This was collaboratively written by Sang Nguyen and Sola Takahashi.
By now, students should be familiar with the Laulima site and its many tools. However, if it isn’t already clear, Laulima is not friendly towards new users. Navigation around the site and trying to find the correct resources can be a nightmare due to the much outdated UI. Even professors have difficulty making use of Laulima’s tools to create, publish, and grade their assignments. This results from a resource that is not very intuitive to use and improvements are extremely limited on the site itself. Even the Help section that explains the site lacks in proper clarity. However, if this resource is something that is officially mandated by the school, what could serve as an alternative?
The solution? A external application called Lokahi that allows students and instructors to be able to add courses to their profile and utilize tools similar to Laulima but in an updated and cleaner environment. These courses may contain features such as a forums and links to external resources that are easier to find. In addition, course information can be shown directly on the site along with information about the instructor that is teaching the course.
The user can create their profile and then add the courses that they have for the semester. They are then able to access these course sites and navigate to find further information about the course or collaborate with others who may be taking the class with them. Instructors will have the ability to join the class with an instructor role, where they will have access to edit changes on the page and create announcements or attach resources as necessary. Administrators will have similar access but they are able to monitor the courses and the participants of each course to make necessary changes as needed.
Some mock up pages:
After the basic functions of the site are completed, we can start to polish up the site’s implemented assets and add additional features including a gradebook, Grade Point Average calculator for current semester, FAQ/Help section, and administrated course reviews.