A Financial Literacy Tool: Utilizing a Content Management System to  
Develop Online Learning Communities  
Focusing on K-12 Education 
 
by 
 
Rajitha Gondi 
 
 
 
 
A thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of 
Auburn University 
in partial fulfillment of the 
requirements for the Degree of 
Master of Science 
 
Auburn, Alabama 
August 4, 2012 
 
 
 
 
Keywords: Online Learning Educational Environments, K-12, Interactive Education,  
Content Management System (CMS), WordPress, Educational Content 
 
 
 
Copyright 2012 by Rajitha Gondi 
 
 
 
 
Approved by 
 
Cheryl D. Seals, Chair, Associate Professor, Computer Science and Software Engineering 
John A. (Tony) Cook, Extension Specialist, Assistant Professor, ACES ? 4H Admin 
Sanjeev Baskiyar, Associate Professor, Computer Science and Software Engineering 
 
 
ii 
 
 
 
 
Abstract 
In many schools and organizations, people are electronically linked, most of their time. 
However, the interface to communicate and interact with is quite rudimentary.  To have good 
interaction with the interface, a better online social learning network has to be developed. A 
social environment is a place where people can interact with each other and is a good place to 
collaborate with others.  People can continuously work together to exchange information on 
many common and interested topics.  
This thesis mainly concentrates on students using online learning environments to 
develop their skill and knowledge. It talks about creation of such online learning environments 
using various design tools that allow students to interact among themselves. The topics in my 
thesis mainly focus on developing and designing an On-line Social Learning Educational 
Environment using a Content Management System (CMS) called WordPress. This learning 
environment is being developed for K-12 students to teach Financial Literacy, under FYFL ? 
?For Youth, For Life,? an open-learning community for 4-H youth. While interacting with such 
learning environments, students usually look for some attractive features like games; chat and 
discussion are where they can collaborate with other students, colors and images of the interface. 
The online learning tool developed for K-12 students is named as ?FYFL Financial 
Literacy using CMS.? This learning environment is a secure and collaborative interface where 
students can interact with others easily. It is very important to make sure that the developed 
online learning environment is secured, maintains integrity and are inhabited to the online world.  
 
iii 
 
 
 
 
Acknowledgments 
 I take pleasure in thanking many people for making my thesis possible. Firstly, I convey 
deep sense of gratitude to my major professor, Dr. Cheryl D. Seals for her extreme support, 
guidance, motivation, patience and importantly time on every step throughout my thesis work 
while understanding my situation always. Without her great help and suggestions, this thesis 
wouldn?t have taken a successful shape. My sincere thanks also extend to the committee 
members, Dr. John A. (Tony) Cook and Dr. Sanjeev Baskiyar for being part of my advisory 
committee and their cooperation, proof reading and timely mentoring during my thesis. Special 
thanks to Dr. David Umphress for being my graduate advisor in guiding me throughout my 
Masters.  
Finally, I am truly grateful to GOD for giving me good opportunities that are tuning up 
my life as expected, for the adorable parents and friends who have always been for me with their 
support, blessings and encouragement. Without them, I know that none of this would have ever 
been possible.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
iv 
 
 
 
 
Table of Contents 
 
Abstract ........................................................................................................................................ ii 
Acknowledgments ....................................................................................................................... iii 
List of Tables ............................................................................................................................... ix 
List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... x 
Chapter 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................. .1 
 1.1 Problem Statement ..................................................................................................... .2 
 1.2 Research Justification ................................................................................................ .3 
 1.3 Research Purpose ....................................................................................................... .4 
 1.4 Hypothesis.................................................................................................................. .5 
 1.5 Document Review ...................................................................................................... .6 
Chapter 2 Literature Review ........................................................................................................ .8 
 2.1 Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) .................................................... .8 
 2.1.1 About CSCW .................................................................................................... .9 
 2.1.2 Types of CSCW .............................................................................................. .10 
 2.1.2.1 Synchronous CSCW Environments ....................................................... .10 
 2.1.2.2 Asynchronous CSCW Environments ..................................................... .11 
 2.2 Comparison of CSCW with Similar Software?s ...................................................... .11 
 2.2.1 Groupware....................................................................................................... .11 
 2.2.2 Workflow ........................................................................................................ .12 
 
v 
 
  2.2.3 Team/Workgroup Computing ........................................................................ .12 
 2.3 Core Dimensions of CSCW ..................................................................................... .13 
 2.3.1 Awareness ....................................................................................................... .13 
 2.3.2 Articulation Work ........................................................................................... .13 
 2.3.3 Appropriation or Tailorability......................................................................... .14 
 2.4 Role of CSCW in Secure Online Learning Systems ................................................ .14 
 2.5 Online Learning/E-Learning 1.0 .............................................................................. .15 
 2.5.1 K-12 Learning ................................................................................................. .16 
2.5.2 Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) ................................... .17 
2.5.3 Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) .......................................................... .17 
2.5.4 Classroom Environment vs. Online Learning Environment for K-12 Students18 
2.5.5 Online Learning Activities .............................................................................. .19 
 2.6 Advantages of Online Learning in K-12 Environment ............................................ .19 
 2.7 For Youth, For Life (FYFL) Learning Network ...................................................... .21 
 2.7.1 eXtension ........................................................................................................ .21 
 2.7.2 eXtension Community of Practice (CoP) ....................................................... .22 
 2.8 Statistics on the Audience of FYFL, Social Learning Environments ...................... .24 
 2.9 eXtension Learning Environment for Youth ........................................................... .25 
 2.9.1 Content of ?For Youth, For Life? ................................................................... .26 
 2.10 Social Learning Environments ............................................................................... .26 
 2.11 Content Flow and Quality Assurance of Social Learning Networks ..................... .28 
 2.11.1 Content Flow .................................................................................................. .28 
 2.11.2 Quality Assurance .......................................................................................... .29 
 
