Keywords

1 Introduction

Technological innovation has transformed higher education teaching in recent decades. Technologies such as television, radio, compact disks, video conferencing, and even e-learning platforms have been in use since as long ago as the early 2000s to improve teaching and learning, even in developing countries (Sife et al., 2007). Although most of these technologies have come and gone, a growing body of literature suggesting that e-learning is here to stay has gained traction in recent years. This is especially true for 2020, with the unprecedented bans on gatherings and stay-at-home orders necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many educational institutions thus had to transition to online teaching overnight, as management ordered suspension of classes but ongoing teaching and learning. Even before COVID-19, however, e-learning was already becoming more and more prevalent (Bates, 2018) and many educational institutions had already adopted e-learning in one way or another. Despite this, however, many educational institutions in Africa are yet to fully utilize or realize the benefits of e-Learning (Eze et al., 2018).

In a study aimed at identifying the challenges encountered by technology-enhanced projects, Muhammad (2017) stresses compatibility problems as the major impediment to successful implementation in developing countries. He argues that in most cases, developing countries adopt the “latest gadgets” and “leading-edge technologies” as is from developed countries, but the lack of know-how eventually transforms these into “bleeding-edge technologies” that “give more problems than services” (Muhammad, 2017, p. 17). This notion of system transfer misfit between contexts is widely acknowledged in the literature. Heeks (2002, p. 106) also observes that the transfer of information systems from industrialized countries to developing countries is problematic, in particular, because the context of the designer is “often distant in physical, cultural, economic and many other ways.” Similarly, Avgerou (2001) argues that technological innovation is inseparable from social processes and context, and recommends that contextual analysis be done to judge the potential for fitting the technology to local circumstances.

At the University of Namibia (UNAM), the introduction of e-learning officially began in 2004. According to Mufeti (2005), UNAM initially used the KEWL Learning Management System (LMS), and the initial acceptance of e-learning by both the students and the lecturers was overwhelming. However, the actual understanding and expectations of e-learning, especially on the part of lecturers, seem not to have been clear. Mufeti (2005) also highlights the following challenges experienced by students and lecturers in the early stages: lack of access to computers and the internet outside of the university offices and computer labs, low bandwidth, and few training opportunities for lecturers. More recent research reports that access to devices, connectivity, and resources remain impediments to e-learning at UNAM (Mässing, 2017). There is therefore a need to acknowledge that a lack of resources remains prevalent at UNAM, necessitating measures to ensure that student participation in e-learning is not impeded.

Apart from the lack of essential resources, low digital literacy levels among both lecturers and students are also reported as one of the factors that can hinder e-learning (Muhammad, 2017; Herckis, 2018). To combat this, UNAM has been offering a compulsory Computer Literacy course to all its first year students since the mid-1990s. Over 25,000 students have so far completed this course since its introduction, with an average of 3500 students registering for it per year from all disciplines of study across the University. Quality assessment and delivery methods, coupled with an increased demand for physical, infrastructure, and human resources associated with this course, have increasingly become an area of concern to the institution management. More recently, there has been a push to teach all compulsory courses at UNAM, including Computer Literacy, using e-learning. Prior to this, the Computer Literacy course served as a technical skills equalizer, enabling a diverse population of students, some of whom come from marginalized backgrounds and have never used a computer before, to develop the skills required to participate in e-learning. Moving this course online, therefore, needs careful consideration, to ensure that it does not negatively affect students’ participation in other online courses. This research therefore aimed to determine how Moodle could be utilized to teach the Computer Literacy course to first year students at UNAM.

Although UNAM adopted Moodle in 2015, no evaluation has ever been conducted of its suitability in the UNAM context, despite the numerous studies showing that it has issues that prevent users from utilizing it effectively (Senol et al., 2014 ; Hasan, 2018). It is important to systematically identify usability problems at an early stage in the implementation process, so that they can be rectified before the intervention is more widely implemented (Stiller & LeBlanc, 2006; Ternauciuc & Vasiu, 2015). With the planned introduction of online learning for all core courses at UNAM in 2020, it was important to determine whether Moodle was an appropriate LMS for this context.

