Increasing Learning Management System Adoption in Saudi Arabia - Case Study Example

5.5 Recommendations Based on the results of this study, there are a number of things that need to be done to increase learning management system adoption by female academic staff in Saudi Arabian universities. Emphasis should be put on increasing enablers to the use of LMS while reducing barriers or reasons that hinder the use of LMS by faculty members. Therefore, a number of recommendations made as discussed below. To promote the use of LMSs such as Blackboard, there is need to enhance institutional factors such as training and providing support to academic staff members and students with respect to the use of the LMS. The study found that younger female academic members (age range of 26-30 years), mostly those teaching courses in the humanities, are the ones who had the least usage of Blackboard. Some of the younger members of faculty were not using Blackboard in any of the courses that they teach, while very few were using Blackboard in most or all of the courses that they teach. The younger participants are also the group that had the lowest educational qualification (bachelor’s degree or lower). The younger participants also had the shortest periods of teaching experience as well as use of Blackboard (less than two years). Therefore, the training for members of faculty should primarily target the younger staff members who have little experience in using Blackboard or any other LMS. This is because it was shown in the study that faculty members with higher academic qualifications (master’s degree or higher) were using Blackboard more in their teaching (Table 10). Training the younger members of faculty would make them acquire the skills that are required to effectively use LMS and thus make the use of technology part of their culture as they gain more teaching experience and pursue further studies. This is in line with the point that training of staff is necessary to ensure that the technology that is available is used effectively (Albidewi & Tulb, 2014), and that after training, faculty members can integrate LMS in their work more easily (Wichadee, 2015). In addition, many participants were of the view that Blackboard is a good thing because of its many uses, but their ability to use it was limited because of lack of training. The same applies to students, some of whom a section of the participants (female academics) noted were not providing the required support to effectively use Blackboard. Therefore, training both the members of faculty and students on the use of Blackboard would ensure that the LMS is used more effectively since awareness about the usage of the system is required from academics and students (Albidewi & Tulb, 2014; Al-Shehri 2010). Institutional support is also required in terms of providing resources and incentives such as the required facilities and supporting students to ensure that their needs with respect to the use of technology are met. This is important for building confidence among both faculty members and students (Al-Harbi, 2011). Providing and improving technological infrastructure that supports the use of LMS is also critical in encouraging the use of technology. Although lack of technological infrastructure to support the use of LMS was not identified as a major concern for most of the participants in this study, other recent studies done in Saudi Arabia (e.g. AlMegren & Yassin, 2013; Al-Shehri, 2010) and elsewhere (e.g. Venter et al., 2012) have suggested that many universities lack the infrastructure to support elearning. Along the same line, some participants in the current study were concerned that there was need to increase the number of computer laboratories and enhance the available technological infrastructure. Therefore, developing the required infrastructure in universities and other institutions of higher learning will a go a long way in ensuring that more faculty members and female ones in particular can use elearning technologies like Blackboard. More importantly, there is need to identify barriers such as poor network infrastructure and lack of necessary technological infrastructure and address them as noted above to ensure that female academic staff and their students have seamless access to the required technologies. It is also important to promote positive attitudes among academic staff by providing incentives that help in making them see the benefits of using technology. Since it was noted that younger academics (ages 26-30 years) who have lower academic qualifications as well as those who teach humanities courses are the ones who use Blackboard the least, there is need to focus on motivating the aforementioned groups of academics to use LMS. That is, making the younger female academic staff and those who teach courses in areas such as humanities realise that using technology is important for the future of higher education in Saudi Arabia is critical in ensuring that there is an increase in the adoption of LMS. As was noted in the previous sections, generally, participants who do not use Blackboard perceive more barriers that emanate from issues such as lack of adequate qualifications to use the LMS and lack of support. Therefore, emphasis needs to be put on ensuring that even those faculty members who are still young and do not have long experience in using Blackboard have the opportunity to use the LMS more. This can be achieved through provision of technical support as well as peer support. In addition, the benefits of using LMS should be made clear; for instance, by making faculty members understand that the use of LMS opens up more opportunities and helps improve student learning. Providing assurance on the benefits or usefulness of Blackboard and support from the management will ensure that faculty members have positive attitudes towards the use of LMS (Asiri et al., 2012; Wichadee, 2015). It is equally important to ensure that students, especially those taking humanity-related courses, have access to technology and develop positive attitudes among them towards using technology since student acceptance of technology is an important factor that can assist in the use of LMSs among students and lecturers. It was noted in the study that one of the factors that enable the