Analyzing Moodle/LMS logs to measure mobile access

Abstract

Most Educational Institutions worldwide have deployed web based Learning Management Systems (LMS) as a means to provide support for their presence-based lectures and offer online-exclusive learning. These LMSs were designed and developed for users accessing the system through web browsers on desktop computers or laptops. However, over the last years, an increasing percentage of the registered accesses to various LMS platforms have been from mobile devices such as smartphones. While tackling the problems arising through the design of a mobile client for the Open Source LMS Moodle called Moodbile, the question of how to decide which services of Moodle could be accessed from smartphones became very relevant. This paper presents a data analysis study conducted on the Moodle server logs of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya-Barcelona Tech (UPC) virtual campus, Atenea, and the insight gained regarding the particular characteristics of the accesses from mobile devices. The main achievement of this study is that it provides insight of the use of the university LMS from mobile devices.