Change Your Strategy at the Halfway Point

Mapping TSP to CMMI

Virtual Dissection and Physical Collaboration

Computers Grade Students' Writing

Mental Models For Search Are Getting Firmer

Formal Usability Reports vs. Quick Findings

Accelerated Keyword and Engine Testing 1

Accelerated Keyword and Engine Testing 2

It's that time again! EPSScentral LLC is now accepting submissions for the 2005 Performance Centered Design Awards! Here's your chance to gain recognition for yourself, your organization, your solution or tool, and your business sponsor.

The PCD Awards for 2005 will again showcase innovation that best represents performance-centered design (PCD) in two general categories - PCD Solutions and Extraordinary PCD Tools, and two states of deployment - in-production solutions/tools (operational, deployed to real users, or marketed and sold to real customers) and concept solutions/tools (FUNCTIONING proofs-of-concept, design prototypes and products that are not yet in production but have measurable PCD value).

Two significant events are coming up. The first is the deadline for the annual PCD Awards, which is June 1st (midnight, EST). We are expecting many and varied entries this year, including Workflow Learning solutions. The second is the Innovations in eLearning Symposium at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA (just outside DC) http://innovationsinelearning.gmu.edu on June 7th and 8th. Registration fees are under $200 (!), and the agenda is amazing. Jay Cross, Gary Dickelman, Duane Degler, Vice Admiral J. Kevin Moran, Ben Watson, Harvey Singh, Michael Littlejohn, Dr. Michael Behrmann, Kristine Neuber and many more from The Workflow Institute, George Mason University (GMU), the Defense Acquisition University (DAU) and the Naval Education and Training Command (NETC) will speak on a variety of hot topics that address the convergence of workflow, performance and learning.

EPSScentral is now offering Workflow Learning and PCD services along with workshops, general and specific knowledge transfer activities and more, in conjunction with the Workflow Institute. Contact us for further details on these exciting new custom and public activities (info@epsscentral.info).

So what is happening to performance support? It continues to mature and morph toward the Semantic Web, Ontologies, Workflow Learning, Service Oriented Architecture, Semantic Web Services, new dimensions in Business Process Improvement and much more. In many ways the notions articulated by Gloria Gery have become institutionalized and deeply embedded in the fabric of the 21st Century. These are indeed exciting times!

Regards,

Gary

June 7-8, George Mason University

George Mason University (GMU) in partnership with the Defense Acquisition University (DAU) and the Naval Education and Training Command (NETC) is hosting a symposium on June 7-8, 2005 at the Fairfax, VA campus. This event is ideal for: managers, learning officers, instructional and/or curriculum designers, learning consultants, instructors, researchers and training and development professionals from small to large size businesses, vocational schools, community colleges, colleges and universities, and government agencies and organizations. The symposium will cover the latest trends in e-Learning, knowledge management and workflow performance learning. Keynote speakers and presentations from experts in the field of e-Learning will share the cognitive tools, technology and best practices for the effective design, delivery and implementation of e-learning.

EPSScentral's Gary Dickelman will present at the conference as a faculty member of GMU and also joins in The Workflow Institute activities. Registration is $150 ($175 after May 27).

Many of the design teams we talk to face the same major issue: how to organize the information on their sites. From creating navigation schemes to developing site hierarchies to refining checkout sequences, it's highly important for design teams to organize information effectively for their users.