IMPROVEMENT OF AN E-LEARNING PLATFORM THROUGH THE ANALYSIS OF USAGE PATTERNS Roberto Cappuccio Francesca Di Bono Alberto Sillitti Giancarlo Succi Center for Applied Software Engineering Free University of Bolzano-Bozen 39100 Bolzano Italy {rcappuccio, fdibono, asillitti, gsucci}@unibz.it KEYWORDS eLearning, metrics collection, GQM ABSTRACT The market for remote learning is one of the most competitive markets in the IT industry and it is rapidly reaching maturity. Many organizations have moved out of the start-up phase of e-learning, characterized by the evaluation of available tools, and have become mature and demanding practitioners. In such a situation, in order to reach and to maintain supremacy, competitors have to constantly improve their products, adding new features to satisfy the current needs of the customers or to anticipate their evolution. This kind of constant adherence to the needs of the customers can only be accomplished through the continuous and exhaustive analysis of usage patterns gathered from currently used tools. In order to be effective, the collection of the metrics has to be performed automatically and transparently. Then, special statistical analysis methods should be developed in order to get relevant information out of the collected data. INTRODUCTION Constant focus on user has been the leading paradigm during the development phase of the Teleacademy project and the experience gathered gives now the opportunity to analyze and discuss this approach. The Teleacademy project has been partially funded by the European Social Fund (ESF) and developed by the Center for Applied Software Engineering (CASE) of the Free University of Bolzano/Bozen in collaboration with the Business Innovation Center - Alto Adige (BIC). The main goal of the project consists in the development of a platform enabling distance learning and the gathering of metrics regarding usage patterns. Recent surveys, presented in the following sections of this paper, demonstrate that a negative perception of the overall quality of e-learning solutions is still dominant among the users despite of the huge efforts made by the LMS (Learning Management System) suppliers. The main reason for this disappointment is the awareness reached by the users about their needs and requirements which are not completely satisfied by actual solutions. A user-driven approach in the development of new solutions for e-learning could drive the efforts of the suppliers in the directions demanded by the users. The paper is organized as follows: section 2 analyzes the state of the art; section 3 describes the user centric approach; finally, section 4 draws the conclusion. STATE OF THE ART As mentioned before, the market for remote learning is rapidly reaching its maturity. After a first phase characterized by the suppliers’ attempt to impose their solutions focused only on technology, the market shows that roles have been inverted: now it is the user that demands solutions tailored on its real needs. In the summer of 2003, brandon-hall.com conducted a research in order to evaluate the state of the e-learning industry. This research, conducted through online surveys and telephone interviews, gave the results summarized in Table 1 (Nantel 2003). Table 1: Summary of the Results of Brandon-hall.com Research 6.8% We're in the planning stages of implementing e-learning in our organization. 12.62% We're testing the e-learning waters by providing a few e-learning courses to our learner community. These may be off- the-shelf courses or we may be converting some conventional training content to e-learning. We do not use a learning management system (LMS). 38.83% We're providing either custom-built or off-the-shelf, self-paced e-learning courses and tracking results using a learning management system. 26.70% We're providing self-paced e-learning courses, tracking results using a learning management system, and providing live