Learning management systems in higher education: a faculty perspective |
The use of the Internet and the Web have gradually made their way into the methods that students, lecturers and generally the education community communicates, stores, shares and collaborates. Indeed, it has arguably become the norm rather than the alternative. As an alternative to traditional learning techniques, web-based Learning Management Systems (LMS) are being offered to students in order to assist and improve their learning experience. This paper analyses how the implementation of an LMS affects the learning outcomes from the viewpoint of the higher education staff. In order to understand the faculty awareness of LMS systems, data from university environments were collected to provide an opportunity to compare and contrast opinions. It is important for the academic sector to understand and measure productivity achieved through the implementations of an LMS from the perspective of the staff so that they can adopt them in their curricula appropriately. Based upon the evidence provided from the research, it is recommended that basic faculty training implemented after installing a web based LMS may help create module contents that could improve upon the traditional methods of disseminating course materials in a more accessible way by students. However, basic training by itself will not offer any significant advantage towards the learning objectives of Higher Education, suggesting that more specialized continuous training is required. Furthermore, a complete learning strategy needs to be researched to fully utilize the potential of current learning applications and keep faculty updated to the continuous introduction of new technologies in the sector.
Triantafyllidis A, Clarke NL, Haskell-Dowland PS (Dowland PS)