1.1 Overview of ICT Access and Literacy in Africa

Many first year students in Africa come to the University without having used a computer before (Tewari et al., 2018; Schlebusch, 2018; Oyedemi & Mogano, 2018). Although many African citizens now have access to mobile phones, the digital divide, whereby some citizens may have “perceived” access but do not own any ICT device to enable “actual” access is still not uncommon in Africa (Oyedemi & Mogano, 2018). In addition, some villages and towns in Africa have poor ICT infrastructure and do not have access to the Internet (Tewari et al., 2018; Schlebusch, 2018; Oyedemi & Mogano, 2018). This is despite the pockets of ICT facilities found in some towns or regions of African countries that are comparable to the infrastructures of developed countries (Oyedemi & Mogano, 2018). The continuum of access to ICT infrastructure is skewed, and some citizens are therefore likely to be more ICT literate than others.

Recent studies have shown that some African secondary school leavers complete their schooling without exposure to ICT facilities and never having used an ICT device (Oyedemi & Mogano, 2018). Namibia is no exception here, as highlighted in its 2011 official Census results, which revealed that only 10.5 percent of people over 3 years of age had access to a computer (NPC, 2011). Additionally, only 5.4% of the population had daily access to the Internet, with figures worsening in the rural regions of the country. A more recent study indicated that the proportion of the population covered by the cellular network increased to 95% in 2019, and that the number of cellular phone contracts with mobile network operators increased to 112.95 per 100 people as of March 2018 (CRAN, 2019). However, this figure is not distributed evenly throughout the country, as it includes individuals that are in school as well as individuals that do not attend school (See Table 1). This spectrum of actual levels of access across the country, especially at school level, makes it difficult to predict the computer literacy levels of first-year students in Namibia. It also does not shed light on the ability of students who may wish to opt for online learning to cope with it (Fig. 1).

Table 1 Respondents’ ownership of/access to an ICT device
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Fig. 1
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Percentages of population with access to ICT by type of service in 2011

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Several other countries recognize the importance of ICT literacy at secondary school level and have developed strategies to ensure its inclusion in the curriculum (Kennedy et al., 2008; Stiller & LeBlanc, 2006). Ezziane (2007), however, found that even with the compulsory provision of IT at secondary level, students leave school with a wide range of computer skills. This therefore necessitates a careful assessment of students’ capabilities and the learning environment before online courses are implemented (Stiller & LeBlanc, 2006).

Due to widening gaps in computer and digital literacy skills, many tertiary institutions, including the University of Namibia, include an ICT literacy course in their first year curriculum (Liao & Pope, 2008; Dixon, 2013; Tewari et al., 2018; Schlebusch, 2018; Oyedemi & Mogano, 2018). This course is usually mandatory in an effort to ensure that students acquire basic ICT literacy skills that will help them in their academic life at the University, and in their subsequent life, learning and careers.

The inclusion of mandatory IT courses in most programs of study at most higher education institutions is a recognition of the importance of basic computer literacy skills as a support to students' learning (European Commission, 2005; Bhavnani, 2000; Dednam, 2009; Ezziane, 2007; Foster et al., 2006; Liao & Pope, 2008). In the developing world, especially institutions are advised against assuming that first years already possess some level of computer competency (Šorgo et al., 2017). While it is reasonable to assume that most first year students have some knowledge and experience of using the Internet and web-based social networking, the same cannot be said of their knowledge of fundamental applications such as word processing, spreadsheets, and presentation applications (Kennedy et al., 2008; Stiller & LeBlanc, 2006). It is essential that first year students gain sufficient skills to enable them to work on and submit assignments using word processing applications, enhance presentations using presentation software and produce statistical analysis using spreadsheets (Tewari et al., 2018; Oyedemi & Mogano, 2018). Development of these essential skills would assist their transition into working life (Schlebusch, 2018).

2 Research Methods

The present study used a survey to evaluate the delivery of an online Computer Literacy course on Moodle at UNAM. The population of the study comprised the 1500 first year students registered for the Computer Literacy course at UNAM in the second semester of 2019, and the eight (8) lecturers responsible for teaching the course. All 1500 students were registered both for the face-to-face and for the online version of the course. However, only ninety-eight (98) respondents (39 males and 59 females) completed the questionnaire that formed part of this study. The course consisted of the following 6 units: ICT Concepts, Using Computers and File Management, Word Processing, Spreadsheets, Presentations, and Internet and Emails.

