Open-distance electronic learning environments: Supervisors' views on usability

Students in the open-distance and electronic learning (ODeL) environment often work in isolation and face challenges in accessing knowledge resources, especially when conducting research. To support these students in succeeding with their studies, the learning management system (LMS) needs to be usable; this implies the attributes of effectiveness, efficiency and user satisfaction. The purpose of this study is to propose usability guidelines specifically focused on the requirements for a learning management system in the context of ODeL honours research projects. The study is novel in exploring the supervisors' view of the usability requirements of the LMS. Based on a pragmatic worldview, this study is guided by the design science research (DSR) methodology. The initial set of usability requirements was abstracted from the literature and used as the basis for the LMS evaluation. Usability testing of the LMS was followed by heuristic evaluation, post-test questionnaire and interviews. All evaluations were done with the supervisors as participants. The contribution of the study is the refined usability guidelines based on the triangulation of the findings from the different usability evaluations conducted on the same ODeL LMS.