Final Draft of Implementing MOODLE as a Platform in Distance Learning as (LMS)

Implementing MOODLE as a Platform in Distance Learning as Learning Management System (LMS)

INTRODUCTION

E-learning and distance learning are forms of learning that take place outside of a traditional learning environment.  Learner who are not able to be present in a traditional setting for various reasons and  have access to computers and Internet (Liao & Lu, 2008) have the ability to learn at their own time and in their own space with different means of interaction (Quan-Haase, 2005).  Distance learning has become an important part in the education sector by opening the opportunities for a wider audience to have a degree or finish their study (Kaya, 2012; Liu, 2013; Secreto, 2013).   In an environment of e-learning class, students can interact and benefit from the technologies such as online references, project teams, video-conferencing, chat room and discussion board, personalized coaching (Bogdanov, Ullrich, & Isaksson, 2012; Dubas & Hill, 2013; Liao & Lu, 2008). In e-learning, social software is used to support the constructivist approach to create a cooperative approach to learning and construct a more cohesive learning community (Waycott, Sheard, Thompson, & Clerehan, 2013).  With the widespread of E-learning and distance learning, institution needs software to facilitate learning and course management. Therefore, there are companies and developer that design and market Learning Management System (LMS) to educational institutions (Lawler, 2011).

Learning Management System (LMS) support formal and distance education in education institutions around the world (Bogdanov et al., 2012; Dooga, 2010; Fernandez, Insfran, & Abrahão, 2011; Kaya, 2012; Liu, 2013; Ravanelli & Serina, 2011).  LMS offer an electronic platform to upload learning and study materials like presentation and text, student assessment, organize student activities (Lawler, 2011).  Learning Management System (LMS) software adoption rate went above 95% in the education sector (Thoms & Eryilmaz, 2014).  These systems are also referred to as Course Management Systems (CMS) and Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) (Lawler, 2011).  Most of the higher education institutions are using (LMS) to manage its needs of learning and teaching processes (Kaya, 2012; Richardson, Daniel, Sales, & Flora, 2012; Vallejo, 2011).  Moreover, institutes who offer e-learning or distance learning have adopted LMS, commercial or open source systems, because it have a significant role to play.  LMS plays an important role to supports high quality educational practices, especially in e-learning and online lessons environment.  With Moodle, e-learning can enhance learning achievement especially by using collaborative learning with the problem-based learning (Davoli, Monari, & Severinson Eklundh, 2008; Tiantong & Teemuangsai, 2013).

Moodle stands for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment.  It developed in 2001-2003.  Moodle is an open-source platform that is licensed under the General Public License, which makes it widely used because of its highly cost effective. One of Moodle forum is a Learning Management System (LMS) specifically designed to educational institutions to support teaching and learning.  When it comes to choosing between open source platforms, Moodle comes to lead because it meet the users’ needs easily (Kaya, 2012; Liu, 2013; Matei & Vrabie, 2013; Ravanelli & Serina, 2011).  According to a recent statistics of Moodle users, there are approximately 85,390 active Moodle sites that were registered from 240 countries that over 8,278,974 courses with 77,090,101 users around the world. Therefore, it is always supported by development communities (Moodle.org). Studies prove that Moodle enhanced students' understanding and learning achievement successfully (H. Hassan, Hassan, Omar, Zakaria, & Nor, 2012; Jalobeanu, Naaji, Dumbraveanu, & Herman, 2011; Lai & Sanusi, 2013; Liu, 2013; Thoms & Eryilmaz, 2014).   Computer programming students found that Moodle was truly applicable to develop and organize the collaborative learning activities.  Socio-constructivist pedagogy is an important approach for e-learning which is supported by Moodle (Brandl, 2005; 2008; Elias, 2010; Lai & Sanusi, 2013; Mihailescu, 2009; Paier, 2007; Ravanelli & Serina, 2014; Vallejo, 2011).  Furthermore, users as lectures and students considered social influence and facilitating condition among the factors influenced them to use Moodle (Liu, 2013; Thoms & Eryilmaz, 2014).  Additionally, students actually enjoyed working through the Moodle as a team, using the computer network successfully to create a collaborative lesson with problem-based learning (Davoli et al., 2008; Tiantong & Teemuangsai, 2013).