To collect data, we developed a questionnaire in accordance with the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). The UTAUT theory is widely used in the literature to assess individuals’ intentions in relation to technology use and their subsequent behavior and acceptance of technology. It has the following four constructs: performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, and facilitating conditions. In this study, a Student Perception Questionnaire (SPQ) to assess user intentions, actual usage, and the usability of the Moodle system. In addition, we conducted semi-structured interviews to get an in-depth understanding of actual usage and satisfaction levels in relation to the delivery of online learning. The logs available on the Moodle server were further analyzed to determine the frequency of participation and use of features by respondents.

3 Findings

3.1 Demographic Information

39.8% of respondents were male and 60.2% female. This does not necessarily indicate that more females than males registered for the Computer Literacy course. It simply reveals that out of those who responded to the questionnaire, the response rate included more females than males.

The results also indicated that the majority (66.3%) of the respondents were under the age of 20, and the rest were aged between 21 and 30 years. No respondents were over the age of 30 years.

The questionnaire also required respondents to indicate any previous experience with LMSs, prior to their registration for the Computer Literacy course at UNAM. Most respondents (69.4%) indicated that they did not have any prior experience of using an LMS. Of the 30.6% that had used an LMS before, most were female. This highlighted that overall, most students start using an LMS for the first time at university level.

3.2 Ownership of/Access to an ICT Device

We also wanted to know if respondents had access to, or owned, a personal computer, laptop, mobile/cellular phone. This was important because the online Computer Literacy course required the students to have access to a device, preferably a personal computer or laptop. Table 1 shows the ownership/access results.

Table 1 reveals that 92.9% of the respondents had access to or owned a computing device or some form of a mobile/cellular phone. However, only 56.1% indicated that they owned or had access to a laptop device, while only 6.1% indicated that they had access to or owned a PC. This result is significant, as students enrolled in the Computer Literacy course needed access to a computer to complete their exercises and assignments. The results also show that a Personal Computer was less popular among the respondents. It should be noted, however, that there was some overlap in the numbers, since respondents could choose more than one device in the questionnaire.

Respondents were also required to indicate their key reason for owning an ICT device. Options included browsing the Internet, entertainment, academic purposes, and social media. The results are summarized in Table 2.

Table 2 Primary reason for owning an ICT device or accessing one at home
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As Table 2 shows, the majority of respondents (77.6%) indicated that their primary reason for owning an ICT device or accessing one at home was for academic purposes. Of the remainder of respondents, 32.7% indicated access to social media as the primary reason, 26.5% indicated browsing the Internet, and the remaining 23.5% indicated that they owned or accessed their ICT devices for the purposes of entertainment. The results overall, therefore, reveal that most respondents own devices to enable them to participate in academic activities.

3.3 Computer Literacy Experience

Respondents were asked to indicate whether they had used or worked with Microsoft Office applications, prior to enrolment at the University. The applications in question were: Microsoft Word for word processing, Microsoft Excel for Spreadsheet, Microsoft PowerPoint for presentations, and Internet Explorer and Microsoft Outlook for the Internet and e-mail, respectively. These applications are the primary software packages used for teaching the different topics in the Computer Literacy course at UNAM. Table 3 shows the results from the questionnaire:

Table 3 Knowledge of software applications used in the Computer Literacy Course
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As shown in Table 3, most (88.8%) of the respondents indicated that they had used or worked with word processing before their enrolment at the University level. Many of these (58%) were females. In addition, 54.1% of the respondents had used PowerPoint before. However, only 38.8% of the respondents had used MS Excel and 19.4% had used Internet Explorer and Microsoft Outlook before they enrolled at UNAM.

3.4 Perceptions of the Usefulness of Moodle

The questionnaire included an open-ended question requiring respondents to give their views on the usefulness of the Moodle LMS, specifically for teaching and learning in the first year university-level computer literacy course. Most respondents (69%) rated Moodle as a useful platform for university-level teaching and learning in relation to computer literacy. However, 31% felt that Moodle was not a useful platform for this purpose. The justifications provided in this context are not directly attributable to the Moodle LMS itself. As an example, one of the justifications given was saving time and money, as the respondent did not need to travel to campus on a daily basis to attend lectures. This was attributable to online learning in general, and not specifically to Moodle. Another reason given was the opportunity to access extra learning materials from the Internet, which was perceived as useful, especially when doing assignments. Once again, this cannot be directly attributed to Moodle, but to online learning in general.

