Abstract
Course management systems are becoming widespread in colleges and universities that offer distance learning courses and programs. As a result of high costs involved in deploying course management tools, it is important to determine student and faculty satisfaction with these systems to justify continued use and pedagogical value. A study was conducted in the Business School of a large university to determine student and faculty satisfaction with the enterprise version of Blackboard course management tool. Results of the survey found that faculty and student satisfaction with the course management system is high, the system is mainly being used as a convenience tool to distribute course materials, faculty training is needed that goes beyond tool use and incorporates pedagogical issues, and use of a portal should be further encouraged among students and faculty. Results of this study should be useful to educators interested in deploying enterprise course management systems in their institutions.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Portal: A portal is a single point of entry Web page that gives users access to various resources in a consolidated format.
Collaborative Learning: Collaborative learning is group learning in which students share resources to work in a constructivist type environment for learning to occur.
Threaded Discussions: Threaded discussions are a series of posts in a discussion board pertaining to a single topic.
Enterprise Course Management System: Web-based software that allows hosting of courses and course components such as documents, audio, and video files. The system also ties into to administrative databases for access to library databases, student class roster imports, and submission of final grades.
Distance Education: Education and interaction that takes place between teacher and learner who are separated by time and/or space.
Learning Objects: Learning objects are a digital resource that can be reused to support and enhance learning.
Podcasts: Podcasts are audio files available on the Internet that can be accessed using a subscription model.
Blogs: Blogs are a Web-based electronic diary containing entries in chronological order, usually updated by the author to provide current information about topics.