International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) used Moodle as a platform in (iTa'leem) which stands for (Interactive Teaching and Learning Environment System).  IIUM is in the implementation stage in the process of the migration from LMS to iTa'leem which is a customized and enhanced of the open source Moodle.   It was developed by a developer from Moodle and a team from IIUM to facilitate an easy interaction between teachers and students. Furthermore, iTa'leem offer many services for the lectures online such as uploading the courses contact, forums, emails, exams and quizzes to students to download and interact.

While there is an extensive body of literature regarding how the implementations of LMS using Moodle as a platform improve students academically (Alan, 2011; Kaya, 2012); help lectures in organizing the learning martial (Kaya, 2012; Richardson et al., 2012; Tiantong & Teemuangsai, 2013; Vallejo, 2011); Alan, 2011); provide social interaction and communication between lectures and students (Liu, 2013; Paier, 2007; Thoms & Eryilmaz, 2014); allow plug-in to offer Second-life environment (Annetta, Folta, & Klesath, 2010; De Lucia, Francese, Passero, & Tortora, 2009; Dubas & Hill, 2013); the clear focus of the literature is on what Moodle offer.   Little is been known on why educational institutions use or migrate to Moodle and the process of.  Furthermore, distance learners' perception in IIUM perceived usability, usefulness and ease of use toward the use of LMS (Trayek & Hassan, 2013; Ustati & Hassan, 2013).  On the other hand, the students hope for more interactivity in order to communicate with other learner and engage more with the instructor.  In addition, Trayek & Hassan (2013) suggested in their study to upgrade and to customize the LMS to be suitable with the new Web 2.0 to allow innovative teaching and learning.  Therefore, this study is to show why IIUM migrate from LMS to Moodle and the technical process of developing and implementing the new LMS (iTa'leem).  Furthermore, to find if the migration accomplished the goal IIUM looking for.

Moodle

With the wide spread of distance learning, universities have to have a system to manage and promote e-learning.  Universities choose the technology that is appropriate for its own e-learning need and strategy taking some factors in consideration.  Moodle has been designed as a software package entailing services for educational purpose.  It provides the users with access and community tools.  These facilitate and support the management of the main learning operation processes enlisting curricula and courses, learner access, enrolments and approvals, events and scheduling and completion and certification (Fernandez et al., 2011).  Ravanelli (2014) state that the main factors when choosing LMS are: "quality/expense ratio, quality and number of tools and environments available, frequency of updates, flexibility, customisation, and usability of the environment".   

Since Moodle is an open-source platform, Matei & Vrabie, (2013) used a cost-effectiveness analysis to compare two platforms of e-learning that support distance learning programs in the same university.  The study hypothesis started from the fact that open source software like Moodle is less expensive than the developed internally like Learning Management System (LMS), in spite that it does not fully meet the requirements of the university. The analysis covered the effectiveness of the distance education, and the costs required to implement them.  The university continued to use Moodle because the result shows little difference but it was not significant since it was necessary to purchase the server to operate the system and store information in Moodle, but it reduces the cost of hosting.

There are a strong preference by administrator, staff and students of some of Moodle's features.   For example, administrator has the rights to generate courses and appoint lectures.  Similarly, lectures can generate and manage their courses while adding students to the course. Administrator and lectures have the choice to select between various security levels like unlock key or protection with password for a certain part of the course (Paier, 2007).  Moodle is easy to use, easy-to-navigate, clean, simple design, users does not necessarily have to have a prior knowledge of programming or specialist technological skills to use it (Lawler, 2011; Mihailescu, 2009; Moore & Atkin, 2010; Tiantong & Teemuangsai, 2013; Vallejo, 2011).  Moreover, the automated course/unit creation and auto-enrolment of students into the course/unit (Lawler, 2011).  Furthermore, easy access for users gives them the convenience of uploading and downloading files from any location, especially users from off campus (Lawler, 2011; Liu, 2013; Richardson et al., 2012).

