In Search of Effectiveness Factors: A Case Study of the UniKL IIM ELearning Portal

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In Search of Effectiveness Factors A Case Study
of the UniKL IIM E-Learning Portal
Tan Wee Hoe (whtan_at_iim.edu.my) Instructor /
Specialist Institute Infotech MARA, Universiti
Kuala Lumpur (UniKL IIM)
Presenter
Tan Wee Hoe, UniKL IIM Zalizah Awang Long, UniKL
IIM Stanley Richardson, Multimedia
University Fauzan Shukor, UniKL IIM
Authors
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Research Background

• History of UniKL IIM E-Learning Portal
• 2003, introduced to create e-learning awareness
• 2004, officially employed all academics have to
  use as part of the PES.
• 2005, identifying factors that determine the
  effectiveness of UniKL IIM E-Learning Portal
  (Research Aim)

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Research Background

• Claroline
• Open Source License (FOC)
• Web-based course management system
• Usage in UniKL IIM
• Announcement / bulletin
• Teaching materials repositories
• Forum chat facilities
• Assignment submission
• Attendance results
• http//elearn.iim.edu.my

Logo of Claroline
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Conceptual Interactions
Figure 1 Conceptual interactions among entities
in UniKL IIM with LMS .
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Literature Review

• Seven key institutional success factors for
  Malaysia e-learning industry (Salleh Teh,
  2000).
• Strong leadership at all levels
• Pro-active strategic planning with top management
  commitment
• Private enterprise paradigm
• World-class customer-oriented service quality
• Cross-functional teamwork
• Sound pedagogical grounding
• Well-structured content development process

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Literature Review

• Critical factor for e-learning in National Taiwan
  University (Hsu et al, 2002).
• The richness of contents system
• Five main factors that influence the
  effectiveness of online learning process at eight
  universities in Malaysia (Poon et al, 2004).
• Instructors characteristics
• Students behaviour attitude
• Interactive application
• Technology system
• Institutional factors

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Research Methods

• Semi-structured Interviews
• Management (Provost Dean)
• 2 System Administrators
• 24 Subject Matter Experts
• Two core questions
• What are the factors that determine the
  effectiveness of UniKL IIM E-Learning Portal?
• What is the priority of these factors
• Interviewees justified the given answers
• Classify factors based on Socio-technical Systems
  Approach
• Calculate the frequencies the priorities

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Research Methods

• Socio-technical Systems Approach
• Qualitative research approach that based on the
  inter- dependency of social system technical
  system.
• Three components
• Technical factors
• Equipment, materials, processes environment
• Social factors
• The relationships among the workers their
  attitudes to the work their co-workers
• Economic factors
• How efficiency of the system is measured, with
  emphasis on productivity

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Research Methods

• Sampling of SMEs
• Population 41
• Total sample 24 (58.5)

Table 1 Sample to sub-population ratio of SMEs
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Factors of Effectiveness
Table 2 Frequency of factors, grouped under the
three components of
socio-technical system.
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Factors of Effectiveness
Table 3 Factors of effectiveness, suggested by
the Provost the Dean.
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Factors of Effectiveness
Table 4 Factors of effectiveness, suggested and
prioritised by System
Administrators.
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Factors of Effectiveness
Table 5 Factors of effectiveness, prioritised by
Subject Matter Experts.
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Factors of Effectiveness

• Technical factors
• Infrastructures facillities
• Interface design
• Social factors
• Students lecturers attitude
• Readiness of students lecturers
• Economic factors
• Physical contact hours
• Not compulsory for students

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Discussion

• Problematic generalisation of results
• Cross-cultural differences
• Enabling other institutions to conduct their own
  research compare their results with ours.
• UniKL IIM would benefit by
• Creating a road map for future develop and
• Appointing a special team to enhance the benefits
  of the e-learning portal.

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Conclusions

• Dominant factors Technical factors
• Positive attitudes towards e-learning initiatives
  in UniKL IIM
• Key difficulties
• Excessive workload in developing good quality
  learning material conducting discussion forum
• Technological constraints, eg limited computer
  capacity unstable Internet connection.