USE OF USER TOUR, CONTACT FORM, AND ACCESSIBILITY PLUGINS IN
ENHANCING A MOODLE-BASED VIRTUAL CONFERENCE EXPERIENCE
Verna T. Banasihan
University of the Philippines Open University
vtbanasihan@up.edu.ph
Reinald Adrian D. Pugoy
University of the Philippines Open University
rdpugoy@up.edu.ph
Melvir Nathaniel S. Paras
University of the Philippines Open University
msparas2@up.edu.ph
Renz Jemil G. Magsino
University of the Philippines Open University
rgmagsino@up.edu.ph
Eriberto E. Roxas Jr.
University of the Philippines Open University
eeroxas@up.edu.ph
ABSTRACT
Academic conferences have been conducted in an online or hybrid setup ever since the
onset of the pandemic. Various virtual platforms have arised to address this need but
most of them are costly and offer varying features. The use of Moodle as a virtual
conference platform is now being explored worldwide. The University of the Philippines
Open University has used Moodle together with user tour function and plugins such as
contact support and accessibility for its semi-annual National Conference on Open and
Distance eLearning this 2022. The purpose of integrating these features is to enhance a
Moodle-based virtual conference experience. A survey was conducted at the end of the
conference to measure the effectiveness of using these features. Results showed that
using user tour, contact support and accessibility plugins significantly enhanced the
Moodle-based virtual conference experience of the participants. The use of these
Moodle features can also still be improved in the future as suggested by the
Participants.
INTRODUCTION
Millions of professionals attend costly traditional conferences every year
(Anderson, 2010). However, after the declaration of Coronavirus disease 2019
(COVID-19) as a pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11, 2022,
virtual conferences gathered increasing importance and became the norm. International
travel ban, measures for social distancing, growing need for knowledge exchange,
academic cooperation and interaction have made virtual conferences a mandatory need
and are embraced widely (Bhargava, S. et. al., 2021). Thus, academic conferences
have been conducted in an online or hybrid setup ever since the onset of the pandemic.
Various virtual platforms have arised to address the need but most of them are
costly and offer varying features. There are great variations on the price for hosted
conference platforms depending on the size and length of the conference, the features
included, and the services required. iCohere and Web Crossing are some of the
companies which provide conference platforms and consultation services a few years
ago (Anderson, 2010).
On the other hand, there are platforms available as freely as open-source
software. Moodle, a learning management system, is the most commonly used
open-source platform. The function of Moodle is the creation of Internet-based courses.
The use of Moodle as a virtual conference platform is now being explored. (Bhargava,
S. et. al., 2021). Many vendors offer services such as hosting, setting up and
customizing Moodle for online conference use. However, there is an option to install the
platform on an organizer’s own server which is less costly (Anderson, 2010).
The Moodle platform has been repurposed for use in online conferences by
changing the language used. One example of this is changing from ‘student’ to
‘participant’. The platform provides many features such as being configurable in terms
of look, feel and functionality, having a home/welcome page, profiles, member directory
and search features, live conference room, discussion forums, live chat rooms, blogs,
polls and surveys, wikis, document/resource library, evaluation/quiz tools, messaging
system, content search and helpdesk (Anderson, 2010).
The University of the Philippines Open University, the pioneer in distance
education in the Philippines, participates in different conferences both local and
international. The role of the delegates includes being an organizer, guest speaker or
presenter. In 2021, the International Conference on Distance eLearning was held using
a virtual conference platform provided by a third party. The use of the virtual reality
platform for a conference incurred high costs. In November 2022, the university held its
first virtual conference called National Conference on Open and Distance eLearning
using Moodle as a platform and zoom as the video conferencing tool.
OBJECTIVE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of using Moodle as a virtual
conference platform in enhancing virtual conference experience during the National
Conference on Open and Distance eLearning 2022. The main focus is the inclusion of
user tours, accessibility and contact support plugins. It also aims to identify possible
options for improving the Moodle-based virtual conference platform by using the
experiences of the participants. The finding of this study shall serve as a contribution to
institutions or organizations that are planning to use Moodle LMS as their virtual
conference platform in the future.
REVIEW OF RELATED CONCEPTS
Moodle or Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment is a learning
platform which can be utilized for designing, building and creating e-learning
environments. It makes creating online interaction and having video conferencing
possible. Moodle is downloaded, installed and run on any web server using PHP:
Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP). An SQL database is supported. Moodle runs on several
operating systems. Moodle has a mobile version that can be downloaded from theApp
Store, Google Play, Windows Store or Windows Phone Store. This platform can be used
on different devices, at different times, in different places. Through Moodle, we can
browse the content of courses, receive messages, contact people from the courses,
upload different types of files, and view course grades. Moodle enables building of
personalized activities and resources. In Moodle, teachers are allowed to follow the
progress of students and can assess and grade their work provided the students
complete the activities. Resources in Moodle which are passive contents for students
are not graded but teachers can see the last access of the participant on the course
site. Another element to personalize the learning experience of students are badges.
