Life Cycle of an ANGEL Enhancement Request

Any Penn State instructor, student, or staff member can request an enhancement to Penn State's Course Management System, A New Global Environment for Learning (ANGEL). To do so, go to http://cms.psu.edu/, click "Help," then click "ANGEL Help Form."

If you have ever submitted an enhancement request before, you may wonder whether anyone is paying attention and whether your enhancement will ever be incorporated into ANGEL.

Recently, Jim Kerlin, director of academic outreach for Teaching and Learning with Technology (TLT) and head of the Penn State ANGEL support team, described how ANGEL enhancement requests are handled. The process is as follows:

1. A user submits an enhancement request via the "ANGEL Help Form."


2. The request is routed to the ANGEL Help Desk, part of Consulting and Support Services (CSS), and added to a database of submissions. From the database, Help Desk staff members periodically extract the list of enhancement requests from among other types of submissions, such as problem reports or how-to questions. They then perform a frequency count on how many instances there are of a similar request.


3. Approximately twice a year, the ANGEL Help Desk staff forwards the tabulated enhancement requests to Brett Bixler, lead instructional designer with TLT. He analyzes the list and eliminates duplicate requests. He then categorizes each request according to the ANGEL tool it is associated with.


4. Bixler then brings this categorized list before a faculty committee, who prioritizes the requests from an instructional viewpoint. The committee identifies enhancements that all institutions using ANGEL would benefit from, as well as enhancements that would specifically benefit Penn State.


5. Bixler forwards the committee's list of high-priority enhancements to programmers in Administrative Information Services (AIS). The programmers evaluate each enhancement request to determine whether it is technically feasible.


6. A final Penn State enhancements lists is then sent to CyberLearning Labs in Indianapolis, who develops and markets ANGEL. Based on the company's evaluation of our recommended enhancements, together with enhancement requests from other institutions, they inform our ANGEL support team whether they will implement the enhancement, and if so, whether they will begin work in the near future or at a later time.


7. CyberLearning Labs programs the agreed-upon enhancements into ANGEL.

Kerlin mentioned, however, that even when a potential enhancement is selected for implementation, there is often a significant lag until it appears in ANGEL. He explained that development speed depends on the complexity of the enhancement, and, he pointed out, "Sometimes testing takes longer than programming."

"If CyberLearning Labs decides an enhancement is not feasible, said Kerlin, "or feels that it's more unique to Penn State than anywhere else, we will develop the enhancement if we have the resources. If we don't, then we just hold it for an opportunity that might arise."

Bixler wished to convey to users submitting enhancement requests that "there is a process and we are listening to people." He pointed out, however, that not every request can be implemented. Current Penn State ANGEL usage statistics as of November 4 show 2,668 faculty members using 3,837 activated course sections to teach 55,619 students-potentially, these users could generate a large number of enhancement requests.

Enhancement requests "are not all going to be applicable across the board," explained Kerlin, "Enhancements that would be of value to a broad spectrum of ANGEL users receive the most attention by CyberLearning Labs."