Kuwait University first online learning experience imposed by COVID-19 : an assessment of the usability of the E-learning platforms

Abstract EN

Due to the education crisis caused by the Corona virus pandemic, Kuwait University (KU) was shut down from March to July 2020 and resumed the academic year with online course delivery in August 2020.

In light of KU’s first-ever online learning experience, this study aims to assess faculty members’ 1 preferences between the e-learning tools, 2 differences in their usability of the two main platforms, Microsoft Teams and Blackboard, and 3 the impact of their rank and/or college affiliation on the usability of the two platforms.

A survey was distributed among KU faculty members and was completed by 252 participants.

T-test and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were used to assess the system usability scores.

The results highlighted that faculty members’ usability of Microsoft Teams and Blackboard were considered above average while there were no differences in the overall usability between the two platforms.