Aldora Lau

Objective  

The objective of this audit is to redesign the existing student portal interface for OCAD U students. Our goal is to make it inclusive for everyone to use and for the services provided to be easily accessed.

Procrastination and time management are two sides of the same coin, a constant in the lives of  post secondary students. Creating a balance within the lives of students remains a struggle to understand and practice. There are a lot of variables that can impact students and their time such as anxiety, optimism bias, belief-based bias inconsistency and overtime hyperbolic discounting of their tasks. It is believed by some students that procrastination can be constructive as it adds anxiety for those that “thrive” under tight deadlines. It strongly encourages them to work on their assignments and complete them on time due to them being in a state of panic which in turn provides them with “energy” or “motivation”. However, those assignments may not have been written to the best of their ability. To overcome procrastination, time management must be optimized to adapt with a student’s cognitive behaviours and to reduce cognitive overload. Resulting in the student demographic to maintain and succeed in understanding the curriculum, submit assignments promptly, and make better use of their time within and apart from an academic context. When analysing the Canvas student portal platforms, a few changes can be applied using gamification strategies such as progress tracking, reminders and fostering competitiveness within a healthy environment and reinforcing self care and mental health. 

(Varvogli, L., & Darviri, C, 2011) Such features should develop a habit loop that subconsciously helps students stay motivated, remove multiple cognitive barriers, and consistently submit their assignments in a timely manner. If an experiment was conducted with 100 students over the course of two semesters, 50 of which used the pre-existing Canvas platforms and 50 used the redesigned one, a notable increase in the usage of the app and the resources provided, communication with the health and wellness facilities, a higher rate of student early and on-time submissions, a decrease in post-secondary anxiety and stress levels can be theorized. 

Proposed interventions 

To add to the OCADU student Canvas platform would include the following; adding friendly reminders to finish tasks, a “To Do” section to make it easier to add more information into the calendar that is connected to the corresponding classes and personalized to the user’s habitual process, progress tracking to see what assignments and/or subtasks are being done and relate it to the last weeks' progress and planned progress, and lastly adding a leaderboard with classmates for social comparisons and badges/achievements for handing in assignments on time.