Open School: Developing and Evaluating an Open E-learning Platform for Khmer-speaking Users

Cambodia has one of the fastest growing economies in Asia with a GDP growth of at least 7 percent since 2011 (Asia Development Bank, 2016). However, access to quality education is still a challenge for this country. The challenge is more evident in the provinces compared to the cities where private schools and universities are abundant. Witnessing a rapid increase in the Internet access in Cambodia in the past three years, the researcher proposed distance learning as a potential solution. The purpose of this study is to develop and evaluate the ease of use of an open web-based learning platform called Open School for taking and creating online courses. Based on an audience analysis, Open School was designed to be bilingual (English and Khmer), responsive to different devices, easy to use and open. In his presentation, the researcher will talk about the development of the platform on WordPress and its evaluation using distant usability testing with the subjects in Cambodia. The results from the study allowed the researcher to provide relevant support to the users and to improve the ease of use of the platform as indicated by an increase of the average usability score from 4.4 to 5.03 on a six-point scale. Open School will be one of the first distant learning platforms in Khmer language when it launches. Now that the platform has been proved to be easy to use, the next big step for the researcher is to find a way for people to make use the platform.
Project URL: http://beta010.openschoolcambodia.org