Lecturers also indicated that Moodle was useful as it facilitated management of large classes. One lecturer particularly cited the ability to have one-to-one interactions with all the students, unlike in traditional face-to-face classes. This is captured in the extract below:

Yes, Moodle is useful because of the huge number of students who will not manage or be able to have one-to-one interactions with lecturers in [a] traditional classroom set-up

3.4.1 Appropriateness of the User Interface

Respondents were asked to indicate whether Moodle was a user friendly, intuitive, and easy-to-use interface. Figure 2 shows the results.

Fig. 2
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Modern and easy-to-use interface

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As shown in Fig. 2, most respondents (61%) agreed that the Moodle interface was intuitive and easy to use. Only 10% of the respondents strongly disagreed.

3.4.2 Collaboration Tools

Respondents were asked to indicate whether they are able to work and learn together using a variety of collaboration tools including forums, wikis, glossaries, and other collaborative activities on Moodle.

Figure 3 shows that 45% of the respondents strongly disagreed that Moodle enabled them to work and learn together in collaborative activities and 20% disagreed. Only 33% agreed that it was easy to participate in collaborative activities on Moodle.

Fig. 3
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Ease of participating in collaborative activities

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3.4.3 Keeping Track of Course Progression

We also asked respondents to indicate whether Moodle tools helped them to keep track of their academic calendar, including course deadlines, group meetings, and other personal events. Figure 4 summarizes the perceptions of the ability to keep track of progress.

Fig. 4
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Perception of tracking academic progress

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As Fig. 4 shows, 53% of the respondents strongly agreed that the Moodle LMS enabled them to track their progress with academic activities. Only 5% of the respondents strongly disagreed.

3.4.4 Storing and Accessing Files from Cloud Storage Services

The ability to use, store, and access cloud storage services is important for the Computer Literacy course, as students may access the course and work on their assignments from a variety of devices during the course. Storing their work on the cloud enables them to save and resume their work with minimum disruption. We thus requested respondents to indicate their perception of Moodle’s capability to drag and drop files from cloud storage services including Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox, and Google Drive. Figure 5 shows the results.

Fig. 5
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Utilizing cloud storage services from Moodle

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As Fig. 5 depicts, 58% of the respondents strongly disagreed that Moodle enabled them to drag and drop files from cloud storage services. Only 28% were of the view that Moodle enables them to easily access and store their work on cloud services.

3.4.5 Using Moodle Across Devices

As indicated in Table 1, respondents had a variety of devices that they could potentially use to access Moodle. It was, therefore, important to get respondents’ perceptions of their ability to use Moodle across devices. This question also required respondents to indicate whether they were able to format text and add media and images to documents, across all web browsers and devices. The results are shown in Fig. 6.

Fig. 6
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Using Moodle across devices

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As Fig. 6 reveals, 70% of respondents strongly disagreed that Moodle enabled them to format text and add media and images across all web browsers and devices. Only 15% agreed with this statement.

3.4.6 Reminders, Alerts, and Ease of Communication

Respondents were also asked to indicate whether Moodle enabled them to receive automatic alerts on new assignments and deadlines, forum posts, and also send private messages to one another. The results are as shown in Fig. 7.

Fig. 7
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Perceptions of ease of communication

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Figure 7 illustrates that 65% (17 + 48) of the respondents agreed that Moodle allowed users to receive automatic alerts on announcements and also to send private messages to one another. However, 13% strongly disagreed.

3.4.7 Progress Tracking

Respondents were asked to indicate if Moodle enabled them to track their progress with the course and their completion of individual activities. The results are depicted in Fig. 8.

Fig. 8
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Lecturers and students can track progress and completion

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Figure 8 shows that 41% of the respondents strongly disagreed that Moodle allowed lecturers and students to track progress and the completion of individual activities.

