Abstract:

The Autonomous University of Yucatán (in Spanish, UADY) has made use of Learning Management Systems to support their face-to-face educational programs since 2003, and at this moment, has established a tool under the name of UADY Virtual, based on the freely distributed software MOODLE. The goal of this study was to identify how interactions between students, professors and course contents happen in UADY Virtual. A qualitative approach was used for this study, which included a series of open question interviews to twelve professors from four different UADY campuses (distributed in the form of three participants from each one: social sciences and humanities, math and engineering sciences, health sciences and arts and visual sciences). A semi-structured script was used for this purpose, consistent of fourteen open questions, concerning their experiences working with this system and the interactions they have observed during their courses. Participants were selected using the subject-type method from those who presented the highest level of use of UADY Virtual, understood as having imparted courses with a high student participation level, as well as demonstrating aptitude for the development of proficient online materials and course structures. Gibb’s Generic Model was used to prepare a concept guided codification, whose results were analyzed using the Atlas Ti software tool (version 8.1.2). Taking into account Moore’s Transactional Theory, categories were separated into three major groups (Interaction Types, Interaction Media and Interaction Purpose). Participants said that their students mostly interact trough this systems for setting up assignment deliveries, and that messages between them mostly work as means for establishing collaborative links, and only in some cases to give announcements or ask for help; meanwhile interactions with their students are mostly on an individual level, with professors remarking using media such as e-mail and instant messaging applications, but not other tools such as blogs or wikis to interact with their students. In conclusion, UADY Virtual promotes interactions between professors and students, along with those between students, however, much work still needs to be done about student-content interactions.

Keywords:

Virtual Learning Environment Blended Learning, Computer Mediated Communication, Online Interactions, Learning Management Systems.