Improving the outcome of e-learning using new technologies in LMS systems

Abstract: Background Studies of e-learning education programs that use LMS systems have shown that the lack of social interaction between the participants have a negative effect on the outcome. Most notable in the number of students that drop out of curses prematurely. It is therefore essential to introduce technologies that create a more interactive experience for the participants. A good approach to these problems is to have a software platform that not only supports the administrative areas of distance learning over the internet but also provide tools to support the social aspects of it. Objective This thesis has two objectives. The main objective is to identify the technologies that improve the results of academic e-learning education programs that are using LMS systems. Furthermore there will be a comparison between LMS systems using open source licensing and proprietary licensing. The second objective is to establish requirements for LMS systems used in an academic environment. Requirements determined to be associated with a corporate training environment will be separated and excluded from the main objective, but they will be discussed in the thesis because of their value to corporate training LMS systems. Methods The research method used to answer the first and main objective is a survey based analysis with a qualitative approach to the data collection. The LMS systems are analyzed from the perspective of learning, but evaluated from the perspective of Software engineering. The research method used for the second objective is literature review. Results Thirty requirements were established for an academic LMS system, arranged in eleven categories. The following three categories of requirements were the most important: course content management, evaluation and communication. The survey found that the most common technologies to fulfill these requirements are for course content management: assignment upload, personal file storage and course object reuse. For evaluation it was: course evaluation functions and results analysis. For communication it was: chat, wiki, forums, messages systems and collaboration systems. Conclusions The three most commonly referenced categories of requirements from the literature are: course content management, evaluation and communication. There is a significant difference in the requirements for LMS systems depending on what market it is developed for. The technologies that can improve the outcome of e-learning systems are: content management systems that allow the users to share and reuse course content objects, course evaluations systems that give the teacher feedback on the course from the students and communication systems such as chat, wiki, forums, collaboration systems and messages systems that improves communication between the participants and the social atmosphere. There were significant differences between LMS systems using open source licensing and proprietary licensing.