Management System

Evaluating Interactivity of eLearning Resources in A Learning

Management System (LMS)- A Case Study of MOODLE,

An Open Source Platform

Kuldeep Nagi, Dr. Poonphon Suesawaluk, Dr. Poonsri Vate U-Lan

College of Internet Distance Education

Assumption University, Thailand

*****@**.***, ********@*****.***, **********@**.***

In the increasing market of eLearning

Abstract

there are many Learning Management

Interactivity in a virtual learning

Systems (LMSs), some are open source

environment is the art of instigating

products, others are commercial solutions.

interactions and facilitating communication

Angel, Blackboard, Moodle, Sakai and

between leaning objects (LOs) and learners.

WebCT, and are few examples of popular

In order to investigate the level of usage of

Learning Management Systems (LMS) being

various learning objects (LOs) all data must

used by thousands of organizations,

be recorded after a student logs-on to the

businesses and universities worldwide.

system. All Learning Management Systems

(LMSs), whether open-source or proprietary, MOODLE is one of the license free

provide tools such as Reports or similar open-source software platform widely used

options to capture the conference data in a by the universities. MOODLE is an acronym

eLearning courseware. These tools can be for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic

used by instructors and content experts to Learning Environment. Those involved with

evaluate learner s activities and identify eLearning also call it as a Virtual Learning

online behaviors and interaction patterns in Environment (VLE)). Learning Management

a virtual learning environment. For this System (LMS) are designed to help

preliminary study a purposive sample of two instructors, educators and content experts

ICT eLearning courses and the data derived and business trainers to create online

from their Reports will be used to gauge learning material with opportunities for rich

the level of interactivity. Statistical results interaction [1]. Its modular design allows the

provided by these Reports can be used for users to design and add their own learning

motivating students and building more components to enhance eLearning strategies.

robust and interactive content for eLearning Development of this open-source software

courseware hosted in a Learning application platform is undertaken by a

Management System (LMS). globally diffused network of commercial and

non-commercial users, spearheaded by the

company based in Perth, Western Australia.

Keywords: Interactivity, Learning Objects

Learning Management System (LMS)'s

(LOs), Learning Management System

development has also been assisted by the

(LMS), Open-Source, Posts, Views and

work of open source programmer

Reports

community. This has contributed towards its

rapid growth, development and adoption

1. Introduction: A Learning Management

worldwide.

System (LMS)

A Learning Management System

(LMS)'s infrastructure supports many types

Fifth International Conference on eLearning for Knowledge-Based Society, December 11-12, 2008, Bangkok, Thailand

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Kuldeep Nagi, Dr. Poonphon Suesawaluk and Dr. Poonsri-Vate U-Lan

of plug-ins such as Activities, Resource durable- remain intact across

types, Question types, Data field types (for upgrades of hard/software

the database activity), Graphical themes, As a complement, the learning object (LO)

Authentication methods, Enrollment should also have a measurable component of

methods, Content Filters and Reports. Many information which helps its identification,

third-party solutions are also available for storage, and recovery through a database.

making use of its open infrastructure. All For this research the weekly Reports

Learning Management Systems (LMSs) are available on the MOODLE, an open source

useful in outcomes-based learning application are identified as a learning object

environments that could be continuously (LO) and data contained in these Reports

improved by analyzing the captured data is at the core of this research.

included in the Reports of a courseware

hosted on the system.

3. Research Method

Interactivity in a Virtual learning

2. Learning Objects (LOs) in a Virtual

environment (VLE) is the art of instigating

learning environment (VLE)

and facilitating communication between

Virtual Learning Environments (VLE)

learners and various learning objects (LOs)

are defined as computer-based environments

in an eLearning courseware. In order to

that are relatively open systems, allowing

investigate the level of interactions all on-

interactions and knowledge sharing with

line activities after a students log-on are

other participants and instructors and provide

recorded into the Learning Management

access to a wide range of resources hosted on

System (LMS) database [3]. For this study

the system. The value of a VLE is to fully

Reports, a tool available in the menu of

enable "learning anywhere at any time" by

MOODLE, is used to collect data for two

providing an array of resources,

eLearning courses chosen for this research.

opportunities for active participation,

mastering content and self learning.

