Abstract:

The paper focuses on the impact of using advanced e-learning facilities in teaching by evaluating student feed-back regarding these facilities. UBBOnline e-learning portal and its learning facilities has been presented in previous INTED editions. The present case study pursues the evolution of student perception regarding the portal use for the MA course IT strategies and information systems
We overview the e-learning facilities that have been used and point out their advantages, the basic learning resource being a modular template for delivering the learning content, with specific goals, theoretical, practical and feed-back contents for each module. Additionally, advanced mechanisms for task scheduling and management and discussion lists, on-line evaluation facilities, ‘e-portfolio’ for student assignments and personal sites - ‘My site’ are also available. Student-to-student and student-to-teacher communication includes integrated e-mail and chat facilities.
Teachers may use access specific reports on various sections of the site in order to evaluate the learning efficiency of the educational content; they can correlate this information with student performance in order to improve the quality of the educational content. We note that UBBonline, being integrated with the dedicated information systems, namely AcademicInfo for educational information, grade information is also available for teachers and students (students access disciplines from their study contracts, including grade and fee information, while teachers access disciplines they deliver, including student grade information). Discipline sites are automatically created into the portal based on information automatically provisioned from AcademicInfo system.
The survey we present has been created by using built-in portal facilities. We pursue the evolution of 3 MA student groups, along 2 academic years. Besides expressing a positive perception and appreciating the advantages of having the electronic educational resources available at any time – very important for MA students, who often have additional full time or part time jobs, they appreciate the available e-learning tools and resources, as well as the communication ones, my site and the on-line evaluation facilities. We notice that the use of e-learning facilities have become steadier in time and students have become more and more used and almost ‘dependant’ of these learning facilities. Moreover, students who use e-learning tools become more autonomous in learning and working based on specific guidelines, and sometimes may averagely score better (smaller grade dispersion) in on-line evaluations than face-to-face groups.

Keywords:

e-learning, learning portal, system integration, learning facilities feed-back, on-line evaluation, e-learning proficiency.