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CHAPTER 1
PROJECT OVERVIEW
1.1
Introduction
Today millions of dollars are spent over information systems projects and
they are widely spread out across the world, and they are still growing rapidly. For
decision makers, and managers, the success of the systems being used by customers
is an important issue. Information systems are in fact IT-based tools to aid people in
performing a task. Hereafter, the term IS, refers to information system. According to
the short life-span of the IS area, the number of applications that are developed is
almost high and still on the rise. The measurement of information systems success
plays an important role in our perception of the value and efficiency of IS
management actions and IS investments. The more effective the systems are, the
more satisfied customers will be and this success in IS will definitely lead to success
in business and the whole organization.
Organizations can achieve valuable benefits by using IS. Such benefits
include gaining competitive advantage, productivity augment, less time in product
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cycle, automation of operational decision and supporting of strategic and tactical
decisions in addition to the overall impact on organizational forms and management
paradigms (Al- adaileh, 2008). However, gaining all this valuable benefits is highly
depended on the success of ISs which is the core focus of this study. Different forms
of IS exist such as entertainment, developed for pleasure and entertainment like
games, to utilitarian, that are developed to improve individual and organizational
performance (van der Heijden, 2004). Organizations focus on developing, using, and
evaluating the second form which is utilitarian IS.
To know whether our systems are successful or not, a success measurement
test needs to be conducted. Many IS success models have been designed and
implemented to evaluate the success in IS. Different IS success models have
considered different aspects of IS. Many factors affect IS success. Some of them are
technology-related factors and, some are human-related ones. The influences of IT
are sometimes indirect and affected by people, organizational, and environmental
factors; thus, measurement of information systems success is both complex and
important. In this research both technology and people are going to be considered as
important factors of IS success.
In this research, as mentioned in the title the researcher will try to measure
the success of e-learning system running in UTM. E-learning is a type of information
system that mixes few variant technical and social entities in itself. In this research
several models will be chosen which have been proved efficient in measuring IS
success and will cover different factors of different models. Then the researcher will
try to come up with various factors of success related to e-learning system and will
get help from past researches and observations, to find the best factors, Then by
distributing the questionnaires among UTM international Master’s students will start
the analysis. By scoring different factors we will know in which areas UTM needs to
make improvements. At the end by using statistical methods the results will be
validated so that it can be used as a valid instrument for measuring e-learning system
success.
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1.2
Background of Problem
Today many web services systems can be found on diverse universities
portals, and as the services are growing more, the importance of measuring their
success is becoming an important issue for the university directors and IS department
staff so that they can get the most out of the web systems and to make accessing
information easy for students and staff. Offering more services and the ease of access
is considered as a significant factor for today’s academic environments. It will also
lead the university towards making more profit
by
reducing the number of
personnel , reducing the time of transactions , increasing the velocity of works done
and reducing the waste in utilizing the resources. As an example, the electronic
learning system will give the university the opportunity of reducing time and cost in
training students or e-learners. As mentioned above, services and success of them are
important factors in today’s academic environments but, what can be called an
effective e-learning system and in the other words how the service can be considered
as a successful one. Can we just offer a service and call it an effective service
system?
Once, just building and implementing systems and, their suitable
infrastructures was the core of focus but, today the focus is on evaluating the success
in amount of the systems usage. In this research the researcher is going to measure
the success of e-learning system and come up with a multi-item instrument that may
describe the best instrument in order to measure the success of e-learning system in
UTM. Searching for the success factors in this service is what will be done, through
this research. To summarize, three problems existing today in UTM can be
mentioned.
i. Quite sometimes has passed from running e-learning in UTM, but a success
measurement has not been conducted for e-learning Master’s students.
ii. Identification of success factors has not been done.
iii. A validated tool does not exist for evaluating e-learning system in UTM.
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1.3
Problem Statement
As mentioned previously, the success of information systems is a big concern
for organizations. That is why the evaluation of IS success leads to increase in the
rate of success in future ISs developments. Since today the organizations are based
on customers’ needs, their perspective can determine whether the information system
is successful As the ISs are mainly implemented to help with users’ ability to
perform better and produce more. By developing a test to verify the success of elearning, this study will attempt to target this important goal. In order to target this
end the following problems can be mentioned.
What are the factors of success in e-learning system?
What is the appropriate model for measuring success in UTM?
How to measure the success of e-learning system in UTM?
1.4
Project Objectives
The goal of this study is to evaluate or measure the success of e-learning
system as a type of information system in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia as the case
study. To reach this end, and also to overcome the problems mentioned in section
1.3, the following objectives have been proposed.
1.
To find the factors of success regarding e-learning system.
2.
To analyze various models and coming up with an appropriate model.
3.
To measure the success of e-learning system in UTM.
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1.5
Scope
The organization to be used as the case study will be UTM as a public IHL
(institute of higher learning). The e-learning system of the university will be the IS
application which will be measured in terms of success.UTM international Master’s
students will be used as survey population.
1.6
Project Importance
Today e-learning systems are having an exquisite impact over the success of
academic environments by reducing the costs and time of training students, by
providing an integrated place where students can have access to it for finding their
desired materials and to share the knowledge properly among the students and the
lecturers. The more effective our e-learning system is, the more students will be
motivated to use the system and all this will lead to the success of whole organization
by producing knowledge students and creating knowledge. In the end it will help
UTM reach its goal which is producing creative and innovative students.
According to Laudon & Laudon (2006), “there are a number of factors that
can further increase the importance of ISs nowadays including; the intense use of
internet and communication technologies, transformation of business enterprise due
to technology forces, globalization of business and huge opportunities on the
international level, rise of information and knowledge economy, and the emergence
of the digital firm where almost all business relationships are digitally enabled.”
Thus, the importance of the project can be mentioned as benefits for:
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i.
Students :
By having a successful e-learning system, students will easily find what they
are looking for and this will also let others who are interested in applying for the
university know how effective the systems in UTM are.
ii. Lecturers :
The university lecturers can easily have access to the past and others’
materials and by having an integrated knowledge environment they can easily
interact with students and other lecturers.
iii. University Directors :
This can be considered as a competitive advantage to attract more students to
their academic environment and gain more profit. Besides, this will lead them
towards cutting down costs and time.
1.7
Summary
In this chapter, the main ideas of this research were explained. Main purpose
of this research is determining the most important factors that help UTM e-learning
system reach its desired success and efficiency. The question is “What constitutes elearning system quality or what makes an e-learning system successful?” Without
answering this question we are likely to continue, wasting time and money creating
some sites that are winners and many that are losers. Overview, problem background,
problem statement, objectives, scope and significant of this project were presented in
this chapter.
By having an overview, the researcher will focus on literature reviews related
to this research in the next chapter. This project is organized as follows: in chapter 2,
theories and previous studies related to this project are developed, in chapter 3,
methodologies are brought up and the road map of survey is explained. Chapter 4,
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presentation of the data that is gathered through surveys and its analysis will be done,
and the research will be finalized by conclusion and future studies in chapter 5.