The Important of Online Learning_Part 1

Many people interest to continue their education to a higher level due to the increasing graduate qualifications from company and communities, but the time and place become obstacle for them. To overcome this problem, education industry use Information technology (IT) to facilitate teaching and learning process. IT is the technology that can be used to create, store, exchange, and use information. In higher education, teaching and learning process between lecturer and students can use internet as a media which called Online learning or e-learning.

Online learning or E-Learning is one  of alternative to improve quality of teaching and learning process in higher education between lecturer and the students, esspecially for the working people with time and place as obstacles for them to continue their education to a higher level. E-learning is suitable in university, because University is an information technology-based educational institution that has experienced in education using information and communication technology (ICT) for students. In universities, the implementation of e-learning is using Learning Management Systems (LMS), which is the backbone of e-learning that can integrate delivery courses in online classroom, online course materials, and human resources systems (students and lecturer). The role of Learning Management System (LMS) is to deliver online course materials directly between lecturer and students. By using LMS, lecturer is able to submit courses in online menu and also able to assign online courses and the tasks to the students, who log in into LMS through internet browse. Other than LMS is used, other commonly term for e-learning are Course Management Systems (CMS) and Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). One of the success factor in e-learning is good web usability. With the increasing number of users of e-learning and the importance of user satisfaction, it is necessary to evaluate e-learning web usability, Usability is about how well tools and technology can support the users by measure the quality of user’s experience when using a product or systems, such as learning management systems or e-learning website . When the product is easy to learn, effective, and fun for the users, it means the product has good usability.   The purpose of usability are (1) effectiveness (how the product or system can be used effectively), (2) efficiency (how efficient that the product or system can be used by the users), (3) safety (the product or system safe to use), (3) utility (the product or system have good utility), (4) learnability (the product or system is easy to learn), and (5) memorability (the users are easy to remember how to use the product or system). So authors conduct research with the title Evaluation of Usability in Online Learning that will explain more details in part 2 of this article.

References :

• Pearson, Keri E. and Saunders, Carol S. (2009). Strategic Management Information Systems. Florida : John Willey & Sons, Inc.
• Nicholas KipkuruiKiget, Professor G. Wanyembi, AnselemoIkoha Peters. (2014). Evaluating Usability of E-Learning Systems in Universities. Department of Computer Science, MasindeMuliro University of Science and Technology, Kakamega, Kenya, Department of Information Technology, Mt. Kenya University, Thika, Kenya, School of Computing and Informatics, Kibabii University College, Bungoma, Kenya. International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications (IJACSA), 5, No. 8, 2014, 97-98
• Gabriele Meiselwitz and William A. Sadera. (2008). Investigating the Connection between Usability and Learning Outcomes in Online Learning Environments. Computer and Information Sciences, College of Science and Mathematics, Towson University, Towson, MD USA and Educational Technology and Literacy, College of Education, Towson University, Towson, MD USA. Vol. 4, No. 2, June 2008, 235