Usability testing methods on e-learning environment

Abstract

At the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BUTE) in the Institute of Applied Pedagogy and Psychology (APPI) we started to use Moodle open source course management system in 2006. Formerly we served the curricula by using workbooks, multimedia CD-s, course-books, but due to the fast change of curricula it was a hard task to keep the hard copy of learning materials up-to-date. Later students could download learning materials with the help of using Internet, they could resort to the help of tutors instead of visiting the lessons. Blended-learning method is one of the most effective form from a number of our full-time gradual courses. Today we are using Moodle 1.9 version to support learning and training activities. Nowadays, we use questionnaires to evaluate users´ satisfaction. These deliverances take an important place in the development of the content and appearance of our e-courses and curricula. We implement web usage mining as an appropriate tool for uncovering those parts of the user activiti es that cannot be told by the user personally. With the analysis of the collected web server log files we can track users´ actions and by identifying typical student behaviour and matching these data with the given grades, successful learning strategies can be identified. Our first results show that qualitative and quantitative approach should be used parallel and with the help of data mining methods we can reveal more insights about the quality and usability of e-learning systems as we could before.