Assignment 1:Online Social Community

Online Social Community
SEO CHAI YONG
orange.988@hotmail.com
And
LIEW XIAO CHIU
lchiux@hotmail.com

_______________________________________________________________________

This research investigates online social community become the emerging trends among UMS students and to compare how survival LMS in UMS among the popular social networking websites. There have some challenges that also have been faced by the online social community in nowadays.

Categories and Subject Descriptors: [Multimedia]: Mathematical Software - User Interfaces; [Computing Milieux]: Computers and Education
General Terms: Design, Questionnaires, Statistical data
Additional Key Words and Phrases: Online social community, survival LMS, challenge, improvement, feature, usage, policies


1. INTRODUCTION

Online social community research has been devoted to determine that it has really taken off over the last few years and can be great way to promote a new venture. Facebook is probably one example of the biggest of these around at the moment. The function of online social community can allow the visitors to post comments, offering support, money, advice and information. They can also “get involve” by telling people about the plan through the online social community and voting to support it and signing up for progress updates. The most important online social community in nowadays also becomes the emerging trends among UMS students such as LMS. The function of LMS is easily allowing communication between lecturer and students in UMS. Besides that, the lecturer also will post the information on the LMS which can allow students to download it and it also brings more convenient to the students.

The research presented in this paper addresses the following questions arising in the preceding discussion:
1. How can survival LMS among the popular social networking websites?
2. What is the challenge of online social community and LMS in UMS?
3. How to improve the LMS of features, usage, policies and etc?




This research was supported by questionnaire that has done by the UMS students.
Authors' addresses: Author 1, The Universiti Malaysia Sabah, 88450; Author 2, The Universiti Malaysia Sabah, 88450
Analysis and gather information from interviews session among the UMS students and statistical data by using own designed questionnaire.

2. PRIMARY HEAD


(1)
Nowadays, social media has change. People are more and more depend on the technology. Hence, online social networking has become a popular trend in the world today. Learning Management System (LMS) website is an online social networking website used by Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS). LMS also known as SmartUMS which is designed as a medium for the university to help to carry out the P&P in UMS .The slogan of LMS website is to provide a one-stop borderless experience for the users.

LMS website is aimed for students and lecturers of Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) to use only. It is not open for public. Compare to other popular online social networking website that open for public used like Friendster, Facebook and etc, the target of community that joined the LMS services, it is lesser as it is for educational purpose which intended only for students and lecturers of UMS. While social networking website likes Friendster, Facebook, Twitter and etc are more prone to communicate and sharing among the people from around the world, LMS website is more towards sharing of files, resources, information and other related materials for class used and communicating with the lecturers from the university itself. Hence, it is a bit different as the purpose is the same.

Based on the Figure 1, the reason that enables the survival of LMS website among the UMS students is due to the lecturers. Most of the UMS prefer to upload the materials that related to their teaching like slides, notes, announcements, tutorials questions or any other related files to LMS website. LMS website provides a medium for the lecturers to do so. Lecturers from different courses will upload the files and news related to the studies to LMS. This is the main reason that enables survival of LMS website among the UMS students. Students will have to go to the website to download the related materials to study by just typing the course subject codes and registered as member of the courses. Hence, students will have no choice except to join the LMS community as registered users in order to use the services in LMS. Each UMS students need to register before they can use the LMS website service. Once approved by the admin of the LMS website, students will be provided with a login ID and password. The entry of the LMS website is for students and lecturers only. Hence, it is more secure as the access is prohibited for non-university students used.

Besides that, the reason that enables LMS website to survive among the UMS students is that it is easy to use. The features and interfaces design are simple and easy to use. It can be considered as user friendly website. The design itself is not too complex; hence most of the students will have no problems in using and accessing the materials of LMS website even though for those students that is not familiar with internet access. Moreover, LMS website also provides easy access to the others popular websites that are commonly access by the students like CIMB Bank, SMP website and so on. It brings convenient to the students as it provide a quick access link to some of the commonly use website by the UMS students. Moreover, LMS provides the interface with two types of language, Malay and English. Students and lecturers and view LMS website by choosing either of it. However, the default language used is English.