Moodle is known for its usability; it can be easily installed, no need for special hardware resources or configuration.   It supports a wide range of databases as MySQL, PostgreSQL and Oracle.  Moodle work on a Linux platform with Apache Web server, PHP and MySQL (PostGress), as well as MS Windows 2003 or 2008 (Davoli et al., 2008; Jalobeanu et al., 2011; Kaya, 2012; moodle.org).  Furthermore, Moodle does not need any modification to run, it is compatible with different operating systems such as Windows, Mac OS X, Unix, Linux, , NetWare, or other operating system that supports PHP (HTML-embedded scripting language) (Brandl, 2005).  In addition, the compatibility with most web browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome (Ambrosio, Striano, Freda, Fiorentino, & Aiello, 2013; Davoli et al., 2008; El-Seoud, El-Sofany, Taj-Eddin, Nosseir, & El-Khouly, 2013);   

One of the characters that Moodle environment has is simplicity.  It allows designer to use a variety of functions to perform operations to support their system (Mihailescu, 2009).  Moodle is constructed to allow a wide variety of plug-in modules; it is featured by a number of modules which depends on the need of the user (Bogdanov et al., 2012; Lai & Sanusi, 2013; Tiantong & Teemuangsai, 2013).  For example, it has features that allow it to organize from a large scale as of hundreds of thousands of students in a university to a hundred students in a small primary school (Lai & Sanusi, 2013).  The modules depend on three main personnel: administrator, lectures and students (Paier, 2007).  Some of these modules offered for learning tools like Communication tools with discussion boards and chat; assessment tools to create quizzes, upload assignments, reading materials and wikis; video and audio upload; last but not least, feedback to tracks performance level, post grades and allows instructor comments (Lai & Sanusi, 2013; Paier, 2007).  Furthermore, Survey, Voting, Journal and Poll are some of the features that Moodle offer. Students enjoy different possibilities depending on the module. For example, in a study using Second Life virtual environment, Moodle was used to set up to offer navigable multimedia contents and manages a collaborative sitting.  A Moodle plug-in was developed to manage and provide the multimedia contents through the QuickTime^TM player, and was easily integrate with the streaming server.  Furthermore, with the LMS features offered in the Second Life virtual environment, Moodle enhance integrating Second Life objects use (Annetta et al., 2010; Davoli et al., 2008; De Lucia et al., 2009; Dubas & Hill, 2013).  

AIM OF THE STUDY

The intention of this qualitative paper is to explore the biggest project in IIUM; the migration from LMS to the new LMS (iTa'leem) which used Moodle as a platform.  Furthermore, to find if the migration accomplished the goal IIUM looking for.  Additionally, to highlights the technical process of developing and implementing (iTa'leem).  The ADDIE instructional design model as a useful tool for developing a system is used as a guiding framework.  The investigation of this study is guided by three research questions:

1.     Why did IIUM migrate from the previous LMS?

2.     Why IIUM chose Moodle as a platform for the new LMS (iTa'leem)?

3.     Was the migration successful?

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

The ADDIE instructional design model was utilized to guide this study because it allows for a more holistic overview of the instructional design of the system.  The ADDIE model is one of the instructional design modules that are widely used in developing and designing learning materials and solutions.  It has all the appropriate starting point characteristics for online learning development.  ADDIE model uses a systematic design system based on educational research that include learning theories and concepts, systematic analysis, information technology,  and management methods (Huguet, 2008; Morrison, Ross, Kalman, & Kemp, 2011).

