User-driven Development of an Inquiry-Based Learning Platform: Formative Evaluations in weSPOT

This paper describes the formative evaluation activities that were designed and implemented during the development of the weSPOT(1) inquiry based learning platform. With the ambition to provide a platform that supports a broad range of inquiry activities in accordance with end-users needs, an agile software development approach was followed as a process of co-design between practitioners, researchers and developers. The paper focuses on the design of end-user centric evaluation activities for fully exploiting the potential of agile development. A detailed overview of several case studies is presented to demonstrate how implementing a continuous evaluation cycle allowed to pinpoint and help resolve arising issues in a process of collaboration between technology development and pedagogy.