3.4.8 Satisfaction with Moodle

To determine their satisfaction with Moodle, participants were provided with 12 statements aimed at determining the LMS’ contribution to their participation in the course. Table 4 shows the statements and participants’ level of agreement/disagreement with the statements.

Table 4 Level of satisfaction with Moodle
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As the results in Table 4 show, only 12% of the respondents strongly disagreed with the statement that Moodle enabled them to improve their academic performance in the Computer Literacy course. Sixty-eight percent of the respondents agreed with the statement.

With regard to effectiveness, 71% did not believe that Moodle made their learning more effective. Only 28% agreed with this statement. This also seems to be consistent with the statement that Moodle made it easy for participants to learn Computer Literacy. For this statement, 70% did not believe that the LMS made it easy for them to learn on the course, with only 30% taking the opposite view.

Respondents were also asked to indicate whether Moodle was advantageous to their learning or not. In relation to this statement, 67% of respondents agreed that Moodle was advantageous to their learning and 12% strongly disagreed. This is to be expected, however, as some of the perceived advantages of online learning were not necessarily attributable to Moodle, as discussed in Sect. 3.4.

Respondents were also requested to indicate their satisfaction with the ability to navigate course content on Moodle. Results revealed that 97% were of the opinion that the LMS did not enable them to navigate the course content. Only 1% agreed that they could easily navigate content on Moodle.

One of the statements required respondents to indicate their ability to use Moodle without being told how it functions. Sixty-one percent of respondents strongly disagreed that they were able to use the LMS without any assistance. Only 38% indicated that they could use it without assistance. This implies that an intervention will be necessary to ensure students are able to use Moodle prior to their commencement of online courses, rather than expecting students to figure it out on their own.

Regarding the ability to download materials on Moodle, 81% of respondents strongly disagreed that they find it easy to download materials on Moodle and only 5% strongly agreed. In addition to interactive online content, the Computer Literacy course also has downloadable course manuals that can be saved for access on other devices, or printed out for ease of reference. The low perception of the ability to download study materials from Moodle is therefore an area of concern, as it may hinder students from engaging with the course content when they are offline.

Respondents were also asked to indicate if lecturers gave them constant feedback on Moodle. Seventy-one percent of the respondents strongly disagreed that lecturers provided constant feedback on Moodle, with only 16% of respondents strongly agreeing with this statement. While this may only be a perception, previous studies have shown that perceived lack of constant and timely feedback negatively affects student participation in online courses (Freeze et al., 2010). It is therefore important to ensure that students have access to relevant, up-to-date information in online courses.

The last statement required respondents to give their overall perception of Moodle’s user-friendliness. Eighty-seven percent of the respondents disagreed with the statement that Moodle was user friendly, with only 8% strongly agreeing.

3.5 Recommendations on Using Moodle to Teach Computer Literacy

The final question invited respondents to provide recommendations for improving the online offering of the Computer Literacy course at UNAM. Unlike users in Jordan, respondents did not recommend specific features that could be added to Moodle to improve its usability. Rather, they recommended actions to be taken, mostly by lecturers, to ensure better administration of the course. Themes that emerged from the recommendations were as follows:

  • Extended time for testing or assessment: Respondents believed that the time provided for students to complete online assessments, especially tests, was not sufficient. An extract from one response is given below:

    They need to extend test time - 55 minutes is not enough, and sometimes the internet crashes. I also recommend that they provide feedback.

  • Lower student–lecturer ratio: Respondents suggested that the lecturers had to cater to a large number of students, and suggested assigning fewer students to lecturers to ensure that students got individual attention. One extract reflecting this theme ran as follows:

    They should put fewer students in a slot. The system needs to work smoothly so that students can complete their tests without time being wasted by the computer buffering.

  • Announcement of test dates: One candidate felt that test dates should be indicated in a timely manner to enable students to prepare and make the necessary arrangements. This is especially important for students that do not own a personal computer or a mobile phone, as they will have to ensure they have access to a device to enable them to participate in the test.

    For each and every test, dates should be announced two days or three days before the test starts. Clear notes with full explanations should be provided at all times.

  • Internet access issues: Several respondents indicated that they had difficulty with connectivity and suggested that the university needed to ensure students have access to the internet at all times.

    Utilization of more devices such as computers to boost effective learning. More activities and assignments for practical purposes. Faster and free connection to be available to everyone.