"The term ADDIE model is merely a colloquial label for a systematic approach to instructional development, virtually synonymous with instructional systems development (ISD). It is an acronym referring to the major stages in the generic ISD process: Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, and Evaluation". (Morrison et al., 2011, p.13)

 

The ADDIE model provides five easy steps to follow to apply in any kind of learning solution.  The five steps of the ADDIE model (Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation) have specific characteristic.   Instructional designer can develop a course, application or software using ADDIE because it provides detailed instructions for each major step.  The first step is the analysis phase is the foundation for the other phases of the framework to get a full picture about the system; it determine the users, the objective of the system and  why it's been developed, the content, and task  to help and direct the developer in the design of phase.  The second step is the design phase, where the continuation with the framework design and structure of the system; the developer addresses how the instructional goals and objectives outline the system.  In this stage, the developer needs to be clearly determined to produce excellent results.  The third step is the development phase where they addresses the tools and procedure needed to create the instructional system.  The fourth step is the implementation phase, where the carrying out of the instructional system or program is preformed. The last stage, the evaluation phase is where the system be tested by several users.   The evaluation method includes formative and summative measurement of the effectiveness and efficiency of the instruction.  It can include observation, questionnaire, and interview.  The results of the evaluation are used to evaluate the effectiveness of the system if it achieves the objectives of the system (Huguet, 2008; Morrison et al., 2011).  The ADDIE model in Figure 1 shows the five phases.

Figure 1: ADDIE Model

METHODOLOGY

The researchers used a qualitative approach to gain in-depth information to address the questions essential to the study.  A semi-structured interview was conducted by the researchers with one member of the iTa'leem project, an administration personal Aisha (pseudonyms) in the Centre for Professional Development (CPD) at IIUM.  The interview was conducted one time, face-to-face for about 55 minutes. The questions were asked in a relaxed fashion to the participants at her office. The interview was audio recorded with the permission of the interviewee.  To care for the validity and the reliability of the transcription, one copy of the transcription is given to the informants for verification.  The data was coded and analyzed.  After transcribing the interviews, reading the text and listening to the tapes a few times, the researcher had a holistic perspective of the migration project in IIUM.  

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS

From the data analysis, the finding showed the successful of the migration project from LMS to iTa'leem using Moodle as a platform.  After coding the data, the researchers came up with four themes:

v The System Improvement with a Good Team 

v The Analysis, Design and Development of iTa'leem

v The Implementation and Evaluation of iTa'leem

v Moodle Had Sold Itself

The findings of the study indicate the good use of the ADDIE model to develop and implement iTa'leem in IIUM.

The System Improvement with a Good Team 

International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) is one of the universities that are offering distance learning class.  Therefore, LMS is used to manage and promote e-learning for both full time and distant learning students.  Moreover, like other universities (Jalobeanu et al., 2011; Lawler, 2011; Paier, 2007; Richardson et al., 2012) IIUM Deputy Rector and users were not happy using it.  As a result, the Centre for Professional Development (CPD) had to act on this matter.   According to Aisha:

"We call it the Migration Project because we are using the same LMS but with a different and improved platform.  One of the main objectives of the Migration Project is to satisfy the user's needs compared to the previous one.  Another main objective is the requirement of the MOE; that every university should have blinded learning which include e-learning unit and good e-learning system.  In addition, to have the IIUM community uses the same LMS (Kulliyyah of ICT used Claroline).  Last but not least, the migration project also to fit our desire as an Islamic University".

Administrator, lectures and students like easy to use, easy-to-navigate LMS without having  the skills of a specialist technological to use it (Mihailescu, 2009; Moore & Atkin, 2010; Tiantong & Teemuangsai, 2013).  Furthermore, easy access for users to uploading and downloading martial from any location (Lawler, 2011; Liu, 2013; Richardson et al., 2012).  This was the case with IIUM users also.  As one of the personal in charge, Aisha said:

"The users' accessibility to access the LMS was very bad.  Lectures had a problem uploading the content martial, creating an interactive environment for the students.  Also students have difficulty to download the contact and use the LMS in its full usage, especially students from outside the campus.  There was a lot of interruption and problem with over load of user.  Furthermore, we had a problem with the system itself by having the appropriate equipment and personal.  The internet connection was very poor because of the server and bandwidth was not good enough."

