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THE DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A LEARNING

MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

Article · November 2014

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International Journal of Advance Research, IJOAR .org

Volume 2, Issue 11, November 2014, Online: ISSN 2320-9194

THE DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A LEARNING

MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
Awodele Oludele, Onuiri E. Ernest, Agboola A. Ifetayo, Bot M. David and Chukwuemeka
K. Chinazom
Department of Computer Science, Babcock University, Ilishan-Remo, Ogun State; Nigeria
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] &
[email protected]

KEYWORDS

Real Time-Access, Learning Management System (LMS), Communication, Content Management, Students, Learning
Environment, Education

ABSTRACT

Learning is the act of acquiring knowledge or skill through study. In order to survive in this ever evolving universe, one
is expected to acquire various survival skills and thus improve himself to become a better individual. There is the need
for every child to be educated. It has been realized that learning can be more fun and of greater value outside the
traditional four walls of a classroom. With software such as the Learning Management System (LMS), students can
now acquire knowledge in the comfort of their rooms, places of residence and other locations of convenience. Major
problems encountered by students involve inaccessibility to course materials and the lecturers. Our main objective is
to provide an easier platform for student-lecturer relationship and easy dissemination of information by the creation
of LMS software. The Agile software methodology was employed in the development process. This is because it
provides visible results for quick iteration and advancement of the system. We discovered that creating an LMS can
be quite challenging because it requires time to transform our ideas into reality with effective use of proper tools for
the software development. It is indeed an excellent method of impacting knowledge and should be implemented in
all Nigerian institutions of higher learning.

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Introduction

The twenty-first century is characterized with people living on the fast lane. The daily struggle is to get
much work done with little hassles. This can be seen in the manufacturing industry where on a yearly
basis (or shorter time frame) new and improved automobiles and mobile phones are created. What is
termed “new” becomes obsolete. The education sector hasn’t been left out. There is the constant need to
keep up with varied forms of learning best suited to different categories of students that pass through the
education system. LMS has its roots in the term, Integrated Learning System (ILS) which offers
functionality beyond instructional content such as management and tracking, personalized instruction
and integration across the system [1]. The term ILS was thought up by Jostens Learning, and LMS was
originally used to describe the management component system of the PLATO K-12 learning system. It was
content-free and separate from courseware [2]. LMS is a general term that is used for a wide range of
systems that organize and provide access to online learning services for students, teachers, and
administrators. These services usually include access control, provision of learning content,
communication tools and organizations of user groups [3]. In addition, observation has shown that
students do not have access to course materials. They prefer to search online than spend countless hours
at the library searching for related books. Students also experience missing grades and assignments due
to absence of records for those who submitted.

Lastly, students lack accessibility to lecturers and also have limited time for completion of coursework.
This is due to the bulky course load and limited time to consult lecturers. Consequently, this research
provides real-time access to lecturers/students and course materials through the use of online chats and
forums. It also provides easy dissemination of information to students via announcements and posts
online as well as ensure prompt submission of projects and assignments for effective grading and
assessment. Our scope places emphasis on three end-users which are the students, lecturers and the
administrator of the system. The students will have access to course materials which can be downloaded,
viewed or read online. The lecturers are responsible for course management. This involves uploading
course materials for students and grading for assignments or projects. The administrator manages the
content of the whole system. He can add or remove courses, lecturers or students. He has access to the
database.

Review of Closely Related Works

Over the years, the rapid growth of the internet empowered institutions to pioneer the development of
web-based e-learning content libraries. These included training in project management, team
development and leadership. Once companies became aware of the potential for technology-based
learning delivered via the internet, the market place welcomed a new class of systems: LMSs. LMSs enable
institutions to plan and follow up the learning needs and accomplishment of users. Examples of well-
known LMSs are Moodle, Sakai and Blackboard.

Blackboard is a proprietary software developed in 1997 by the co-founders of Blackboard Inc., Michael
Chasen and Matthew Pittinsky. This web-based server software features customizable open architecture,
course management and scalable design that allow integration with student information systems and
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authentication protocols. It has quite a number of features such as announcements, discussions, chats,
mail, course content, calendar, learning modules, assessment, assignment, grade books and media library
[4].

Its major benefits are increased availability, quick feedback, tracking, improved communication and skilled
building. Some of its weaknesses are the fact that it is costly, hard to learn and it limits creativity because
it is a licensed software [5]. The login page is shown below:

Figure 1: Blackboard login page [5].

Another LMS taken into consideration is Sakai. It was funded by a Mellon Foundation grant, Sakai was
built by a consortium of five large U.S universities, including Michigan, Stanford, MIT, UC Berkeley, and
Indiana institution. Sakai was released to the public in 2005 and is managed today by the Sakai
foundation, which oversees its development and project roadmap. The application is programmed in Java
and designed to be a service-oriented application suite. Some features include document distribution, a
grade book, discussion, live chat, assignment uploads and online testing. In addition to the course
management features, Sakai is intended as a collaborative tool for research and group projects [6].