Badges are like homework rewards that are given to students upon completion of an
activity or course. Badges can motivate young learners to study and complete the
resources and activities. Moodle’s interface is customizable in order to develop the look
and feel required. An example of this is adding a logo of the school or institution to
which the Moodle site belongs (Hillar, 2016).
Moodle has several built-in features and plugins that can be installed. Plugins
can be downloaded from the Moodle.org website for free. Examples of features and
plugins are the user tour, accessibility block and contact form.
User tours are step-by-step guides to various areas of Moodle. Tours can be
displayed in different languages using the multi-lan filter. The user tour will automatically
start to display once it is created and enabled and if it is the first time the user views a
page that matches the tour’s page settings. Each step displays the title and content
including three options which are prev, next and end tor. Prev allows the user to return
to the previous step. Next will bring users to the next step in the tour. End tour allows
the user to exit the tour completely. The “Reset user tour on this page” link at the
bottom of the page can be clicked anytime if the user wants to re-run the page’s tour.
(Moodle Docs, n.d.)
The accessibility block enables users to customize the Moodle platform
according to their visual needs. Changing of text sizes and color schemes are
supported. Customizations are saved to the session of the user thereby persisting
between pages. Applying customizations permanently is also possible by saving it to the
database. ATBar from Southampton University ECS’ ATBar which provides extra tools
and customization options is also integrated in the accessibility block. Dictionary lookup
and text-to-speech are examples of these tools. (Moodle Docs, n.d.). However, the
ATBar does not appear in Moodle version 4.0.
Contact Form is another Moodle plugin. Processing and sending information
submitted through HTML web forms is allowed by this plugin. The content of the web
form is sent to the site’s support email address or primary administrator provided that
the support email address is not defined. Some of the uses of the Contact Form plugin
include support request form, request a course form, information request form, lead
generation form and membership application form (Moodle Docs, n.d.).
METHODOLOGY
The National Conference on Open and Distance eLearning (NCODeL) committee
made initial plans and assigned tasks for the conference to different sub-committees.
One whole team composed of members of the Information and Communication
Technology Development Office (ICTDO) of the UP Open University was in-charge of
the conference platform. Moodle was the chosen platform by the NCODeL committee.
A cloud server which is Nanode 1 GB from Linode was acquired. The cloud
server specifications were upgraded later since it is expected that about 300 users will
be accessing the platform during the duration of the 3-day conference. The environment
was then prepared by installing a web server (Apache) and MySQL database. The
latest version of Moodle was downloaded from the Moodle.org website and installed on
the server. Different themes were tested in the platform but the almond theme was
chosen to be used for the conference because of its clean and easy to navigate user
interface.
Sessions were added to the platform using course sites. One course site is
equivalent to one session. However, several parallel sessions were contained in one
course site. Course completion was set up in such a way that if the participant accessed
the link of the Zoom meeting in a session, the course will be marked as completed. For
parallel sessions, the participants need only to access at least one Zoom link. Badge
Enrollment plugin was also installed and several badges were created. There are
course badges, morning and afternoon badges, day badges, 3-day completed badge
and survey badge. Day badges are given to participants who participated in at least one
session in the morning and afternoon. Obtaining all day badges will grant you with the
3-day badge which will give you access to the survey badge. Upon completion of the
survey, a survey badge will be awarded to the participant and will give them access to
the certificate page. Certificates in PDF format can be downloaded on the certificate
page.
Additional features including user tour, accessibility and contact form plugins
were installed and or set up. For the user tour, steps were added in the frontpage and
session pages. In the homepage the following steps were included: welcome,
announcement, sessions, contact support, survey and issuance of certificates. In the
session page, the accessibility option and zoom session were included in the steps.
The accessibility block plugin was also installed. Then the block was added on
the right side of all session pages and a few of the custom pages.
For contact support, the contact form plugin was installed together with the filter
code plugin. The default web form was used. The support email was then configured so
that it will be received by the assigned mailer. All of these features were tested if they
are functioning properly.
A survey page was created and contained two surveys: Evaluation on NCODeL
2022 and Experience about the NCODeL Conference Platform. The first survey was
derived from another virtual conference done in 2021. The second survey on the other
hand, used the System Usability Scale (SUS) for the questions. The participants were
required to answer the two surveys in order to have access to their certificates.
Summary of answers to the survey was downloaded and analyzed.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
User Tour
Figure 1. Percentage of participants who find user tour as useful, not useful and has no
Response
Based on the survey, 93.52% of the participants found the user tour useful. Only
5.56% answered that the user tour is not useful.
