III. Functional framework of the learning system

This section codifies and summarizes the functions, learning activities and services of the home pages at the three levels of the platform using a service-oriented approach with Web 2.0 concepts, connectivism theory and grounded theory, thus forming a functional framework for the learning system. It organizes the functions at different levels of the learning system, and analyzes the commonly used functions and learning activities of the system.

1. The three-level coding system: “Function — Learning activity — Service”

First, as seen from the above analysis of the level structure of the learning system, the portal and course space focus respectively on management service information and course learning information, and only include online learning support functions for some of the students. It is the personal space that encapsulates the online learning support functions for the students. To further clarify the functions of the distance learning and management platform, the following section makes an overall summary of the functions at the three levels mainly based on the personal space.

Second, services are provided through activities, and educational services are the product of educational activities^[7].  Accordingly, a series of platform functions organized around a clear objective can support the platform's corresponding online educational activity. A series of online education activities organized around a clear teaching objective will produce a corresponding online educational service. Therefore, a service-oriented approach is helpful in organizing learning activities, and centering on learning activities helps to relate and integrate functions, resulting in optimization of the platform's functional framework. The following section presents a three-level coding system of “function—learning activity—service” based on the statistical summary of the functions of the three home pages using a service-oriented approach and grounded theory methods. The second level coding (learning activity) is based on the nature and category of the functions. The third level coding (service) is based on the following:

(1) From a service perspective, the National Outline for Medium and Long-term Education Reform and Development (2010-2020) calls for the energetic development of distance education and the construction of a public service platform. From an Internet development perspective, individualization and socialization are the dual choices of Internet consumers in the Web 2.0 age^[8], and the individualization and socialization of public services are the development trend of the future.

(2) From a learning theory perspective, constructivist learning theory stresses that learning is a process of personal knowledge construction and social consultation. Connectivism theory further stresses the optimization of the individual's inner and exterior knowledge network in an effort to turn individual nodes into hot nodes in the network of society^[9].

(3) From a pedagogical and sociological perspective, education must achieve the unification of individualization and socialization in order to achieve well-rounded human development^[10].

(4) From a philosophical perspective, Karl Marx believes that man is both an individualized person and a socialized person. The individualization and socialization of man happen together at the same time, related as a unity of opposites^[11][12].

Therefore, if the platform is to facilitate students' balanced development, it must not only support the students in course learning but also pay attention to their individualization and socialization. Hence, on the basis of the preliminary content analysis of the 30 representative platforms, the author classifies the students’ online learning activities into three categories of services: personal management, social management and learning management.

The final coding results are shown in Table 5. The learning system includes 3 categories of services, 18 learning activities and 41 specific functions. Listed in the table are the functions of each level and the number of occurrences of each. In addition, service subcategories are listed between the second level coding and third level coding.

What needs to be explained is that personal management and social management are only relative divisions; the two categories have some amount of overlap. In personal management, the act of editing personal information is to create a name card for social interaction, and creating a personal folder is done to share with the group folder. Likewise, in social management, peer communication is conducted one-on-one, so it has characteristics of individualization.

Table 5  Platform Function Statistics and Learning Activity Coding

Division of three categories of services based on learning activities is beneficial for the following reasons: It highlights the equal importance of individualized services, social services and course learning within the platform. It clarifies the corresponding functions of the three categories of service, and helps make focused enhancement and optimization of these functions, thus providing support to the students’ individual, social and course learning activities. It also helps guide the mutual advancement of personal management and social exchange centered on course learning so as to achieve a balance in developing the students’ individualization and socialization.

2. Summary of functions between the three levels

Based on the above three-level coding system, a summary can be made of the functions of the portal, personal space and course space.

Table 5 shows that the portal overlaps with the personal space mainly in community exchange activities, of which the function of campus activity support is mainly provided by the portal, since such information can be browsed without login. Moreover, the portal usually includes an internal mailbox system, an online Q & A system and quick access to study for unified examination, course selection and school registration, but these functions are available only after login. The author believes that it is better to place these functions in the personal space. Doing so would achieve better integration and reduce redundant login.

Second, the course space overlaps with the personal space mainly in the tutorial Q & A and online test functions, but its content is relevant only to a single course, while the course Q & A and practice test functions in the personal space usually list all of the student's courses. Moreover, the author believes that schoolmate and teacher information and the course learning progress inquiry function should be placed in the course space to facilitate course learning.

3. A summary of commonly used functions

This paper classifies functions appearing in 10 or more platforms (one-third of the total) as commonly used functions and those appearing in 20 or more platforms (over two-thirds) as core functions. Based on the data in Table 5, the commonly used functions are listed in Table 6 (with core functions in bold face).

First, we can see that personal information, final score inquiry, notices, internal mailbox, help, course list, course forum, online Q & A and assignments are the core functions of the platform.