Training.gov.au Project Blog

User Acceptance Testing: Interim Training Package Tool

We’re progressing through the build of the Phase 2 Interim Training Package Tool, a lite version of the Training Package Data Management Tool that is being developed for use with the data migration project to QA migrated Training Package data.

In mid-January (possibly earlier) we’re going to be looking for the assistance of Training Package developers to conduct what is called User Acceptance Testing (UAT) on the Interim Training Package Tool.

By the time the Tool gets to UAT it will have already undergone functionality, system, heuristic accessibility and usability testing - so in theory it should all be working fine and bug-free, however the developers and even the DEEWR project team are not Subject Matter Experts (SME) so we need your help to verify that the Tool is fit for purpose and will actually work in a real work situation.

We’ll have about 4 days to conduct UAT and it will most likely need to be facilitated by a DEEWR project team member on-site so we’ll be doing this testing with a sample subset of the Tool user group. We will try and fit this in with existing and ongoing stakeholder engagement and consultation activities which Jo is now faciliating as the new Stakeholder Engagement Officer on the DEEWR project team.

Tags: beta, datamanagement, datamigration, interim, sme, testing, tool, uat, utility

Posted in Training Package developers and STAs | No Comments »

Draft Web Services Specification

We received the final Draft Web Services Specification document from our software development services vendor yesterday; I’m now preparing that document to go to our Regulatory, Training Package and Consumer Technical Working Groups to be disseminated later today via the mailing lists that have been set up.

This draft document does not include an XSD schema - that will come later after the final specification has been developed based on feedback from this external consultation period.

Thank you to all the third party software developers and training professionals who have nominated to participate in the Consumer Web Services Technical Working Group - your input is appreciated!

Tags: document, prc, rest, schema, SOAP, spec, specification, webservices, XML

Posted in Regulatory WebServices Interface, Software developers, TP WebServices Interface | No Comments »

Consultation

Many of you will have received an email from me regarding proposed stakeholder engagement times for us to come and showcase our work to date on Training.gov.au. I can tell you right now we have had an overwhelming response from RTOs interested in learning more about our new system, which has been fantastic and we have been very busy in coordinating meetings with RTOs in NSW and QLD so far. If we don’t get around to seeing you this time, don’t worry, we’re planning on keeping this line of communication all the way to launch date, and so you probably will hear from us again in following months.

To those of you who we’ve already met; thank you so much for your feedback and we have already started to discuss the issues that we raised and where possible, we’re looking to implement them in the upcoming release of training.gov.au.

Hope to see you soon!

Tags: consultation, design, stakeholders, The project

Posted in The project | No Comments »

Web Services specification consultation

The expression of interest registration for the draft Consumer Web Services specification consultation has been closed. The three mailing lists have now been populated with technical staff representing STA registering bodies being subscribed to the Regulatory Web Services consultation list and the twenty three people who registered for the third party software developers list have been subscribed to the Consumer Web Services consultation list.

All subscription notices have been sent out and the draft web services specifications will be issued through these mailing lists on Wednesday 29 October next week.

Tags: consumer, mailinglist, mailmanlist.net, regulatory, trainingpackage, webservices

Posted in Registering and accrediting bodies, Regulatory WebServices Interface, Software developers, TP WebServices Interface | 2 Comments »

Progress report 21 October

I’ve been working on-site with the co-located development build team for a week now although I’ve been back and forth between the two offices quite a bit over the past three weeks. Things are moving at a rapid pace - we have three streams of work occuring simultaneously with detailed design and architecture documentation and modeling across the database, data management tools, public websites and web services.

The project team including developers, architects and project managers with our vendor as well as our own people and contractors now consists of 21 people.

We’re also entering an intense stage of stakeholder consultation and engagement which includes utilisation of mailing lists and on-site visits around Australia; Marty, Leanne and Alison have been travelling this week kicking off this round of engagement with RTOs. I’ll probably be travelling to Adelaide next week to help out with that stakeholder consultation as well as firing up the web services mailing lists. I have a draft version of the web services spec on my desk for review - it’s currently around a hundred pages.

We’ve changed the model slightly so the specification includes all three web services interfaces so I’ll just have to figure out a way to pull out the relevant sections of that document to circulate to Industry Skills Councils, Registering Bodies and third parties (software developers) as part of the external consultation.

Also reviewing the Master Test Plan which details how testing for each of the system components will be conducted and working with Leanne our project coordinator to fit the system testing in with usability and accessibility testing as well as user acceptance testing (UAT).

What is user acceptance testing? Basically the purpose of UAT is for the client or user to determine for themselves that a certain component is fit for purpose. The functionality should at that stage all be working and defect-free so nothing should break, but it’s about making up your mind and having confidence that it is actually good to go. Now, considering that the project team are not the end users of many of the components of Training.gov.au we’re going to be inviting some of our stakeholders to be involved in that user acceptance testing.

Not sure exactly what the format of that testing will be - whether we’ll send you a link to a testing environment for you to “play” with a certain piece of Training.gov.au or whether we’ll come out and visit you and ask you to go through several business scenarios so you can familiarise yourselves with the entirety of a component to the point where you can say that you are confident it’s ready to start using.

