edovo recommendations summary - DE4II/advocacy-tools GitHub Wiki
Improving Edovo's Web App: A Mission-Centered Guide to Better Discovery, Navigability, and Access
Edovo’s mission—to provide accessible, empowering educational, vocational, and personal development resources to incarcerated individuals—is both urgent and inspiring. These learners often rely on Edovo as their sole window to information, making every improvement in discoverability, usability, and content access essential. The eight insights shared via the DE4II advocacy‐tools wiki converge around how Edovo can deepen impact through better retrieval systems, navigability, content availability, and inclusive discovery methods.
1. Improving Content Discovery by Enhancing the Information Retrieval System
Full-text and metadata indexing, automated summaries, and smarter ranking foster precise, equitable discovery.
The analysis of Edovo’s information retrieval (IR) system highlights that indexing only titles and manually crafted descriptions leaves much content invisible—particularly content where search terms appear only in the body, not the title or description. The recommendation is to implement full-text indexing (e.g., via Elasticsearch, Solr, or Meilisearch) and incorporate structured metadata like author, topic, or difficulty level. Tailored analyzers/tokenizers for this user base could further sharpen results (github.com).
Manual descriptions are inconsistently applied and labor-intensive, risking omission of key searchable terms. Automating summary generation with NLP, while allowing for manual refinement, ensures every document is discoverable at least minimally (github.com).
Additional improvements include applying SEO-style quality standards within the platform’s internal search: clear, keyword-rich descriptions; minimum length standards; and prioritizing exact match ranking over fuzzy matches to reduce irrelevant search results (github.com). Using internal description validation (checking for missing keywords, low clarity) also raises the baseline discoverability of content (github.com).
Why it matters for incarcerated learners: Full-text, structured indexing and smart ranking mean that when learners use the few keywords they know—often under time, interface, or literacy constraints—they will find the resources they need. Automated summaries give them quick previews, reducing wasted clicks. Together, these improvements ensure Edovo surfaces relevant material efficiently and equitably.
2. Improving Content Discovery by Other Means
Guided library content (with peer authorship) and co-created course materials embed trust, context, and direct search paths.
Library Guides are curated, search-optimized collections on particular topics, authored in part by incarcerated individuals. These guides act as signposts, offering search terms, navigation steps, and clear rationale for content recommendations—all of which reduce search friction, improve trust, and guide learners more directly than raw search results do (github.com).
Co-creation of content with incarcerated learners, especially via openly licensed courses, transforms Edovo from a distribution channel into a collaborative platform. Co-authorship ensures content resonates with learners’ realities, builds their agency, and nurtures dignity. Open licenses allow adaptation, reuse, and continuity—even across facilities or into reentry services—strengthening the whole learning ecosystem (github.com).
Why it matters for incarcerated learners: Discovery becomes contextual and peer-rooted. When guides reflect their language and realities, learners feel seen and can find the right search terms. Co-created learning materials carry both relevance and legitimacy. This deepens engagement, fosters digital and academic literacies, and reinforces empowerment.
3. Improving Navigability and Usability of the App and Its Content
Built-in interface features and a robust PDF reader honor usability where external browsers fall short.
User-agent limitations in prisons—stripped-down browsers without bookmarks, titles, zooming, history, or styling—undermine learners’ ability to navigate and orient within the app. Embedding features like bookmarking, persistent page titles, content zoom, custom styles, and even tab-like navigation inside Edovo’s interface bridges that gap. These features also introduce learners to digital tools they may need post-release (github.com).
Within the PDF reader, the current tool is minimal: flat table of contents, basic page jumps, no search, highlighting, annotations, or accessibility features. Enhancing it with features like text search, zoom, highlighting, bookmarking, note-taking, annotations, and hierarchical, non-obstructive TOC navigation transforms static documents into interactive, learner-friendly texts (github.com).
Why it matters for incarcerated learners: Every usability improvement reduces cognitive friction. Built-in bookmarks and titles support continuity; zooming enhances readability; highlighting and note-taking foster active engagement. Improving the reader specifically promotes deeper interaction with educational texts—essential where outside access is limited.
4. Increasing the Availability of Content
Importing open courses and expanding open-textbook libraries massively broaden accessible materials.
A SCORM importer feature would allow Edovo to integrate high-quality openly licensed courses (from sources like MIT OpenCourseWare, Khan Academy, OpenStax, Saylor Academy, etc.) without manual re-creation. This preserves multimedia and interactivity, accelerates deployment, and empowers content partners to work in familiar LMS formats (github.com).
Meanwhile, greatly expanding the collection of openly licensed textbooks—especially those aligned with Edovo’s computer science and professional skills courses—provides structured, offline-ready reference materials. These resources become anchors, habit-building tools, and self-directed learning companions when the web is otherwise unavailable (github.com).
Why it matters for incarcerated learners: More content means more opportunities. Access to rich, structured courses and reference texts lets learners explore at their own pace, look up confusing concepts in situ, and reinforce learning. The breadth of materials supports varied educational goals—from digital literacy to vocational skills to personal growth.
Conclusion
Improving Edovo’s web app isn’t just a technical endeavor—it’s a commitment to learner empowerment, dignity, and equitable access. When Edovo enhances its retrieval system, learners can find what matters. When it embeds usability features, it meets them where external browsers cannot. When it offers peer-authored guides and co-created content, it centers their experience and builds their agency. And when it expands open content via course importers and textbooks, it fills vital gaps with quality and structure.
Together, these improvements reinforce Edovo’s mission: to open doors of knowledge and opportunity—doors that might otherwise remain closed to incarcerated learners.