Using a collective intelligence scenario-based design approach to develop a collaboration ecosystem supporting the authorship of pedagogically valuable e-books for children

Abstract

Literacy is a universal public good, essential to the overall, effective functioning of civil society through its foundational contribution to personal well-being and active citizenship. The extant research shows that literacy is ideally and optimally developed in childhood. This paper reports research into the conceptualisation and design of an e-book ecosystem: Q-Tales, to support the collaborative and mobile, authoring and sharing of interactive, pedagogical narratives in the form of children s educational e-books. The research reported here enumerates and examines the use of Collective Intelligence (CI) methodology, combined with user story methods, in providing a structured, systematic process for collaborative elicitation and prioritisation of user requirements for the creation of the Q-Tales ecosystem. The paper concludes with reflections on the potential of CI as a methodology for the collaborative and inclusive design of innovative computing to augment literacy through interactive storytelling technologies.