Content consumption and hierarchical structures of web-supported courses

This study presents an empirical investigation of the relationship between the hierarchical structure of content delivered to students within a Learning Management System (LMS) and its actual consumption. To this end, campus-wide data relating to 1,203 courses were collected from the LMS' servers and were subsequently analyzed using data mining techniques. Results suggest five types of repository structures, relatively high levels of consumption of online learning materials, and associations between these structures and content consumption, with a tendency to lower consumption rates for structures utilizing filing. A discussion of these results and their implications is provided below.