3.1 What are Reports?

A learning object (LO) in a virtual

As mentioned above, one of the main

learning environment is usually defined as

objectives of this research is to describe the

any entity, digital or non-digital that may be

use of an automated, static, multi-browser,

used for education and learning. It is also

visualization tool called Reports, which

called as web-based interactive chunks or

depicts the pattern of the interaction between

parts of eLearning courseware designed to

the students and various learning objects

explain a stand-alone learning objective. In

(LOs) of an eLearning courseware in an

an eLearning environment a digitized entity

asynchronous conference.

can be used, reused or referenced many

Statistics provided by the Reports can

times during the learning process [2].

be used for motivating students and building

However, there is general consensus that a

more robust and interactive content in a

learning object (LO) should be:

courseware. The two main variable of the

Report consists of view and post whose

reusable- can be modified and

individual properties are described below.

versioned for different courses,

For views and posts, the views

accessible- indexed and retrieved

means that the data about access to an object

using metadata

doesn't get saved into the database, An

interoperable/ portable- operate

example of view is that a student logs on

across different hard/software

to the system and watches an online video

for a particular chapter or just views the

Special Issue of the International Journal of the Computer, the Internet and Management, Vol.16 No. SP3, December, 2008

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Evaluation Interactivity of eLearning Resources in A Learning Management System (LMS)

A Case Study of MOODLE, An Open Source Platform

power-point slides for a chapter. Whereas all next page where he or she can access all the

data about the posts means anything new data about the course.

that is created and uploaded does (forum

posts, assessment uploads, etc.) get saved in

the database. An example of post will be

that a student submitted or uploaded an

assignment or a quiz.

Figure-2 LMS Interface for accessing Reports

For each course the Reports provides

statistics using three fields- Course, Reports

Type and Time Period-last. The drop down

menu can be also used to examine All

activity (All roles) to get a comprehensive

picture of interactivity about all activities in

an eLearning courseware.

3.3 Courses included in the research

Figure-1 Reports in the LMS Menu For this preliminary study I used the

Reports generated for two sample courses

3.2 Accessing Reports to analyze the views-posts data to examine

The Learning Management System the level of interactivity. The details of the

(LMS) in its menu provides a set of tools to purposive sample of two eLearning courses

evaluate the progress of an eLearning course. are given in Table-1.

In case of MOODLE, the browser interface

as shown in Figure-1 provides a list of tools TABLE-1 Views-Posts Ratio

in its menu given on the left. Clicking on the

Reports takes the instructor to a menu Courses Views Posts Ratio

shown in Figure-2. Clicking Under the ICT-610*-****-*** 6.93

Reports Type drop-down menu gives the ICT-6201 372 72 5.16

following five options: Total 2340 356 6.57

All activity (All roles) Theses two courses included a total of 8

All activity (views and posts) Students students who used the Learning Management

All activity (views and posts) Teacher System (LMS) to access the courseware

Views (all roles) material during the current semester of their

Posts (all roles) study for their Masters Degree in ICT.

After selecting All activity (views and

posts) Students an instructor is taken to the

Fifth International Conference on eLearning for Knowledge-Based Society, December 11-12, 2008, Bangkok, Thailand

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Kuldeep Nagi, Dr. Poonphon Suesawaluk and Dr. Poonsri-Vate U-Lan

For the purposes of this paper the

collection of data started on September 6 and

ended on November 1, 2008.

3.4 Basic architecture of the Virtual

Interaction Mapping System (VIMS)

Figure-3 given below illustrates the

basic framework of a Virtual Interaction

Figure-4 Typical output of a VIMS

Mapping System (VIMS) available in almost

(iv) an Application Programming

every Learning Management System (LMS).

Interface (API) suite that facilitates

deployment within different VLE systems.

SVG USER

It is necessary to provide a different API

implementation to use VIMS with another

VLE [4]. For a Learning Management

Control

Render

System (LMS) the open source community

of programmer regularly adds new

Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)

Parser API

Data

for new functionalities. As shown in Figure-

3 both instructor as well as the students can

access these Reports for examining their

VLE -

activities for each course.

Moodle

Data

The statistics provided by the Repots

USER

enables assessment of triangular relationship

between learning objects (LOs), online

access and interactivity. The details of the

Figure-3 Virtual Interaction Mapping System

participant s activities are extracted from the

(VIMS)

database and displayed in graphical format in

A Virtual Interaction Mapping System a browser as shown in Figure-4.

(VIMS) in a eLearning system is generally

composed of four distinct modules: (i) A 4. Indicators of interactivity in an

Control module that handles all web-based eLearning courseware

user interactions including thread A well designed eLearning courseware

specification, authentication and data should provide ample opportunities for

management, (ii) a Parser which parses collaborative work, dialogue and study

thread and message content and prepares which can increase the flexibility of learning

these data for rendering in graphical format, while keeping the participants engaged. The

(iii) a Rendering component that uses x-y Figure-5 and Figure-6 shown below gives a

axis graphical layout as shown in Figure-4 glimpse of weekly pattern of view and

using the built-in algorithms that facilitates posts for two ICT course hosted on the

deployment within different VLE systems Learning Management System (LMS).

