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,
2014).
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, 2014). 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 (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 the support and 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 compatible with most web browsers (Ambrosio,
Striano, Freda, Fiorentino, & Aiello, 2013; Davoli et al., 2008; El-Seoud,
El-Sofany, Taj-Eddin, Nosseir, & El-Khouly, 2013); 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).
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 QuickTimeTM 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 ISO-9126 Quality Model as
a useful tool for evaluating software system is used as a
guiding framework in order to cover the bases of Moodle software. 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 ISO-9126 Quality Model is a useful tool to
evaluate the quality of software system.
The model was developed in 1991 by the International Organization for
Standardization (ISO) and refined in 2001 as cited by Abran, Khelifi, Suryn, & Seffah, (2003) in (Chua & Dyson, 2004). The model was
developed to provide a set of standards that would be recognized and respected
internationally. The original model
defines six characteristics: Functionality, Usability, Reliability, Efficiency
Maintainability, and Portability (see Figure 1); each characteristic has its
sub-characteristics. Table 1 shows the
six characteristic and its sub-characteristics (Abran et al., 2003).
Figure 1: ISO 1991 Model
The ISO 9126 model was used in this
study because it covers the technical requirements and human interaction with
the system. Moreover, it is easy employ
by non-specialist, not complicated like IEEE P1484.1 LTSA model, SCORM or IMS (Chua & Dyson, 2004). In addition, this study focused on first
three characteristics of ISO-9126 functionality, usability, and reliability.
Table 1: ISO 9126 Characteristic and
sub-characteristics
|
Characteristic
|
Sub-characteristic
|
Explanation
|
|
Functionality
|
Suitability
Accurateness
Interoperability
Security
|
Can
software perform the tasks required?
Is
the result as expected?
Can
the system interact with another system?
Does
the software prevent unauthorized access?
|
|
Reliability
|
Maturity
Fault
tolerance
Recoverability
|
Have
most of the faults in the software been eliminated over time?
Is
the software capable of handling errors?
Can
the software resume working and restore lost data after failure?
|
|
Usability
|
Understandability
Learnability
Operability
Attractiveness
|
Does
the user comprehend how to use the system easily?
Can
the user learn to use the system easily?
Can
the user use the system without much effort?
Does
the interface look good?
|
|
Efficiency
|
Time
behavior
Resource
utilization
|
How
quickly does the system respond?
Does
the system utilize resources efficiently?
|
|
Maintainability
|
Analyzability
Changeability
Stability
Testability
|
Can
faults be easily diagnosed?
Can
the software be easily modified?
Can
the software continue functioning if changes are made?
Can
the software be tested easily?
|
|
Portability
|
Adaptability
Installability
Conformance
Replaceability
|
Can
the software be moved to other environments?
Can
the software be installed easily?
Does
the software comply with portability standards?
Can
the software easily replace other software?
|
4.
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 researcher with one member of the iTa'leem
project, an administration personal 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. After analyzing the data, 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.
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