Moreover, students and lecturer has to register to each course manually (Lawler, 2011); as Aisha said:

"Every user has to update their information manually to their profile as to add students to the course or for the students to be in the lecture list."

In a study by Lawler (2011), he points the importance of having a high quality and experts LMS staff to implement changing.  This study found that the CPD have a high quality and expert team when Aisha was asked about the iTa'leem team:

"This project is very important, everyone is supporting it. IIUM have a contract with Moodle developer for two years to design, create, and support the system and assigned the CPD to be in charge of the project.  The champion of this system project is under the Deputy Rector, Dr. Ismail?? the project leader,, the e-learning unit head, Dr Mohdmmad Feham.  In addition, the functional team focuses on the criteria to develop and operate in iTa'leem; the other one is the technical team which focuses on the facilities such as servers, network.  Moreover, the team of iTa'leem consists of one academic staff representative from each Kulliyyah who used the LMS effectively and contribute to their Kulliyyah.  The Training Of Trainer (TOT) team which consist of two nominee from each kulliyyah.  Moreover, the team includes staff and personal from the Information Technology Department (ITD)."

     

The Analysis, Design and Development of iTa'leem

In order to have a successful project, the team need to conducts a need assessment to get a full picture about the system, its users, objectives, content, and task (Huguet, 2008; Morrison et al., 2011).  According to Aisha, the iTa'leem team had a good analysis for the project:

"The team had a benchmark to meet; in the visibility study, they decided to use Moodle as a platform for the LMS after comparing the use, benefit, cost, source and properties of a few popular LMS commercial and open source systems.  The intended audience of iTa'leem by the end of the project is IIUM community, but the focus now in the academic part which includes the staff and students.  The team had an idea of the users' skills and characteristics with the previous LMS and their need; most of the instructors have a good perspective of using the LMS, but a few were redundant to use it, and some find it difficult to use.  Most of the students if not all, don't have a problem using the LMS since they are from the information generation. Buying a server for the huge amount of data to be storage was one of the important factors we included in our plan."

 

In order to have a good use of a system and make sure users enjoy using it, the design and development of the interface has to be interactive learning environment (R. Hassan, Yusof, & Salleh, 2012).  The developer make sure the instructional goals and objectives outline of the system is addressed and procedure (Morrison et al., 2011).  In IIUM, the iTa’leem team was working with the Moodle developer to make sure to have the best of Moodle.  Aisha pointed the elements and functional was included in iTa’leem:

"The developer and the team in CPD cooperate and looked at the elements and functions to be in iTa’leem to overcome the problems with the previous one.  The first thing was to have our own logo to promote our Islamic International University e-learning system.  We also want the interface to scatter for the IIUM users' needs as more interactive, user friendly, work with any browser, accessibility from any location even from their smart phone." 

While universities have trouble in changing and migrate from one LMS to the other, Moodle implementation comes out to be a successful one (Lawler, 2011).  This was the case of IIUM. The implementation of iTa'leem started the second semester of 2013-2014 which was a successful.  Aisha pointed out:

"The pilot of iTa'leem was in the first semester, when we launch it; but now, all academic departments have to use compulsory because we have to validate it. The instructor and students information was updated in their profiles"

The Implementation and Evaluation of iTa'leem

During the implementation stage, a lot of training is required because it provided a set of notes and resources (Huguet, 2008; Lawler, 2011; Paier, 2007).  As the case in IIUM, training was held in the implementation stage.  The CPD represented (Aisha) point: 

"The team is to upload certain software for the instructors to develop their own content using certain software in the format where they can use iTa’leem as interactive lectures. The CPD plan and conduct a series of training in order to get everyone using iTa’leem with the help of the developer who transferred the knowledge to the Training Of Trainer (TOT) in order to train and teach their colleague in their kulliyyah.   For now, we are training instructor how to develop, using software, the content material in the iTa’leem.  The team had also conducted training and introduces iTa'leem for the member of the Students' Representative Counsel (SRC) to share with other students.  The second stage will be training for the admin administrator.   A two day a schedule is posted in the announcement board through what we call (Clinic of iTa’leem) for any kind of questions or help needed until the end of the implementation stage according to the feedback from the trainee."