Special Issue of the International Journal of the Computer, the Internet and Management, Vol.16 No. SP3, December, 2008

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Evaluation Interactivity of eLearning Resources in A Learning Management System (LMS)

A Case Study of MOODLE, An Open Source Platform

4. Provide students with a tool to measure

ICT-6101 Weekly Report of Views & Reports

and evaluate their own engagement and

400

progress in a eLearning course

Views & Post

300

200

Weekly Report for 2 Courses

100

0

400

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

300

Weeks (1-9)

200

100

View s Posts

0

Figure-5 Weekly View & Posts for ICT-6101 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

We e k s ( 1- 9 )

Pedagogical studies in eLearning have Weeks ICT-6101Views ICT-6101Post s ICT-6201Views ICT-6201Post s

revealed that a meaningful and effective

Figure-7 Weekly View & Posts for 2 Courses

interaction with learning objects (TO) in a

4.1 Pearson Product-Moment Correlation

VLE system enhances the learning

for View & Posts

experiences. During interaction the learner

The correlation coefficient is a statistical

analyses, describes and evaluates the objects

measure of relationship ranging from -1.00

and at the same time clarifies and inquires if

(a perfect negative relationship) to 0.00 (no

the content contained in the object is

relationship) to +1.00 (a perfect positive

understandable [4].

relationship).

ICT-6201 Weekly Report

TABLE-2 Correlations of views & posts

100

Courses ICT-6101 ICT-6201

Views & Posts

80

Mean For Views 197 37.2

60

40

Mean For Posts 28.4 7.2

20

Correlation 0.855 0.836

0

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Wee ks (1-9)

The closer the correlation coefficient is to

Vie ws Posts

1 (either positive or negative), the stronger

Figure-6 Weekly View & Posts for ICT-6201

the relationship is. For example, a correlation

coefficient of +0.89 will indicates a very

The graphical representation of views

strong positive relationship between two

and posts as depicted in Figure-7 for

variables, views and posts whereas -0.17

eLearning courses can help visualization of

suggests a very weak negative relationship

the activities in a way to assists the instructor

between these two variables. From the data

to understand at a glance, several important

derived from Reports correlation between

indicators without any further investigation

the views and posts for this study is

or research. Such indicators include:

0.855 for ICT-6102 and 0.836 for ICT-6201.

For both courses the positive correlation is a

1. Ability to extract information from the

sufficient proof of interaction between the

Learning Management System (LMS)

two activities, views and posts.

2. Frequency of interaction among the

Other researchers have also shown that

students and role played by them in the

more knowledge sharing, collaboration and

online discussions through posts

community building occurs in learner-to-

3. Development of skills for interaction in a

learner communication (posts) rather than

learning environment to engage in higher

instructor centered communication [6].

level thinking

Fifth International Conference on eLearning for Knowledge-Based Society, December 11-12, 2008, Bangkok, Thailand

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Kuldeep Nagi, Dr. Poonphon Suesawaluk and Dr. Poonsri-Vate U-Lan

Structuring of the learning objects and the any place, thus bridging the gap of time and

facility of online access to these objects may space. More the interaction between learning

vary according to the nature of specific objects (LOs) and students better is their

disciplines. understanding of eLearning content [7].

In the current version of Learning

Management System (LMS) 1.8 released in

5. Conclusions

On the basis of this preliminary study 2007 the Reports tool is very course

discussed in this paper we can derive the centric. In other words, each eLearning

following conclusion: course has to be examined individually for

all the data sets pertaining to all the views

1. As shown in Table-1 each course and posts for students as well as

differs in terms of total number of instructors. Going forward it may be possible

views and posts. This is also that the new release of Learning

supported by weekly data graphed in Management System (LMS), such as Moodle

Figure-5 and Figure-6. will have added code to do some sort of

2. The ratio of views and posts for ranking of Reports for all the eLearning

the two courses slightly varies. The courses hosted on the system, such as Top-

ratio derived from views and 10 most participatory or interactive

posts are also in a close range. eLearning courses or learning programs

3. Figure-7 given in the left column based on views and posts ratios and

depicts the graph of weekly views other relevant indicators.

and posts. It shows significant

weekly fluctuation for the two References

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Special Issue of the International Journal of the Computer, the Internet and Management, Vol.16 No. SP3, December, 2008

32.6

Evaluation Interactivity of eLearning Resources in A Learning Management System (LMS)

A Case Study of MOODLE, An Open Source Platform

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