  • Software Access issues: Some respondents reported that they do not own a personal computer, or have access to one at home. Even for those who own or have access to a computer, not all have access to the Microsoft Office package used in the Computer Literacy Course. They, therefore, recommended that the University takes responsibility for ensuring that all students have access to the required software to enable them to participate meaningfully in the course.

  • Moodle Training in the first week: Some respondents said they had faced challenges when accessing Moodle for the first time. They suggested a training course on how to use Moodle be conducted during the first week of classes, rather than expecting students to discover functionality on their own. This is reflected in the quote below:

    Guidance on how to use Moodle in the first week classes start.

3.6 Analysis of Moodle Logs

Moodle provides a log tool that tracks users’ activities on the LMS. The tool provides insights into users’ day-to-day interaction with the different components of the course, and can be used both as a corrective measure to warn instructors of students who are lagging behind or in need of extra attention, and for postmortem analysis of course participation. An example of an activity log from the UNAM Moodle LMS is shown in Fig. 9.

Fig. 9
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Sample log for the UNAM Moodle LMS

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For the Computer Literacy course, we used the Course Participation Reports tool to get a full analysis of system usage. A summary of the data computed from the built-in Moodle Log Analysis tool is presented in Table 5.

Table 5 Data from Moodle Logs
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As Table 5 shows Unit 1 was the most accessed item on the online Computer Literacy course. The Unit had 9485 views in total, and 49% percent of all students registered for the online course viewed the course content. However, 51% of participants did not access this item at all. Table 5 also shows that the videoconferencing feature (called BigBlueButton in the UNAM Moodle LMS), Unit 3, Test 1, and Test 2 were the least accessed features, and were accessed only by 1% of the participants.

It should be noted, however, that students who opted to do the online course were not prevented from participating in face-to-face sessions. Those who did not struggled with the online component may therefore have switched back to the alternative face-to-face sessions offered at the campus during that time.

4 Discussion

The results show that most students had never used Moodle or any other learning management system prior to enrolling at UNAM. This is consistent with the results showing that access to and ownership of ICT facilities, especially at primary and secondary schools in Namibia, is very low. It is also consistent with similar findings by Byungura et al. (2018), indicating that Rwandan students are not familiar with technology or LMSs in their first year of study. Worldwide, it also supports the findings of Yuwanuch and Barbara (2018) that many students in Africa encounter learning management systems for the first time at the university and will thus require training to enable them to use LMSes.

Additionally, our findings that most students do not own a desktop computer or laptop are consistent with the findings of CRAN (2019). Those who own computers and laptops indicated that they own these devices mostly for academic purposes. This is in contrast to Yuwanuch and Barbara (2018), who reported that first years tend to use ICT devices for entertainment, including socializing on social media platforms. This finding is significant for the UNAM context, as it has other implications for course access and the planning of assessment activities. It is important for lecturers to provide alternative ways of accessing content, such as printable documents, to enable students who do not have full-time access to their own devices to engage with it. In addition, assessment activities may require students to reserve devices, which means that assessment dates need to be communicated to students in a timely manner.

Several respondents also indicated that they had problems using Moodle for this course. In addition to challenges relating to access to devices, they also raised issues relating to connectivity and lack of competence with the LMS. Analysis of the system logs also revealed that students who participated in this course did not consistently access all the course features provided by Moodle, which could be due to lack of skills. Previous studies reported that the lack of access to computers, coupled with lack of skills, can lead to computer anxiety and low self-efficacy among first year students (Schlebusch, 2018). As suggested by Hoffman and Vance (2008), therefore, the design of the Computer Literacy course needs to evolve to adapt to the changing circumstances in which the students find themselves. Mindful of students’ limited resources, some institutions have initiated programs to ensure their first year students have access to or own devices (Byungura et al., 2018). This may not be affordable in all contexts, but UNAM could still consider dedicating a computer laboratory to online learning, to ensure that all students have access to online courses. UNAM could also consider creating “informal, practical workshops and demonstrations” (Schlebusch, 2018) for all first year students, to ensure that those students know how the LMS works before they start online courses.