Conversely, Sakai’s critics point out that it lacks comprehensive competency profiling and management,
which makes it unsuitable for large enterprise environments. It can also be challenging to integrate Sakai
with other enterprise software systems, such as talent management, HR software suites and ERP
solutions. Sakai’s greater complexity also makes it more challenging to install and set up than other LMSs
like Moodle. This makes it less suitable for simple, rapid deployment projects that require an LMS [7].

Moodle, on the other hand, is an open source software that stands for Modular Object Oriented Dynamic
Learning Environment. It is one of the most widely used LMSs with over 43 million registered users. It lets
teachers, trainers and administrators manage online learning and training. Some of its features include
assignment submission, discussion forums, files download, grading, instant messaging, online calendar,
online news, announcements (College and course level) and online quizzes [6]. The figure below shows
what a Moodle log in page look like:
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Figure 2: Moodle’s login page [8]

There are five basic modules that support assessment and grade evaluation in Moodle. These are the
Assignment, Quiz, Survey, Workshop and Choice Modules. Other Modules that indirectly support
assessment are the Forum and the Journal Modules.

In the assignment module, lecturers can set various assignments and due dates. The students are then
permitted to upload their assignments in specified formats (.pdf, .txt, .ppt, etc.)Late submissions are not

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allowed. Here’s what the assignment editing page looks like:

Figure 3: Moodle’s assignment editing page [8]

In the quiz module, lecturers could choose to set time limits and offer variety such as multichoice
questions, short-answers, true/false questions and many more. The quizzes could have functionalities
such as immediate grading and multiple attempts on questions. Below illustrates the quiz editing screen
in Moodle:

Figure 4: Moodle’s quiz editing page *8+

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Major benefits of Moodle are that it is easy to run, administer and maintain due to the fact that it is free.
Despite these amazing benefits, some users are that Moodle relies on third-party add-ons to create
functionality rather than including it as part of the core product. Though Moodle is free to acquire and
use, administration and maintenance costs are often more significant than purchase [9].

Generally, learning management systems incorporate the use of content management and virtual
learning environments. Hence, information can be disseminated to multiple users at the same time via
the internet. A major limitation is that most LMSs do not consider the individual differences of learners.
Recently, increasing attention is paid to characteristics such as learning styles, their impact on learning
and how these individual characteristics can be supported by learning systems [10]. In relation to our own
software, we would incorporate the core features of Sakai, Blackboard and Moodle and optimize them for
use in Babcock University which is our case study.

Methodology

The agile software development methodology was employed in the development process. This is because
it allows for visible results quickly and for quick iteration and advancement of the system [11] [12].

Features of the proposed system are the home page, the administrator login page, lecturer login page,
contact page, help page, register student page, register instructor page, update instructor/student page,
view instructor page and view student page; also security, delivery, interaction, reporting and record
keeping will be put into place. The system will require the user to login to have access to the website to
do the following tasks: view and download course materials, upload files, projects and other materials for
people to see and also interact through live chats and discussion forums. Also the LMS will allow
instructors to upload videos that will be viewed and downloaded. All users will not be allowed to login
simultaneously on multiple systems.

The hardware and software requirements are that there must be good internet connection, minimum
RAM of 512MB and 1.5GHz processor speed for any user to have access to the LMS. Also, it will work with
any operating system with an installed web browser but the web browser must meet the following
specifications, Java runtime environment 1.4, Java script pop-ups and cookies set to enable.

The system will be designed and structured to cut down the level of disjointedness and ease the learning
process. Most of the time, there is break in the flow of study and information gathering because the
student has to leave his/her current study location to look for the lecturer or get to the library to retrieve
extra needed information.

A mailing and real-time support will make it possible for a student to contact a lecturer or other students
instantaneously from his/her very location, thus keeping the study session active and continuous. This will
make the assimilation level higher since there are no breaks in communication. Course materials will also
be made available for easy accessibility.

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The system design will be structured with a mass communication section. This is to ensure easy
dissemination of information to the entire student body. Also, upcoming events can be posted on the LMS
to effectively notify the university community of scheduled events. Online forums would also be made
available for academic discussions.

This LMS is indeed very feasible as it provides a larger avenue for learning in addition to rapid delivery of
learning content on a scalable web-based platform.

Once tested and implemented, the LMS would be updated and maintained at regular intervals.

Design Tools

1. Use Case Diagram: A use case is described in terms of a sequence of interactions between some
actors and the system by which the system provide a service to the actors. Each use case then
captures a piece of functional requirements for some users. All the use cases together describe
the overall functional requirements of the system. The first step in requirements capture is to
capture requirements as use cases. We have three use case diagrams for the lecturer,
administrator and the student.

signup

Log in

Set quiz

Upload Course material

Start trend

View trend

Lecturer Log out

Figure 5 Lecturer USE Case diagram

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Sign up

Log in

Submit assignment

Take quiz/ examination

Start trend

View trend
Student
Log out

Figure 6: Student USE Case Diagram

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Log in

Edit user details

Upload Courses

Log out
Admin

Figure 7: Admin USE Case Diagram

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Entity Relationship and Relational Schema for the Proposed System

Figure 8: Entity relationship diagram for the LMS

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Figure 8 displays the relationships between each entity in the LMS database. For example, the lecturers
and the students have a many to many relationship as many students have access to many lecturers.

