EDU_INSIGHTS: The Analytic Tools to Assess Students' Satisfaction Level in Open and Distance Learning (ODL)

ABSTRACT

Open and distance learning (ODL) has become a new norm in higher institutions due to the Covid-19 outbreak. The implementation of ODL is grounded in an internet-based teaching system that enables university students to learn through a virtual platform. However, to date, the tool to assess the ODL performance from the students' perspectives is insufficient to improve the service quality. In this regard, the objective of this study is to develop an analytic tool using sentiment analysis techniques in evaluating the ODL performance from the students' perspective. To fulfill that, a new innovative sentiment tool namely EDU_INSIGHTS was developed and tested among the students from Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Kedah, Malaysia. A sample of questions was distributed to capture, analyze and visualize the real-time data on students' perspectives towards ODL. Subsequently, the sentiments were visualized in terms of the chart and word clouds. Consequently, this beneficial tool assists the top management of the university in assessing the performance of ODL for a better learning experience in the future.