Table 1. Keywords obtained from the participants’ comments on the user tour
Figure 2. Word cloud of keywords obtained from the participants’ comments on the user
tour
A tally of the keywords contained in the comments/suggestions of the
participants showed that there are more participants who found that the user tour is
informative, user-friendly, easy to use and helpful.
Figure 3. Categorization of comments/suggestions of participants on user tour
About 59.09% of participants’ suggestions are categorized as positive. Only
9.09% are negative comments. While the suggestions for improvement garnered
27.27%. On the other hand 4.55% of the comments belong to the uncategorized.
Some participants suggested that there should be an early orientation regarding
the user tour. Another suggestion is that it should be made more user friendly. Some
mentioned that the user tour needs improvement. One even suggested including a
panel where participants can take a photo so they can post them together with
information of where they are located currently. It was also mentioned that a video can
be added to help users navigate the platform. It was also recommended that the
sessions should be placed on top instead of past NCODeL for easier navigation. One
participant also mentioned that there should be an audio. Last but not the least, a
participant noticed that the first page is too long which caused the participant the need
to scroll more on the page.
Accessibility
Figure 4. Percentage of participants who used the accessibility block
Only 59.26 % of the participants utilized the accessibility block. 40.74 % of them
did not use the block.
Figure 5. Percentage of participants who found the accessibility block useful
About 59.26 % of the participants who used the block found it useful. Only
31.48% thought that the accessibility block is not useful.
Figure 6. Categorization of comments/suggestions of participants on accessibility
Majority of the participants comprising 50% were not aware and or did not use
the block. Comments and suggestions which are categorized under positive, for
improvement and description all had 16.67% of the participants.
Figure 7. Word cloud of keywords obtained from the participants’ comments on the
accessibility block
Not able to use and not aware keywords are more prevalent among the comments and
suggestions of the participants on the accessibility block.
There is also one participant who suggested that there should be more color themes
and there is a need to enhance the accessibility block.
Contact Support
Figure 8. Percentage of participants who used the contact support
Only 25.93% of participants have used the contact support form. Majority
comprising 74.07%, did not use the contact support.
Figure 9. Percentage of participants who found the contact support useful
Among the participants who have used the contact support, 65.74% found the
form useful.
Figure 10. Categorization of comments/suggestions of participants on contact support
Majority of participants, 73.68%, have submitted positive comments/suggestions.
Both negative, for improvement and other comments categories received a 5.26%. On
the other hand, 10.53% of participants found the contact form not needed and did not
use it.
Figure 11. Word cloud of keywords obtained from the participants’ comments on the
contact form plugin
Majority of participants commented that the contact form is accessible, did not
have to use it and was helpful.
Then there is one comment that suggested adding contact support by phone or
chat. The participant wants something similar to a Genius Bar appointment for iPhone,
iPad, Mac and more.
Overall System Evaluation
For the evaluation of the NCODeL platform, the System Usability Scale which
was created by John Brooke in 1986 was used. This tool consisting of a 10 item
questionnaire is reliable for measuring the usability. Respondents can choose from the
five options from Strongly agree to Strongly disagree. Evaluation of a wide variety of
products and services, including hardware, software, mobile devices, websites and
applications can be done using this SUS which has already become an industry
standard. SUS has a lot of benefits since it is a very easy scale to administer to
participants and can be used on small sample sizes with reliable results. Moreover it is
considered valid as it can effectively differentiate between usable and unusable
systems (Usability.gov, n.d.).
For the evaluation of the platform, 106 participants answered the survey where in
the System Usability Scale was used. A score of 70.14 was obtained which has an
equivalent interpretation to Good. The SUS score indicates your usability performance
in the aspects of effectiveness, efficiency, and overall ease of use.
SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS
This study has evaluated the effectiveness of using Moodle as a virtual
conference platform in enhancing the virtual conference experience during the National
Conference on Open and Distance eLearning 2022. The inclusion of user tours,
accessibility and contact form plugins was proven effective in improving the experience
of the participants of the virtual conference.
Addressing the comments and suggestions of the participants may also raise the
SUS score of the platform. Notable comments include requests for user interface
improvements for easier navigation of the platform. A pre-conference survey may be
done beforehand to deduce the information that the participants will most likely look for
during the conference. This survey may help shape the user interface of the platform
into one that the majority of the participants may consider excellent.
Another significant suggestion is the production of a video tutorial on the usage
of the platform that users can easily follow. This may lead to less confusion to the users
and subsequently less technical support requests. A video tutorial may also indirectly
introduce some of the lesser known features of the platform, such as the Accessibility
block.
The findings of this study shall serve as a guide and prepare institutions or
organizations who want to conduct a virtual conference using Moodle as a platform.
In the future, other plugins and features of Moodle can still be explored for use in
virtual conferences.
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