Although students did not specifically indicate any challenges associated with accessing content itself, some participants indicated that they did not have access to the software packages used in the course. This indicates an assumption that UNAM has made about the students participating in this course, namely, that they all have access to the relevant Microsoft Office package. However, students may not necessarily have Office packages installed, and they may find it difficult to accomplish the tasks as performance of individual tasks could differ depending on the devices used. The decision to use the Microsoft Office package for the Computer Literacy course, therefore, needs reconsideration, since not all students may be able to engage in all course activities without this package. UNAM could adopt an open-source software suite for use by all students participating in the course. Since open-source software such as Open Office is freely available for download, this option is also affordable for students. Alternatively, UNAM could also consider adopting an institutional subscription to the Office365 package in order to provide all students with access to the required software regardless of their physical location.

Most respondents felt that it was not easy to use Moodle across devices. This has several implications for the overall perception of the usability and usefulness of Moodle as observed in this study. Participants’ inability to use cloud services hinders them from working on their assignments regardless of device and location, for example. It is therefore important to ensure that students are aware of the various storage mechanisms available in Moodle to minimize disruption to their course and assignment work when working across different devices. Another example is the addition of objects such as images and charts to documents when preparing a word processing or presentation assignment. We found that students were not able to do this on all devices. While adding an object to a document may be an easy task to accomplish on a computer, it may be complicated for first time users using a mobile device. To complete assessment activities in the course, however, students need to be able to add objects to their documents, regardless of the device they are using. The usability of an LMS may therefore not be entirely dependent on the user interface, but also on the capacity of the device used to access the course.

Apart from the findings that were directly attributable to the LMS, respondents also indicated other issues that need to be addressed to ensure a satisfactory student experience with online courses. Firstly, respondents indicated the need for students to be given individual attention. This was implied in the high student-to-lecturer ratios reported by respondents. In addition, the implied delay in responding to student issues and the emphasis on providing timely feedback to students also point to a disconnect felt by course participants. Course lecturers, therefore, need to address the issue of continuous engagement with students to improve students’ perceptions of lecturers’ social presence (Lowenthal & Dunlap, 2018).

5 Conclusions

This paper aimed to investigate the suitability of the Moodle LMS for teaching the Computer Literacy course to first year students. It used online delivery of the Computer Literacy course to first year students in the first semester of 2019 at the University of Namibia as a case study. Based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT), a questionnaire was devised and distributed, and completed by 98 respondents. The study identified and analyzed students’ computer literacy profiles, including their access to specific technological devices and their reasons for owing them. It also analyzed participants’ perceptions of the usability of the Moodle LMS.

The study revealed that most participating first year students at the University of Namibia do not own a computer or laptop, although those who do own one are utilizing it mainly for academic purposes. It confirmed the findings of previous studies that typically, first year students in Africa do not necessarily have the experience of being digital natives that is common in the Western world, and will thus still need the Computer Literacy course at university. Furthermore, the findings revealed that most students had not utilized an LMS prior to coming to the University. Previous studies have shown that there is a difference in the perception of the LMS between students who have previously completed an online course and those who are taking it for the first time (Dobbs et al., 2009; Hixon et al., 2016). Previous studies have also shown that it is user satisfaction, rather than system use, that is the strongest predictor of success in an online course (Freeze et al., 2010). It is therefore important to ensure that users are satisfied with the delivery of online courses.

Our findings suggest that it is possible to offer an online Computer Literacy course to first time students using Moodle. However, situational analysis in order to match the delivery with the local context is essential. In the UNAM context, limited ownership and access to devices and essential software requires the University to provide access to resources or make adjustments in order to deliver the online course successfully. The heterogeneity of skills levels and exposure to online learning requires that some form of LMS training be given to first year students before they start learning online. Although previous studies found the Moodle LMS highly usable, our results seem to suggest that students’ perceptions of the suitability of the LMS may not be solely dependent on the user interface and the availability of features, but may also depend on the capacity of the device in question and the delivery context.

This study has several limitations. Firstly, the implementation focused on the Moodle LMS customized for the University of Namibia. Different Moodle LMSs will be differently configured, and may offer other features not available at UNAM. Secondly, the results focus on evaluation of the delivery of a single online course for students who also had the option of switching to face-to-face delivery. If students did not have this option, their participation in the online component might have been different.