Asynchronous Learning Systems Research Articles

Tutor Competence in Online-Learning Service within Distance Education

The online learning landscape in the Elementary Teacher Education (PGSD) program at Universitas Terbuka Makassar poses significant challenges for tutors, requiring them to adapt to new pedagogical approaches and technologies. This study investigates the competence of tutors in facilitating synchronous online-learning tutoring (Tuweb UT) and asynchronous Learning System Management (LMS) through Silayar UT, which integrates an independent learning program into online platforms. The study examines the tutors' social, strategic, and ethical competence in managing online classes, with a focus on their preparation, planning, and interaction with students. The study uses an ex post facto design with descriptive statistics, analyzing data from 185 tutors in 340 online classes within the undergraduate PGSD program during the 2022 registration term. The findings highlight the tutors' ability to prepare and plan for online tutoring, deploy the tutoring unit (SAT) as a learning service scheme, and incorporate relevant competencies and module characteristics into their tutoring mode. The study also shows that tutoring assignments are given in accordance with competence and that active engagement in Webinar UT and LMS (Silayar UT) is high, with attendance averaging 93.03%. The results indicate that tutors are competent in preparing and planning for online tutoring, incorporating online platforms into their experiences, and fostering active interaction with students, which in turn supports the completion of students' academic trajectories. The study's implications for online learning practices are significant, highlighting the importance of tutor competence in navigating the challenges of online education. Recommendations for further research include exploring the impact of tutor competence on student outcomes and investigating the role of technology in enhancing tutor-student interaction.

Automated Schedule System for Universities under the Bologna Education Process

Introduction. Countries that have joined the Bologna Process in higher education assume certain obligations. One of them is the transition to a credit education system, which is based on the personal participation of each student in the formation of their curriculum. Each student has the opportunity to structure the learning process, choose subjects and the sequence of their study within the framework of the curriculum for the chosen specialty, create their own individual schedule in accordance with their interests, capabilities and needs. The credit training system is asynchronous. Naturally, software applications for scheduling classes, developed for the classical education system, do not work in this case. Purpose. Development of an algorithm and software for a class scheduling system designed for the credit education system and taking into account its features, and also meets all the “hard” restrictions and most of the “soft” requirements for the class schedule. Results. The algorithm and software of the interactive system of scheduling classes for universities that have joined the Bologna process, which takes into account the features of credit-modular system of training, have been developed. Conclusions. The developed system covers the full cycle of including students in groups to study selected subjects and teachers, starting from scheduling teachers, registering students and ending with the formation of individual schedules for each student; The proposed iterative process of scheduling makes it possible to make changes to the schedule of teachers and re-register students in the case of teachers who have not formed groups, or a significant number of students who were unable to enroll in subjects of interest to them; The interactive mode of operation with the system combines an automated process of scheduling with active participation of the user responsible for scheduling; The system guarantees the preparation of permissible timetables for teachers and students, taking into account the implementation of all "hard" restrictions, and significantly reduces the time required for scheduling; The system ensures to the maximum extent the quality of teachers’ schedules, namely, taking into account “soft” requirements with the active participation of the user, who has the opportunity to choose an option that reduces the value of the function proposed in the article that evaluates the quality of the schedule; The developed system ensures the effective use of the classroom fund in accordance with its capacity, specialization and affiliation. Keywords: Bologna process of education, credit system, asynchronous learning system, class schedule, scheduling requirements, computer system.

