An Online Resource Repository for Training Faculty in Laulima: An Organization and Collaboration of Resources

Abstract

Online Course Management Systems (CMS) have become one of the most popular technologies in teaching and learning today. The University of Hawaii has recently adopted an open source CMS and created a customized version for the University called Laulima. Many campuses in the University of Hawaii System (UH) are duplicating efforts by individually developing resources and employing staff to support faculty use of Laulima. A needs analysis conducted by the author regarding faculty use of Laulima revealed difficulty in accessibility of resources, resource availability, redundancy of resource materials developed by multiple campuses, and the need for self-paced support that can be used after introductory workshops or instead of the lengthy workshops. The purpose of this project was to design, develop and evaluate the usability of an online repository of Laulima tutorials developed at multiple UH campuses and made available to faculty throughout the UH system. Faculty throughout the UH system will have access to the repository through the course management system Laulima and specified staff editors from participating UH campuses will be able to edit and upload the files and tutorials to the online repository. Faculty users, staff editors and Educational Technology graduate students learning how to design an online course using course management systems from the participating campuses evaluated the usability of the centralized online resource repository for a period of ten days. Evaluation data was collected via online surveys and the results indicated the interests of participants and the success of the idea of a centralized online repository. Findings are expected to be of significance to those interested in or developing centralized online collaborative systems.