STUDENTS’ EXPERIENCES OF A LEARNING MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IN AN OPEN AND DISTANCE LEARNING INSTITUTION

Lack of interaction between students and their lecturers; administrative staff and peers is one of the main challenges of Open and Distance Learning (ODL) providers. Hence, most ODL organisations have made attempts to address this challenge through the use of technologies to enhance their students’ learning experience and success. The University of South Africa (Unisa) uses MyUnisa, the Management Learning System on the Sakai open platform, to improve interaction between students, lecturers and administrative staff.

This paper explores and describes how students experience the use of myUnisa for enhancement of interaction for learner support purposes. I wanted to get a deeper insight into the lived experiences of students using MyUnisa. I used phenomenology to describe the essence of MyUnisa from the perspective of those who have experienced it. To uncover the essence and meaning of the students’ experiences, I used in-depth interviews using one question to capture the lived experiences of students at an ODL institution using MyUnisa. The question was “Tell me about your experiences of using MyUnisa to interact with academic and administrative staff for support on your studies,”

The findings suggest that students experience the use of MyUnisa as useful for interaction between them and staff as well as between them and other students at Unisa. The study also found that some staff members delay responses to students’ requests posted online.