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Questions Asked

• What are the benefits to you of using an LMS?
• What problems have you encountered in using WebCT 4.1?
• What suggestions do you have for using online tools for learning at UCSC?
• Would you like to have an LMS used in all of your courses?
• How does your use of technology in your personal life influence your expectations of educational technology? How do you use technology in your social life and what would you apply from this to an LMS?
• Would training in an LMS be useful to students? If so, what kind of training, and should it be mandatory?
• How can an LMS be used well by an instructor?
• What do you think is the most important thing for the people in charge of the LMS to keep in mind in regards to students?
• What does “easy to use” mean to you in terms of how you access course materials, communications and course related tasks? Not only the tool interface, but what does it take to for you to be enrolled in a class?
• How important do you feel it is to train students how to use an LMS? What form do you think the most effective training would take? What do you think about mandatory computer literacy core courses?
• Students have reported that they would like UCSC’s new LMS to be more like social networking sites such as Facebook. What do you think they mean, and do you agree or disagree? What aspects of social networking sites would you apply to class activities and why?
• What concerns do you have about your privacy?
• Instructors have expressed a need in having plagiarism detection and education software available for use with the LMS. In your view, would this be a positive or negative development? How do you think this would impact the campus community?

Responses and Results

Students...

• Feel that the use of technology is mandatory in the educational system today.
• Feel WebCT 4.1 is old looking and hard to use.
• Now expect faculty to have at least a syllabus online.
"Features are less useful if users can't navigate interface very well..."
-Student, Undergraduate Student Focus Group
• Like the benefits of: access to course materials and grades on the web whenever they want, ability to review lecture notes, help with organization, online quizzes, and more.
• Feelings of having positive experiences with WebCT were correlated with instructor usage and updates. They want course materials, lecture notes, and grades kept up to date.
• Now expect faculty to have at least a syllabus online.
"Through announcements, lecture notes, grades, and e-mail. It has the potential to manage large classes better, and keep students and teachers up-date-with personal and class progress. In my experience, many professors do not use WebCT to its full advantage. Often, only one or two things are provided through WebCT."
-Student, 2007 WebCT Survey
• Do not understand the need for variation in websites from course to course or department to department, and find that having instructors use different places to host their course web solutions frustrating.
• Do not want technology to replace their instructors or the in class experience.
• Want UCSC's LMS to be more intuitive like websites they use daily, such as social networking sites.
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-Student, Undergraduate Student Focus Group
• Want Web 2.0 functionality with a "modern look and feel", not so much social networking capabilities.
• Want to be able to personalize the LMS.
• Would like to see many services they feel are "redundant" being consolidated under the LMS (including eRes), leading to a more portal-like functionality.
• Notice when instructors are not comfortable with technology. They want their instructors to be well trained in an LMS so problems that could be avoided with appropriate training won't disrupt the class experience.
"WebCT is usually good if professor knows what they're doing, but problems delay class."
-Student, Undergraduate Student Focus Group
• Feel that student training in an LMS would be helpful, particularly as a freshmen and/or through online tutorials, but should not be mandatory. Moreover, they feel if the interface was more intuitive, training would not be necessary.
• Express concern for their less technologically connected peers and the troubles they may have using and accessing an LMS.
• Some have had experience with other Learning Management Systems, but they are still in the minority.
• Felt that accessibility should be a high priority for the university.
• Want some features that WebCT 4.1 does not currently offer: wikis, blogs, opt-in automatic update notification,
• Feel that UCSC's current LMS is hard to find.
"I like the security of posting grades with personal account, but students get confused about the system. 10/60 students had a problem submitting assignments- there are too many steps."
-Graduate Student, graduate student focus group
• Graduate students have significantly different needs of an LMS as they act as Teaching Assistants, are very involved in research, and are mostly enrolled in smaller courses.
• Graduate students felt that the Undergraduates in the courses that they TAed for did not understand how to use WebCT.
• Graduate students act as a go-between for professors and technology. They deal first hand with problems their students have with an LMS.

UCSC Faculty Instructional Technology Center
2006-2008
Last updated 6/24/2008