An Analysis of Challenges Faced by Academics During the Transition from Contact to Online Learning

The Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic affected many lives and sectors across the world. In the higher education sector, Covid-19 caused a drastic shift from contact learning to multiple forms of online learning. It is in this context that the paper undertook a critical analysis of the challenges experienced by academics because of Covid-19. A comprehensive literature search was conducted on 6 databases (Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, Jstor, Academic Search Complete, SpringerLink, and SAGE Journals) for relevant studies published from the year 2019 to 2022. Moreover, further relevant studies were retrieved from the reference list of studies identified from the initial search. The search terms employed by the researchers were COVID-19, remote learning, e-learning, online learning, higher education, information technology and asynchronous learning systems. For the selection of the most relevant articles for the final review, the researchers employed inclusion and exclusion criteria. Studies that addressed higher education online learning and the challenges encountered by higher education due to Covid-19 were eligible for inclusion. The findings revealed that academics encountered multiple challenges during the transition from contact learning to online learning, these include the academic’s limited experience and lack of training in the pedagogy of online learning, challenges related to planning and adaptability, issues of network and connectivity, insufficient teaching and learning resources, workload, and stress along with the unconducive physical spaces and environment. Based on the findings presented, this study recommended that the pedagogical strategies must be revised. Furthermore, necessary adjustments in infrastructure in higher education institutions must also be made. This will ensure the smooth running of the teaching and learning process. Moreover, the systematic flaws and transformation gaps in higher education institutions have been made clear by the shift from contact learning to online learning. Thus, this study concludes that blended learning may emerge as the default teaching mode in higher learning institutions, this ensures the maximisation of efficiency. Keywords: Covid-19, Online Teaching, Contact Or Face-To-Face Education, Higher Education, Technology.

Engaging Students in Online Data Analytics Learning: Meaningful Learning in Higher Education

The implementation of full online teaching and learning activities in Higher Educational institutions invites tangible challenges to sustain students’ interest and engagement in the course, throughout the semester. Meaningful learning encourages students to develop concepts constructively in active learning that promote the integration of knowledge in daily life and potential career applications. Meaningful learning also applies richer application capabilities in synchronous or asynchronous learning systems. Visualization is a technic to support concept description and imagination and provide an additional effective layer for learning towards increased motivation. In this paper, a discussion of the active involvement of students using visualization in online data analytics courses at the tertiary level is presented. Based on functional context principles of visualized course content, recommendations to practitioners are discussed.

STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION OF ASYNCHRONOUS IN ENGLISH LEARNING DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC

This research aimed to describe how the students’ perception of asynchronous in English learning during covid-19 pandemic in English study program in Muhammadiyah University of Bengkulu. This study used quantitative descriptive research. The subject of the research was the students who followed the Subject of Speaking for Debate of English Education Program of Muhammadiyah University of Bengkulu. The instrument of this research was using the questionnaire. The result shows that the students’ perception of asynchronous learning helped the researchers to develop understanding to present the data to support the problem solving learning activities. During the covid-19 pandemic, asynchronous learning is not effective to be used because the teaching method, media and learning activities were consider inefficient. There are many problems when the conducting the online learning process. In asynchronous learning system, the experiences were a lot of constraints such as the teacher should be able to teach by the distances that must be used the technology. The teacher also must be ready to design learning models and teaching materials and the media. In the other hand, it is hoped that asynchronous learning can be applied in this pandemic era. Keywords: Students’ Perception, Asynchronous Learning, Pandemic Era.

Evaluation of alternate multimedia for web-based asynchronous learning

Choosing the appropriate multimedia for the learning modules or systems is critical to designing an efficient web-based asynchronous learning systems or modules. In response to this need, a study was conducted to gauge the effectiveness of different multimedia combinations, namely: text; audio and synchronized text; audio, video and synchronized text, for procedural-based tasks to support web-based learning for a senior-level Production, Planning and Control Course. Data were collected on performance, process and subjective measures. Analyses of these learning systems throw new light on the effectiveness of the different multimedia combinations to improve web-based learning of procedural tasks. The most salient finding of the study is that user performance is dependent on the type of multimedia combination and the type of learning task in terms of complexity. Interestingly, for low difficulty procedural tasks, the choice of multimedia is not critical for either performance or process efficiency. However, when the procedural tasks are complex, a combination of audio, video and synchronized text yields the best results both in terms of learning performance and process efficiency measured in terms of amount of time spent viewing the modules and the module accessing frequency. Another important finding is that an easy-to-use system does not imply an efficient learning system. The study helps recommend design guidelines for the most appropriate type of multimedia to be used in designing web-based asynchronous learning systems for different levels of procedural tasks. Relevance to industry This paper evaluates the usefulness of various multimedia for web-based asynchronous learning for a specific Industrial Engineering course. The results of this research could be further expanded to develop distance-learning programs for both educational and industry training programs.

