The mission of the Technology Innovation Development & Research (TIDR) Laboratory is to develop and investigate the use of technology applications that support educational intervention and assessment strategies for children with or at risk for disabilities. The TIDR provides support to the Juniper Gardens Children’s Project in four primary areas: 1) Exploration of emerging technologies and development trends, 2) Prototype design and development of applications and databases, 3) Design and implementation of usability/feasibility trials to inform data-based, iterative improvements of applications, and 4) Ongoing support for scale-up and dissemination of existing applications.

Applications and databases are designed to facilitate function and usability as measured by their use by members of the target community. TIDR design and development adheres to the following principles:

• Application development activities are a collaboration between content experts, TIDR developers (both in-house and through contract work), and the community of users
• Design should emphasize function over form
• All application design features should be conceptually linked to the application’s primary purpose
• User error represents an opportunity to improve an application’s design

Download the TIDR Design Documentation starter here: Application Design Documentation. This document asks you to provide key information that TIDR developers will need to kick-off the development pro.

Staff

Jay Buzhardt - Director, TIDR Lab

Associate Research Professor, 2003 - present

• Design Research Methodology
• Usability Testing and Human-Computer Interface Design
• Web-based Instructional Design
• Learning Management System (LMS) Design and Implementation
• Early Childhood Assessment

Christine Muehe, Database Specialist - 2004 - present

Area of specialties include Microsoft Office Products – MS Access, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook; SQL Programming and querying – SQL Developer for Oracle, MySQL Workbench, MS Access; Relational Database Design and Management; SharePoint– Setting up folders, permissions, file-sharing; Google – Docs, Spreadsheets, Draw.io, file-sharing; Downloading and installing software.

Bryan Cisler - Application Developer - 2018 - present

Area of specialties include designing, developing, and maintaining web and mobile applications. Existing applications at JGCP include learning management systems, web apps that support management of child assessment data, graphing, reporting, and data-driven decision making, and mobile apps to support parent-teacher communication and student self-management. 

Kyle Consolver - Research Project Coordinator - 2018 - present

Maintains the juniper.ku.edu website including job postings, personal profiles, and general updates. Areas of specialty include Microsoft Office Products, Drupal, WordPress, Qualtrics, Adobe Creative suite (in progress) and Google office products.