After the implementation, the system should be tested and evaluated by several users by questionnaire, interview or observation in order to have an overall effectiveness of the system in order to take the correct decisions (R. Hassan et al., 2012; Huguet, 2008).  Evaluation is interactive instructional design process in ADDIE, as the outcome of the formative evaluation in one phase may direct the researcher back to any earlier phase; the evaluation shows if the system worked according to the plan or not (Lawler, 2011).  The iTa’leem team is in the process of the formative evaluation now says Aisha:

"Instructors are required to report any problems facing them.  From the look of it, we succeed of the migration because almost everyone is enjoying using iTa’leem.  After we finish the implementation by the end of this semester, a summative evaluation will be performed in order to improve the system and its effectiveness of the students' academic achievements.  The team didn’t discuss the process or method until now."

Moodle Had Sold Itself

Universities are taking the advantage of the open source Moodle as a platform to manage the learning process (Jalobeanu et al., 2011; Kaya, 2012; Lawler, 2011; Paier, 2007; Richardson et al., 2012; Vallejo, 2011).  The reliability, viability, functionality, usability, scalability of Moodle makes it suitable for learning environment ((DEIT), 2012; Aydin & Tirkes, 2010; Bogdanov et al., 2012; Davoli et al., 2008; Moodle.org).  IIUM toke the advantage of the Moodle to use it as a platform for its e-learning management system.  In explaining the reason of choosing Moodle Aisha says:

"After many discussions and serious of meetings with the authority we decided to use Moodle because it meet our requirement within our budget.  Furthermore, it doesn’t require a license to operate; it is open source system which makes it cost-effective.  Moodle depend on three main personnel: administrator, lectures and students.  Users do not to be experts or have a prior knowledge to use it.  It is known for its usability; easy to use, easy-to-navigate, simple design easy to installed, no configuration is need it, compatible with most web browsers and can run on different operating systems, work with most databases.  It simplicity allows designer to use a variety of functions to perform operations to support their system for example the plug-in modules like communication and assessment tools to allows instructor to post grades, comments and give feedback to tracks performance level, uploading and downloading learning martial (text, video, audio).  Furthermore, we can have a plug-in to conduct a survey or voting."   

Most of the study used in the review for this study has a good and positive perspective for using Moodle as a platform for LMS.  On the other hand, Vallejo (2011) is the only one who has identified some limitations when it comes to real-time communication.  Vallejo points that Moodle does not offer audio chat or video.  Furthermore, Kaya (2012), is the only study point that the quality of services is not guaranteed because freeware systems have weaknesses in terms of technical support.  According to Moodle sites, users always find support from development communities around the world (Moodle.org).  Aisha did not agree with Kaya:

"The team contacts the developer for support whenever they are needed especially at the implementation stage"

CONCLUSION   

The finding in this study helped in assessing IIUM students' need of having an interactive LMS so they can interact with their classmate.  Furthermore, it goes with the suggestions of the IIUM lectures of having upgraded LMS (iTa'leem) to allow innovative teaching and learning.  Furthermore, it shows the important of following an instructional design model like ADDIE to direct the developing of iTa'leem.  The themes show the importance of having a good cooperative team in order to have a successful migration project.  Furthermore, taking the time to analysis the need for the users and the objective of a system, make it easy to design and develop the system according to their need.  In the implementation stage, lots of training is needed so the users have an idea of what they can or can't do in the system in order to use it in its fullest.  Formative and summative assessment is a must for a complete and effective project.

Moodle is a platform we used for our LMS (iTa'leem).  It is an open source which makes less expensive than other.  Moodle offers lots of functions for schools and university to help them manage their learning environment.  IIUM use the LMS with blended learning and distance learning. 

The finding of this study shows the successful migration so it can help other universities to take the correct decision if they are still using a commercial LMS.  It helps in comparing between open source and commercial LMS.  A further study can be made to measure the effect of the new LMS in students' achievement.

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