Given the quick turnaround times on UAT in the project schedule we won’t be able to get to everyone who’ll be using each of the interfaces and sites and in some cases we might only invite a single person to be part of that process - however we also will need real end users to help with usability testing too. If you specifically want to be involved in either of these testing phases please get in early and let us know now so we can plan accordingly and try and incorporate such requests into our travel schedule.

Tags: build, development, engagement, RTO, staff, stakeholders, team, testing, travel, uat, usability, useracceptance, webservice

Posted in RTOs and training professionals, Software developers, The project | No Comments »

NTIS to Training.gov.au transition diagram

Alison has prepared a diagram showing the timeline and dependencies of the Transition of NTIS to Training.gov.au (PDF 18 KB).

Tags: NTIS, plan, schedule, transition

Posted in Project Management, The project | No Comments »

Mailing Lists

We’ve now entered the final technical design phase and commenced preliminary development of Training.gov.au, which means frameworks, generic user interface widgets and setting up our software deployment processes including user acceptance environments etc.

As part of this technical design phase we are working on the draft web services specifications for the Regulatory Web Services interface and the Consumer Web Services interface (soon to be followed by the Training Package Web Services interface).

We want your help in developing these specifications and have now set up some mailing lists that you can subscribe to that we’ll use to distribute draft specifications and faciliate conversation around those specifications. We’ll also be using the mailing lists to coordinate the deployment of the interfaces once developed and faciliate the cut-over.

The Consumer Web Services Mailing List will be initially populated with a list of everyone who has expressed their interest. The Regulatory Web Services Mailing List will be populated with everyone we know in each State and Territories’ registering bodies through an invite - so you’ll have the option of passing on the invite or opting not to participate (if your role has changed).

We’re just setting up the mailing lists now and everyone who’s signed up for Consumer Web Services consultation and all the technical staff we know of in each of the registering bodies and State and Territory Governments will be hearing from us soon.

Tags: consultation, consumer, distribution, documentation, mailinglist, regulatory, specification, webservices

Posted in Registering and accrediting bodies, Regulatory WebServices Interface, Software developers, TP WebServices Interface | 2 Comments »

Training.gov.au Project Schedule

In keeping with our commitment to keep our stakeholders informed about the progress of the new Training.gov.au system, we’ve put our project schedule up on the blog for you to see exactly where the project team is at. This timetable has indicative dates for all project milestones and deliverables between now and the proposed launch of Training.gov.au in May next year. This schedule is based on our project plan and therefore will be updated to reflect any future changes accordingly. Feel free to leave us feedback if you have any questions.

http://blog.training.gov.au/project-timetable/

Tags: Project plan, schedule, training.gov.au

Posted in Project Management, The project | No Comments »

Usability testing..volunteers please?

Another important piece of work we’ll need to do over the course of building training.gov.au is usability testing. The purpose of this is to ensure the system is intuitive and easy to navigate for our users and rather than do it at the end during system testing , we think it makes a whole lot more sense to do it during the build phase while we still CAN change things.

Usability testing involves us observing our users use the system by giving them specific tasks that might be similar to what they’d typically do on a daily basis. It is important to note that is not the user that is being tested, but the system (and to an extent, we the designers!) and therefore there is no right or wrong path or answer to the task. The user is normally asked to voice their opinions as they go and think outloud while observers take notes on areas that need to be made easier to use or in some extreme cases, totally overhauled!

We are probably several months away from conducting our first round of usability testing, but it’s probably a good time to raise awareness to the fact we WILL be doing it and therefore we are looking for volunteers willing to give our proposed new system a test drive in the near future.

Drop me a line at martyn.yang@deewr.gov.au if you’re interested; all types of users will be required as our sites are targeting so many different audiences with different backgrounds.

Tags: testing, training.gov.au, usability

Posted in Employers and industry, Individuals and intermediaries, RTOs and training professionals, The project, TrainYourPeople.gov.au, YourRTO.gov.au, YourTraining.gov.au | 4 Comments »

It’s consultation time!

We’re touring!

Over the following months, members of our project team will be visiting various locations around Australia to allow our stakeholders an opportunity to get up close and personal with the new training.gov.au system. Obviously we cannot see ALL of our users, but we are seeking volunteers within the VET sector who’d be interested in a visit from us to demonstrate the proposed new system for an hour or two and offer their feedback.

Consultation with stakeholders has always been a very important part of this project since we we began the revisioning process and chose to adopt a User Centered Design (UCD) approach;  the feedback we’ve received to date has been an integral part of the design process for training.gov.au. As in the past, we’d be hoping to organise meetings with users from all levels in our State and Territory Government colleagues, Industry skills councils and Registered Training Organisations.

So calling all users; let’s catch up!  It’s a good opportunity to see where we’re at and to offer your thoughts and opinions on a system designed with to meet the needs of the VET sector. Even if you yourself are not available, do spread the word and see if maybe some of your colleagues might be interested. Any feedback is welcome:)

Tags: consultation, The project;training.gov.au

Posted in The project | 5 Comments »