vi 
 
 2.12 For Youth, For Life Community of Practice (FYFL CoP) .................................... .29 
 2.12.1 Knowledge Bank ............................................................................................ .31 
 2.12.2 Learning Community Sites ............................................................................. .31 
 2.12.3 Secure Online Learning Networks ................................................................. .32 
 2.13 Safety and Security in Social Learning Environments .......................................... .32 
 2.13.1 Transparency .................................................................................................. .32 
 2.13.2 Membership Monitoring ................................................................................. .33 
 2.13.3 Data Encryption .............................................................................................. .33 
 2.13.4 Admin Control ................................................................................................ .33 
 2.14 Existing Content Management Systems (CMS) .................................................... .34 
 2.14.1 WordPress ...................................................................................................... .34 
 2.14.2 Drupal ............................................................................................................. .35 
 2.14.3 Expression Engine .......................................................................................... .36 
 2.14.4 Joomla ............................................................................................................ .36 
Chapter 3 Methodology ............................................................................................................. .38 
 3.1 Using eXtension as Content Management System (CMS) ...................................... .38 
 3.2 Problems with eXtension for Interactive Systems ................................................... .39 
 3.3 Developing Criteria for Online Learning Environments ......................................... .39 
 3.3.1 Quality-Indicator Factors ................................................................................ .40 
       3.3.2 Principles while designing Online Learning Communities ............................. 40 
 3.4 Existing Environments ............................................................................................. .41 
 3.5 Software Development Process for Financial Literacy using CMS ........................ .44 
 3.5.1 Requirements Phase ........................................................................................ .46 
 
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 3.5.2 Analysis Phase ................................................................................................ .46 
 3.5.3 Design Phase ................................................................................................... .46 
 3.5.4 Implementation Phase ..................................................................................... .47 
 3.5.5 Testing Phase .................................................................................................. .47 
 3.5.6 Maintenance/Evaluation/Review Phase .......................................................... .47 
 3.6 UML Diagrams and Scenarios ? Financial Literacy using CMS ............................ .48 
  3.6.1 Scenario I ........................................................................................................ .48 
  3.6.2 Scenario II ....................................................................................................... .51 
  3.6.3 Scenario III ...................................................................................................... .55 
 3.7 How the Online Educational Environment will be tested? ...................................... .58 
 3.8 Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) ................................................................................. .58 
 3.9 Initial Study Description of the System ................................................................... .59 
 3.10 Testing and Experimenting the Site Developed using CMS ................................. .60 
 3.11 Hypothesis.............................................................................................................. .61 
 3.12 Experimental Procedure ......................................................................................... .63 
Chapter 4 Implementation.......................................................................................................... .65 
 4.1 Implementation of the FYFL Financial Literacy using CMS .................................. .65 
 4.1.1 What is Content Management System (CMS) ................................................ .65 
 4.1.2 How CMS Works? .......................................................................................... .66 
 4.1.3 Types of Content Management Systems ......................................................... .67 
 4.2 Problem Statement ................................................................................................... .67 
 4.3 Proposed System ...................................................................................................... .68 
 4.4 WordPress as Content Management System ........................................................... .68 
 
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 4.4.1 Themes ............................................................................................................ .69 
 4.4.2 Plugins............................................................................................................. .69 
 4.4.3 Widgets ........................................................................................................... .69 
 4.4.4 Multi-User and Multi-Blogging ...................................................................... .70 
 4.4.5 Mobiles ........................................................................................................... .70 
 4.5 Design and Model of the System using WordPress ................................................. .71 
 4.6 Descriptions of the Modules of FYFL Financial Literacy ....................................... .73 
 4.6.1 Interactive Pages ............................................................................................. .74 
 4.6.2 Activities included under each of the Interactivities ....................................... .75 
 4.6.3 Activities under each Financial Page .............................................................. .76 
 4.6.4 Quizzes ............................................................................................................ .76 
 4.6.5 Forum .............................................................................................................. .78 
 4.6.5.1 Forum after Login .................................................................................. .79 
 4.6.6 Posts ................................................................................................................ .80 
Chapter 5 Results and Analysis ................................................................................................. .82 
 5.1 Objectives and Goals of Learning Environment ...................................................... .82 
 5.2 Information Gathered from Pre-Questionnaire ........................................................ .83 
  5.2.1 Pre-Questionnaire Results ............................................................................... .85 
 5.3 Information Gathered from Post-Questionnaire ...................................................... .88 
  5.3.1 Post-Questionnaire Results ............................................................................. .91 
 5.4 Participant?s Comments ........................................................................................... .95 
 5.5 Evaluation of the Study ............................................................................................ .96 
 
