[Olpc-open] Defining success

[Ahmed, Farhan]

Hello,

First of all, let me say that I love OLPC's mission of providing access to education for millions of underprivileged children across the globe. By empowering them to think critically and rationally, I believe it will usher an era of unprecedented progress for the participating regions.

That being said, I wanted some thoughts on how OLPC defines and measures its impact. While I've watched videos of teachers and students expressing how the laptops have changes their lives, these stories are anecdotal at best. Is there a methodology through which OLPC tracks the concrete educational development a child goes through after he or she gets access to a laptop? It seems that tracking a child's progress over the years will allow OLPC to make substantial scientific claims about its impact. I haven't found any such data on the website. I do understand the limited effectiveness of quantifying "educational development", but I'm sure there's a well-researched methodology widely used.

Furthermore, with regard to the Sugar interface, is it enabled to collect metrics on usage patterns (anonymized, of course)? Information on how often certain activities are enabled and used, the times of day a laptop sees most usage, the average data usage (mesh or the internet) and other such metrics would allow more targeted development and prioritization. Once again, I could not find any such data on the website.

My motivation here is to understand how OLPC prioritizes it work and backs its claims on the impact. I am doing this as part of a research project I have undertaken at my university (The University of Chicago Booth School of Business). I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you,
Farhan

--
Farhan Ahmed
farhan.ahmed at chicagobooth.edu<mailto:farhan.ahmed at chicagobooth.edu>
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