Relatório Final Pós-Doutoramento

Abstract

E-Learning is an innovative way of learning increasingly pursued by training organisations and education organisations. When used as part of the learning process, it provides learners “with greater flexibility in terms of time and space. It is anytime, anywhere.” (Lencastre, Bronze, İlin, and Özonur, 2015, p.134). For an e-Learning course to be considered effective, it should provide its users with a certain standard of usability; otherwise, the learning process is likely to become cumbersome and frustrating for the learner. Focusing on this issue, this research report describes the design and the usability assessment of a course prototype namely 'Easily Moving from Learning to e-Learning' incorporated in a Learning Management System (LMS) that is used in the ERASMUS+ project ‘Better e-Learning for All’. Data was gathered in three distinctive moments: (i) through focus group interviews with experts in online course design in the analysis phase to understand what to value in the design of the course; (ii) in the design phase, specialists were consulted for a heuristic appraisal to the prototype. A heuristic appraisal is a systematic inspection of a user interface to examine if the design complies with recognised usability (Whitehead, 2006). Also, a (iii) SUS questionnaires on a two days’ workshop with potential and with real end-users to evaluate the prototype in the developing phase. The results show that the prototype is a usable and desirable tool in terms of its users’ experiences and assessments.