Enabling Academics to Effectively Use a Learning Management System during a Global Pandemic

Abstract

Objective - The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic forced higher education institutions to shift to emergency remote teaching which called for lecturers’ learning management system and other online instruction skills to be developed. The issue is that lecturers were forced to work remotely without time to prepare. The purpose of this paper is to propose an online, self-paced short course for lecturers that covered 9 units including; communication tools, video calling, WhatsApp, menu design, learning theory, content creation, online assessment theory, online assessments and the grade centre. Methodology– A mixed-method research design with participant perspectives was implemented to determine the satisfaction of 125 lecturers who completed the intervention. From 79 who completed the questionnaire with open- and closed-ended questions, it was determined that communication and online assessments were the most sought-after skills and 73.42% stated that they felt the course met their expectations. The skills were broken down and participants were asked to rate – in a five-point Likert scale – how well they were now able to perform the tasks. Finding – The results were as follows showing the level four and five (highest) selections; announcements – 83.54%, send email – 81.01%, content editor – 67.08%, build content (files) – 79.75%, build content (images) – 72.15%, build content (videos) – 70.89%, video conferencing – 58.23%, WhatsApp – 82.28%, course menu design – 73.42%, creating a video in PowerPoint – 58.23%, reflection activities – 44.30%, online tests – 50.63%, online assignments – 50.63%, and managing the grade centre – 48.10%. These results showed that the intervention was successful in quickly and effectively preparing lecturers for online delivery. Type of Paper: Empirical. JEL Classification: D83, I23. Keywords: LMS training; e-Learning; Online Instruction; Instructional Design; Blended Learning, Emergency Remote Teaching Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Heerden, L.V. (2020). Enabling Academics to Effectively Use a Learning Management System during a Global Pandemic, GATR Global J. Bus. Soc. Sci. Review, 8(4): 228 – 235. https://doi.org/10.35609/gjbssr.2020.8.4(4)