Students at Aalborg University (AAU), like any other users of interactive systems, expect Moodle learning management system (LMS) to give the best user experience and usability. The AAU Problem Based Learning (PBL), also known as Aalborg model, builds on student-centred and student-focused didactic design principles. Moodle is central to the PBL teaching and project facilitation. Understanding the students’ perceptions is prerequisite to designing Moodle courses with student-centred principles. Moreover, the transformation of an LMS from mere content and information repository to daily communication platform involves an additional integration of didactic and pedagogic elements. The satisfaction level of Moodle LMS at AAU has not been investigated while significant usability and user experience studies reported a need for improving design and communication process through Moodle (Walker, Prytherch, & Turner, 2013). With point of departure on the digitalization goal of AAU, this project will create a Moodle course containing multi media resources demonstrating Moodle courses and activities as the best cases nominated by the students across study programs of the five faculties.

Each teacher at AAU plays the role of a website designer for every course design in Moodle. The LMS is one of the open source content management systems specialized for educational contexts. Moodle is developed with non-Danish didactic design principles, and integration with PBL model has been challenging (Buus, 2016; Buus et al., 2012). Therefore, the integration of PBL and Danish didactic elements in the Moodle-supported courses occur during course design and development phases (Ali, Al-Dous, & Samaka, 2015). The design considerations for the layout of content, colour preferences, functionalities for online activities, scheduled communication, and multimodal content presentation require sufficient understanding of interface design, interaction design, usability, user experience, and didactics. Due to the lack of knowledge about an umbrella of usability and user experience factors, the dissatisfactory design and implementation of Moodle courses reduce the quality of students’ learning experience. A significant amount of research on Moodle has reported the issues of design and development of Moodle interface and interaction design.

A recent participatory pilot redesign of a course in Moodle at AAU significantly improved students’ satisfaction regarding both user experience and usability perspectives. The redesign process includes positioning of the Moodle blocks according to importance ranking, reducing course page size by using new resource features, structuring session contents uniformly, and adopting features for improved interaction. Surveys conducted during Assistant Professors’ Pedagogical course shows that some of the most useful features in Moodle are not used, and the teachers do not show commitment towards using them. The lack of time to learn and implement, lack of knowledge about students’ perceptions, and absence of related examples of good designs are some of the central reasons for this. Random interviews conducted with students (Humanities, Engineering and Science, and Social Science) during 2013-2017 indicate that student-centred Appendix design of Moodle has not been conducted and most respondents believe that the teacher does not consider students’ perception as important.

This project will create a course in Moodle, which will contain short video training resources and other forms of multimedia content on

• Students’ perceptions and expectations associated with AAU Moodle course design
• Selected and redesigned Moodle courses as examples from each of the four faculties. The selection will be based on students’ suggestions where the study boards will be contacted, and the students will propose one or two courses they find suitable
• Teachers’ expectations of students for effective collaboration through Moodle.
• Furthermore, the course will contain videos demonstrating the use of priority features and explaining pedagogical and didactic factors.

ANSVARLIG

• Rikke Ørngreen, Institut for Læring og Filosofi (HUM), København, rior@learning.aau.dk 

ØVRIGE DELTAGERE

• Rune Nagel Skaarup Jensen, rune@learning.aau.dk Læring og Filosofi
• Brian Moller, brianms@its.aau.dk, IT Services
• Lisbeth Rid Andersen, lisbeth@its.aau.dk, IT Services