use of elearning technology, Blackboard in particular, is the fact that technology helps improve how students learn, enhances interactions among students and between students and lecturers, and improves access by students to learning materials. As well, students are one of the external factors that affect the extent to which members of faculty can use learning management systems in their work. Specifically, students play a key role in the adoption of elearning given that they are the main recipients of the information that is delivered via such systems. In the current study, paying attention to how students contribute to the adoption of LMS by female academic staff is particularly important because not all participants responded positively to the statement “I feel there is adequate student support to use Blackboard effectively”. What this means is that because of a number of reasons, the academics felt that students were not able to support the use of Blackboard as effectively as they would have expected. Some of the reasons include issues such as attitudinal barriers to the use of elearning technologies, which include lack of faith in the technology and how it helps students, as well as concerns regarding student access to the technology (Fathema et al., 2015). Also, of key importance is the fact that students have different attitudes towards technology, and have different levels of experience in using elearning technologies or related technologies. Concerns related to students and how they use technology include student approval of the technology, ease of access of the technology to students, as well as students’ attitudes and perceptions towards the value and perceived ease of use of the technology (Barczyk et al., 2012; Fathema et al. 2015; Logan & Neumann, 2010). Some students have access to technology more than others in terms of access to or possession of computers, software and Internet services (Alfahad, 2012). This means that some students will have prior experience in using certain technologies while others may lack such experience. Students who lack previous experience or knowledge in the use LMS of or face barriers in regard to accessing the elearning technology are less likely to easily adopt the use of LMS (Barczyk et al., 2012; Nasser et al., 2011). Therefore, there is need to recognise the differences that exist between different students in regard to how the students relate with technology in order to ensure that these differences are used to enhance students’ experience with elearning technology. To start with, there is need to identify the students that have much exposure to different computer-related technologies since such students can play an important role in helping other students who do not have previous exposure to these technologies through the use of peer groups among the students. As well, it is important to assess what students need in regard to the use of technology. What this means is that students’ needs have to be aligned with the needs of their lecturers as well as the overall objectives of using the learning management systems. For instance, the LMS needs to make it possible for students and members of faculty to share their experiences in regard to the use of LMS. The views expressed in such discussions are important for stimulating effective learning outcomes (O’Neill et al., 2004) and hence more use of the technology. The views expressed then need to be incorporated in any improvements that are made to the technology in the present time or in the future. Since it was found that some of the participants were of the view that their universities did not have policies that support the use of LMS, it is important for universities to inculcate the use of technology in their policies so as to reduce this barrier. In the survey findings, only 10.5% of the participants agreed with the statement that “I feel the university has a clear Blackboard policy” while 37.8% of them felt that their university did not have a clear policy regarding the use of Blackboard. Overall, statements suggesting that the universities either did not have sufficient infrastructure or lacked adequate policies to facilitate the effective use of Blackboard were made by participants across different age groups in this study. Similarly, in literature, it has been noted that factors such as lack of professional programmes to support or promote the use of technology, inadequate staff development programmes regarding the use of technology, and lack of policy and administrative support hinder the adoption and use of learning management systems (Asiri et al. 2012; Fathema et al. 2015). What this means is that lack of clear policies to guide the adoption and use of Blackboard and other learning management systems is an issue that institutions of higher learning need to look into to promote the use of technology by their academic staff members. Therefore, it is recommended that universities and other higher learning institutions should come up with policies in various areas as follows. First are policies that define how elearning technologies are designed or acquired and implemented. This will ensure that the elearning technology that an institution uses is implemented with the needs of the institution as a whole in mind. Secondly, there is need to ensure that the course content that is to be used is designed in a way that makes it user-friendly with respect to both faculty members and students. Along this line, institutions of higher learning need to identify how their course content fits with the LMS. Based on the SAMR model, a learning management system can be used to substitute, augment, modify, or redefine the manner in which a course is delivered to students (Puentedura, 2006 – cited by Phillips, 2015). Therefore, higher learning institutions should have clear policies to guide what is to be achieved by the LMS. Finally, institutions of higher learning should ensure that faculty members and students are familiar with the usage guidelines of the technology that is adopted. This is because academic staff and students can only be motivated to use a technology in large numbers if they understand how the technology works and if they are conversant with the ethical issues that pertain to the use of the technology. Read More