Hardware and Software Requirements

This entails the hardware and software required to run on this application (LMS). The LMS uses server
resources in an efficient and intelligent manner it can support thousands of users. The LMS requires:

Hardware Requirements

i. An intranet connection
ii. Processor 2.5 GHz
iii. 1014 MB RAM

Software Requirements:

i. Database Server
ii. Windows Server 2008, Windows 2003 Server or Windows 2000 Server.
iii. SQL Server 2008, SQL Server 2005 or SQL Server 2000 - you can also use SQL Server Express
iv. Client and Browser
v. Operating system of any kind (Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, Linux)
vi. Web browser (Safari, Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Opera) must include Java
Runtime Environment 1.4 or higher and also JavaScript Pop-ups are enabled Cookies are enabled,
Java is installed, up-to-date and AJAX enabled; lastly Pop-Up blocking disabled.

System Implementation and Testing

In the course of building this system information concerning the database creation and entity
relationships involved was gathered. In addition, cues were taken from the creators of Moodle and
Blackboard learning management systems. Programming tools in used were HTML (Hypertext Markup
Language), PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) and JavaScript.

In order to identify potential defects and malfunctions, the software was subjected to various forms of
testing:

1. Database testing: Our LMS database is made up of 16 tables and each table contains the name of
the fields, data types, sizes and other constraints that define the table. Below are a few
screenshots of each table along with a brief explanation:

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Figure 9: Admin Table

Figure 9 shows the admin table and this contains the login details of all those authorized to
access the admin section of the website. The table keeps track of the admin_id, username and
password of each system administrator.

Figure 10: Assignment table

Figure 10 is the assignment table and this records the assignmentId, assignmentCode and
lecturerId. The table keeps each assignment unique and provides a link to the lecturer table,
identifying the lecturer that posts an assignment.

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Figure 11: AssignmentTable Table

Figure 11 is the assignmentTable table and it keeps track of the solution files that students
upload for assignments given based on the assignment code.

2. System Testing: System testing involves integrating one or more components system functions
or features and then testing the consequent integrated system. It is in two major phases:
a. Integration testing: This involves building a system from its components and testing the
resultant system for problems that arise from components interaction. Integration testing is
mostly concerned with finding defects in the entire system. We shall consider the
administrator page for this test. The administrator is responsible for:
i. Adding course code and course title.
ii. Adding levels
iii. Editing student and lecturer pages

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Figure 12: The Administrator Option for Adding Course Codes and Titles.

Figure 12 above reveals the interface for adding course codes and titles. The administrator enters
new courses and assigns course codes to them as well. This newly added course is then stored in
the LMS database.

Figure 13: A course has been added successfully

Figure 13 shows that once the course addition process has been completed without any errors,
the system sends a notification that the new course has been added successfully.

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Figure 14: An Error Message The Course Already Exists.

As seen in Figure 14, the system sends an error message because the stated course already exists
in the database. Thus, duplication has been checked.
Once the test has been carried out on this page after integration and it passes all tests, then we
would proceed to the next testing phase. Testing on these modules would verify that only
registered students and staffs would be able to sign in and out later on. Another test is to ensure
the functional and non-functional requirements for these pages have been met successfully.

b. Release Testing: This involves testing a version of the system that would be released to
users.

Risk Identification and Management

A risk is the possibility of an undesired event occurring. As illustrated in Table 1, risk mitigation,
monitoring and management (RMMM) refers to the solution put to correct the risk at hand. A good
RMMM should try to avoid the risk, monitor and also manage it.

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Table 1: Risk Mitigation, Monitoring & Management.
Risk Risk Impact Risk Probability RMMM
Component Category
Project members were
The technology Schedule risk Marginal Project risk 60% put under tight
to be used for schedule to learn and
the project is Technical implement the
new to most risk technology after class
members of the hours.
group.

Deadline for Performance Project risk More attention would

project risk Critical 40% be put towards building
submission will Technical the application.
be tightened. Schedule risk risk

Business risk

Discussion of Results
During the course of this research it was realized that building an LMS is a rigorous task. Consequently, a
system that will provide real-time access to lecturers/students and course materials, announcement of
information and dates relating to the learning process across to a larger percentage of the student
population was developed.

Furthermore, this research project advocates the importance of simple and yet attractive design. The
design allows users to easily navigate the site and carry out tasks with minimal hindrances. An attractive
layout also ensures that the user does not get bored while using the system.

In addition, the quiz component of the LMS provides a faster way of handling large classes. It leaves no
room for mistakes with respect to students not writing down the appropriate question or missing
something the lecturer said. The system also eradicates the commotion that arises when it is time for
submission of quizzes taken.

Recommendations
The LMS meets a lot of expectations but would perform better if the following recommendations and
suggestions are considered;
i. System testing and maintenance should be performed regularly to avoid sudden system failures.
ii. Updates and other modifications should be introduced with prior notice to users.
iii. A course administrator should be employed that can manage the interactions between lecturers,
students and administrators on one side and technicians on the other. This will aid ensure that
proper support is provided for the system.

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References

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