(2)
Online social community is often referred as a group-centered community. The challenge faced by the online social community is that anyone can join the community. One person may have different accounts or identities in the online social network community. Social networking websites are just a platform for the users in the online social community to communicate and exchange their thoughts. The users or members of the online social community may not know each other as they may come from different countries around the world. This may be the advantage or disadvantage of the online social community. The advantage of joining the social networking websites as the community’s member, we can get to know all sorts of people around the world although they may have different nationality, races, religions or etc, as long as they shared the same interest like us, we can be friends through joining the online social community. The disadvantage is that we can hardly identify whether the member in the online social community is really existed or just created by users. The trustworthiness of the personal details written by the members in their profile page is another question.

The challenge faced by the online social community is the existence of the various social networking websites. Facebook is one of the most popular online social networking website worldwide. The members of the Facebook formed a vast number of members included children from the primary school up to working adults which can be considered as a big online social community. It is estimated about 350,000,000 registered users in Facebook from the figure taken from Wikipedia.

Based on the questionnaires that have been done by UMS students, privacy is the other challenge faced by the online social community. Members that joined the same social community can freely view the other members profile page and details unless the author specific the access of view. Hence, it can cause privacy problems or inconvenience to the other members of the social community. Some people may take advantage to view, modify or delete the contents of other committee members or even leave bad comments without the permission from the owner if the view access is not specified by the owner.

The challenges encountered by Learning Management System (LMS) include the performance and limited features provided. For the performance issue, LMS is slightly poorer if compared with the other website like Open Committee website which is also used by the students and lecturers of UMS. LMS provides limited features whereby Open Committee website provides more complete features of used for the users. LMS do not provide online chat space while Open Committee website provides this feature. Students can chat with the lecturers through the Open Committee website if both online on the same time. Forum is another useful feature of the Open Committee website where LMS do not provide that. UMS Students can discuss a topic through the forum. Other features are almost the same with LMS where lecturers will upload the related materials of the subject courses to the website. Students will then download the files and materials.


(3)
Even though the LMS in University Malaysia Sabah (UMS) now has many functionality and pretty interface. However, there have some improvement still can be done in LMS which are features, usage and policies. Firstly, it can be customize the look and feel of interface LMS. For example, interface of LMS can be improved to be more stylize particularly a good header graphic which can grab more attention for students in UMS.

Secondly, through the questionnaires that have been done such as Figure 1, many students agree that the Live Chat function also can be added in LMS which can allow the students communicate with the lecturer in real time text support right from the comfort of students desktop. The Live Chat also can used to provide online assistance to users of a web site which it possesses excellent features such as Real-time communication and Real time chats. The real-time nature of chat rooms will provide quality services to the students with instant capability. Through the using Live Chat in LMS, the lecturer will receive and respond to text communication from multiple students of the web site. There have a lot of students in UMS, hence by using the Live Chat that can assist multiple students simultaneously and reducing waits time. For example, it is a convenient way which can allow the students to ask the question and lecturer can reply to the student in the first time. Then it can save student time and no more waste time with e-mails and they also no need waiting the time for the lecturer to reply them. Therefore, Live Chat can be used as a way for reactive and proactive fashion, so it will increase interactivity and trust for the student in UMS. In addition, by using the Chat Live in LMS which also can encourages students to get connected with the university community and they will feel more comfortable and also build a strong social support network not only use it for communication with lecturer. For example, the students also can use Live Chat for a meaningful discussion with their friends about their homework, so it will be enhance friendships among them.

Live chat can be useful tool to implement in LMS because implement Live Chat in LMS is efficiency that can assist students in their academic performance and also can help universities facilities long-term friendships among UMS student communities.

Thirdly, based on the questionnaires prepared for the students, the server of LMS also needs to improve because the LMS server always down. For example, sometimes students hard to access LMS website and need waiting for long time just can successfully to sign in but sometime server will request time out. Even if successfully sign in the websites, the LMS also hard for the student to download the assignment and lecturer sides from the websites. Besides that, the this problem also will affect the lecturer when upload their lecturer slides to the websites thus it will also affect the learning progress of the students to be delay because they cannot obtain the latest slide from the lecturer and need wait the server recover back so that the lecturer can upload the slide. It can bring inconvenient that the downtime have caused to the students. The incidences of downtime very seriously, therefore, the LMS server need improve to better sever which can solve this problem.

Finally, the LMS of policy also need to improve such as in restriction on use. For example, the LMS should ensure the lecturer to insert the enrolment key which is used for the students to enroll for the course and it also can ensure only the authorize students just can successfully to enroll the course. Therefore, through the restriction on use for the LMS, it can be prevent any unauthorized person to access the course without the permission of the lecturer.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks to my course mate at the University Malaysia Sabah (UMS) to who that help us to fill in survey form.