Virtual Campus failure in Sri Lanka

Virtual Campus failure in Sri Lanka

Introduction

ABC Virtual Campus is a web-based portal developed by ABC institute to offer wide range of educational resources and features for students’ convenience. This system is developed for the purposes of enabling students to download study and course work materials, collect exam entry cards, view evaluation feedbacks and results, important messages and discussion forums. In simple terms, it is a student centric web portal enabling students’ learning process easy and faster. Students who are enrolled in the institute are provided with the access to the modules that are elected by them and eighteen types of service options are provided under each module. Viewing reports, online markers, academic corner, instant messenger, student admission, notice board, exam corner, book list and lecturer resources corner are some access options that are provided.

 This is a platform for managing, tracking, promoting and sharing information with easy to use on-line tools that aims to connect the campus community 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This Virtual campus is globally accessed by students whereas the utilization has been identified as very minimal. This assignment focuses on the reasons for such minimum level of utilization of portal and suggestions for overcoming the difficulties with reference to the Actor Network Theory (ANT). The actors of the ABC virtual campus are the portal administrator, lecturers and student service employees. Students are the other actors of this network. The non-human factor involved is the ABC virtual Campus. Reasons for failure of the ABC virtual Campus The following are identified as technical difficulties faced by the portal administrators in using ABC virtual campus, Difficulties in handling bulk data simultaneously This is a MySQL-driven database system in which bulk data cannot be handled simultaneously. During the situations of data overflow, this system becomes idle and loses its functioning ability. Difficulties in load balancing When multiple users are logged on to the portal, load of the data is not balanced effectively and the data processing speed is decreased. Hence users are reluctant to access the system for their information requirements.

Hence addition or editing cannot be done easily through web. No centralized administrative privileges Though administrator has the authority to update and handle the portal, he/she is not provided with access to all options in the portal. For example, students are provided with some options which cannot be seen under the administrator’s access list. The following are identified as the hurdles for lecturers and student services employees to utilize ABC virtual campus in an optimum level,

No notification system for student registrations

When a case file of a student’s registration is opened locally by the student services and processed for registrations, no any notifications are sent denoting the completion of student registration process that takes considerable amount of time. However, the relevant student is notified about the completion of registration process. No method to record student attendance to the online system There is no any systemic way to record the student access information and attendance for the online sessions.

Therefore, the confirmation on students’ utilization of the information shared and the participation cannot be measured quantitatively. The following are identified as the reasons from the student’s end for not using the web portal for their learning purposes,

Not a multi-lingual platform

Though this system is accessed globally by students from different region, it does not have other language options apart from English. No real time online group chat facility The system consists of information sharing platform as “White boards”, however it is not quick and effective like real time chat. Students highly prefer real time communication platform for them to share their thoughts and sort out their issues. Lack of fluency in web-based learning process The undergraduate students are lacking of fluency and confident in using an information system for their learning purposes. Also, only an initial level of introductory session is conducted to the students in accessing the portal, whereas no any discussion and problem solving forums are conduct in-person once the students start using it. Students who are adopted to class-room teaching and in-person information sharing practices lacking of confidence in getting maximum information from it.

 They still depend on in-person announcements related to their assignments, exams and results. Complex interface of the system The content of the system is not arranged in an order where all types of relevant and irrelevant menus are visible for all types of users. The scattered nature of icons and improper partition of menu mislead the users to access the required destination.

No feedback, notification and acknowledgement process in the system Feedback of the users cannot be tracked in the system. Also no any notifying mechanism is implemented for users to be informed on the updates of the system. This leads to situations such as students need to be informed via other media about the update in the system.

 Overcoming the failure using ANT This part of the report provides suggestions for solving above mentioned difficulties in handling the ABC Virtual campus system in view of the ANT. In the problematization stage, the actants of this system needs to be identified prior to development of the system. i.e, the users of this system such as student service employees, system administrators, lecturers and students need to be identified and the purpose of developing the system needs to be shared with them. The expected benefit of the technological improvement needs to be communicated to all users of the system. When the need for developing and implementing the system and expected outcomes is clearly defined, the important features and structure of the system can be planned. The requirements, needs and interests of all students, lecturers, administrators and student services employees needs to be discussed and identified to define the features of the system. The interconnection between the features used by all parties need to be identified. For example, student performance information access needs to be provided to lectures and students. Administrator should have the access to all privileges which is facilitated for students.

 The link between students and student services, students and lecturers, student services and lecturers, and administrator and all other actants need to be satisfied in the system. In the intersegments stage, the interest and confident to deal with the system for learning purposes need to be developed among the students. The convenience and flexibility of using the system needs to be felt by the lecturers, students and students’ services employees. The purpose of existence of the system, which is acting as a hub connecting all actants for information sharing purposes needs to be felt and realized by all users. Various levels of audience-targeted training needs to be provided for all types of users. This will help users to get better understanding about the system and share their issues in dealing with the system. In the enrolment stage, interdependency among students, lecturers, and students’ services need to be developed via the system.

The skills to handle the obstacles in using the system needs to be improved. In the mobilization of allies stage, the real purpose of every actant needs to be served by the system. i.e, Students, lecturers and students’ services should satisfy their learning, information sharing, and communication needs via the system. Further, improvements and enhancements that could be done to upgrade the functionality of the system needs to be suggested by the users. Conclusion in the problemitization stage, the appropriate Database Management System (DBMS) that solves the bulk data and data balancing issues has to be chosen. Expectations of the students, lecturers, students’ services need to be discussed and listed. Serious attention needs to be paid on providing access authorities to all parties and the administrator should be informed about the access authorities of all the other users.

The interconnection between all users’ needs to be identified and linked. In the intersegments stage, customized and common training needs to be provided to all types of users. Real-time online chat mechanism need to be implemented to make the users get maximum benefits from the system and to create the interdependency in the enrolment stage. When the users are comfortable in using the system and the objective of implementing the system is achieved, students, lecturers and student services will make suggestions for further development of the system. If the ABC virtual campus is developed and executed accordingly, it could have been an effective learning system which serves the needs of students, lecturers and students’ services.