An Implementation of the UTAUT Model for Understanding Students’ Perceptions of Learning Management Systems: A Study Within Tertiary Institutions in Saudi Arabia

The rapid growth of e-learning around the globe is inspiring various academic institutions to adopt it. Uptake is motivated by convincing benefits such as flexibility, accessibility and the management of course delivery and educational materials. In fact, academic institutions place a great emphasis on technology-enhanced learning development and are investing significantly in information technology infrastructure. However, in spite of this effort and investment, it seems that instructors and students do not always fully benefit from the learning technology and more often Learning Management Systems (LMSs) remain underutilized. There is a dearth of academic research on Saudi higher education to examine acceptance and use of LMSs. Thus, this study adopts the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) to study how people accept and use Blackboard. The data were analysed using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) techniques to test the hypothesized research model. The empirical results revealed that Performance Expectancy (PE), Social Influence (SI) and Technical Support (TS) positively affect students’ Behavioural Intention (BI) to use Blackboard. However, Facilitating Conditions (FC) showed significant influence on actual use (AU) while Effort Expectancy (EE) exhibited no impact on students’ intention to use the LMS. The empirical results found that technical support is fundamental in determining the acceptance and use of Blackboard. The extended UTAUT fits well in a web-based learning system in the Saudi context. The findings of the study may help to provide insights into a better approach to promote e-learning acceptance

Mindfully Experimenting with IT

In many companies the process of new Information Technology (IT) identification and assessment lacks the rigor associated with experimentation. We explore cases of 5 companies not using formal experiments to implement social media but who applied differing levels of mindfulness to their social media implementations. It was observed that companies with a more mindful implementation had wider boundaries of assessments, richer interpretations of the IT\u27s usefulness, multi-level foci concerning benefits and costs, persistence to continue exploration, and a greater use of fact-based decision-making. The cases illustrate that the extent of mindfulness influences not only how new technologies are introduced, but also that a mindful introduction process can reap benefits of experimentation, such as greater stakeholder satisfaction and organization-wide learning and understanding the technology\u27s potential. Implications for theory and practice are outlined