The evaluation of alternate learning systems in an industrial engineering course: Asynchronous, synchronous and classroom

Web-based asynchronous learning systems have revolutionized the learning environment. Rapid advances in computer technology, the internet and transmission technology have created new opportunities for delivering instruction. It is anticipated that these technologies will dramatically change the way instruction will be imparted throughout the educational system. One example is asynchronous learning wherein instruction can be delivered at any place at any time on demand. If we are to use this new mode of delivering and receiving instruction, we need to fully understand its advantages and limitations to existing forms of delivering instruction. In response to this need, this paper describes a study conducted to evaluate the usefulness of delivering instruction asynchronously. The study compared three forms of instruction: classroom, synchronous and asynchronous using student subjects from an industrial engineering course. Even though the results of this study are specific to the industrial engineering course considered, the results could throw new light into the usefulness of the Internet and asynchronous learning in other learning environments. Relevance to industry This paper evaluates the usefulness of advanced learning systems in delivering instructions in an academic environment for a specific industrial engineering course. The results of this study could be further expanded to develop distance-learning programs.

The Investigation of the Degree of Difficulty in the Learning Materials by the Recursive Method

The purpose of this article is to identify the difficulty of learning materials in the network by using learner's portfolio in the asynchronous learning system. Asynchronous learning takes the advantage of information technology that records the learning portfolio of the learner. The data of the learning portfolio reflects the characteristics of the learning materials and the user. To explore useful information from the huge learning data warehouse and to build up a material characteristic model, the researchers use data mining technique. Several experiments were conducted, based on the built material characteristic model, to estimates the value of the difficulty of learning materials by a recursive method. In order to obtain an accurate difficulty value of the material, the researchers continuously conducted the experiments several times. After the data of each experiment was collected and integrated with the previous ones, the difficulty of the material was revised in the recursive way. Therefore, the degree of difficulty of learning material was dynamically adjusted according to the real learning data. It becomes more accurate and more objective.

An Exploration of Learning Ability Transition and Material Information

The asynchronous learning system is one of the great tools that have broken through the limits of time and space to make learning available to all people in the future. In order to provide adaptive learning material and environment, it is important for an asynchronous learning system to take the degree of difficulty in the teaching materials and learner's characteristics into account. Thus, this article will investigate the related characteristics of asynchronous material and propose a material characteristics model. This model investigates the relationship among the difficulty degree of material, students' interests, and their abilities. Furthermore, we will investigate the material information to comprehend thoroughly the suitability of the teaching materials to the learner. The material information is based on promoting learning ability. From the above results, an asynchronous learning system could provide adaptive material that is suitable for students with different learning abilities. Students could be counseled on reaching the anticipated learning goal using our model. The ability after learning could be calculated from the model to help the testing system to choose test items quickly and adaptively and make the asynchronous learning system more effective and complete.

Faculty as Machine Monitors in Higher Education?

Predictions concerning postindustrial society include that of workers serving as machine monitors. That concept is explored in this article in respect to faculty in higher education serving as monitors of computers that are executing instructional programs. Questions concerning changes in faculty roles and the control of educational quality are addressed. Alfred Bork’s vision of asynchronous learning systems is elaborated, and that alternative is compared to the concept of machine monitoring. It is concluded that monitoring in higher education is not likely unless student demand for distance learning is great, but in that case, monitoring would be superior to proposals for automated asynchronous learning systems.