Comfortable PandA: Student-Developed Extension for Enhancing the Usability of Sakai LMS at Kyoto University

抄録

The COVID-19 pandemic brought a rapid shift to online education at higher educational institutions, significantly increasing the usage of Learning Management System (LMS). Although LMS is a feature-rich educational platform, it is primarily designed to meet the needs of faculty and instructors, and its usability from the student's perspective is often overlooked. This paper presents Comfortable PandA, a web browser extension developed by a student to enhance the usability of Kyoto University's LMS “PandA” based on the open source Sakai LMS. The extension aims to improve the user interface of the LMS by providing new features, such as a list of assignments and test&quizzes and a notification system for new assignments. In this paper, the extension's development, features, and collaboration with Kyoto University for its official recognition and regulation for future enhancements are described in detail. An evaluation based on student surveys is also presented to demonstrate the extension's effectiveness. Notably, the extension's usage has been increasing since its release in May 2020, and it is currently used by over 75% of undergraduate students at Kyoto University. This paper highlights the importance of student-led development in enhancing the usability of the LMS and emphasizes the critical role of integrating perspectives from the student community in the evolution of the LMS.