 
ix 
 
Chapter 6 Conclusion and Future Work .................................................................................. .102 
 6.1 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. .102 
 6.2 Future Work ........................................................................................................... .103 
References ................................................................................................................................ .106 
Appendix A .............................................................................................................................. .111 
Appendix B .............................................................................................................................. .112 
Appendix C .............................................................................................................................. .114 
Appendix D .............................................................................................................................. .116 
Appendix E .............................................................................................................................. .117 
Appendix F............................................................................................................................... .119 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
x 
 
 
 
 
List of Tables 
 
Table 2.1    Two-dimensional collaboration framework ............................................................... 9 
Table 2.2    Comparison between the regular Classroom Environments and Online Learning 
                   environments ............................................................................................................ 18 
 
Table 3.1    Financial Literacy survey flowchart ........................................................................ 64 
Table 5.1    Pre-Questionnaire results ......................................................................................... 86 
Table 5.2    Students perception on interactive tools like Forum and Live Chat ........................ 87 
Table 5.3    Post-Questionnaire results for Information Quality ................................................. 92 
Table 5.4    Post-Questionnaire results for System and Interaction Quality ............................... 94  
Table 5.5    Comparison among three Financial Literacy environments .................................... 97 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
xi 
 
 
 
 
List of Figures 
 
Figure 2.1   Synchronous and asynchronous CSCW matrix ....................................................... 11 
Figure 2.2   Comparison of CSCW with other terminologies ..................................................... 13 
Figure 2.3   eXtension Community of Practice (CoP) ................................................................ 23 
Figure 2.4   Published eXtension page for ?For Youth, For Life?.............................................. 24 
Figure 2.5   A logo for FYFL, in collaboration with eXtension and 4-H clover ........................ 26 
Figure 2.6   FYFL-Social Learning Environment ....................................................................... 28 
Figure 2.7   FYFLnet Learning Network developed for Youth .................................................. 30 
Figure 2.8   WordPress Content Management System ............................................................... 35 
Figure 2.9   Drupal Content Management System ...................................................................... 35 
Figure 2.10 Expression Engine Content Management System ................................................... 36 
Figure 2.11 Joomla Content Management System ..................................................................... 37 
Figure 3.1   Moneyville home page ............................................................................................ 41 
Figure 3.2   Unappealing navigation toolbar .............................................................................. 42 
Figure 3.3   Unappealing look and feel of Moneyville, with text based pages ........................... 42 
Figure 3.4   Add It Up prototype ................................................................................................. 43 
Figure 3.5   Iterative process model of FYFL system development ........................................... 45 
Figure 3.6   Use-Case diagram of FYFL Financial Literacy system using CMS ....................... 49 
Figure 3.7   Sequence diagram from Admin perspective ............................................................ 52 
 
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Figure 3.8   Sequence diagram from Student perspective .......................................................... 56 
Figure 4.1   CMS workflow ........................................................................................................ 66 
Figure 4.2   Network Admin dashboard of WordPress ............................................................... 70 
Figure 4.3   WordPress dashboard with Network Admin panel ................................................. 71 
Figure 4.4    FYFL network home page ...................................................................................... 72 
Figure 4.5    Money and Values page of FYFL Financial Literacy site ..................................... 73 
Figure 4.6    Interactivities of Money and Values page  ............................................................. 74 
Figure 4.7    Flash games under Activities section of each financial activities page .................. 75 
Figure 4.8    Bubble Gram game under Advertising page .......................................................... 76 
Figure 4.9    Pre-Quiz section under Consumer Protection page ................................................ 77 
Figure 4.10  Registration form of the Forum .............................................................................. 78 
Figure 4.11  Forum/Discussion Board of FYFL system ............................................................. 80 
Figure 4.12  Posts webpage of the Financial Literacy site ......................................................... 81 
Figure 5.1    Pre-survey results of Classroom Teaching vs. Online Learning ............................ 85 
Figure 5.2    Graphical representation of pre-questionnaire survey responses ........................... 87 
Figure 5.3    Post-Survey results of overall system satisfaction ................................................. 89 
Figure 5.4    Post-Survey ratings on system?s usability .............................................................. 90 
Figure 5.5    Post-Survey ratings on system?s colors, images, layout and appearance ............... 90 
Figure 5.6    Post-Survey ratings on system?s navigation ........................................................... 91 
Figure 5.7    Pie chart showing the percentage of people who believe that online learning  
                    environments should be involved to supplement the  traditional classroom  
                    teachings ................................................................................................................. 99 
 
Figure 5.8    Responses of participants for System Interaction and Features ........................... 100 
 
Figure 5.9    Pie diagram of FYFL Financial Learning Environment System Information Quality  
                     and Usability ........................................................................................................ 101
 
1 
 
 
 
 
CHAPTER 1 
INTRODUCTION 
The role of learning technology in the early childhood education is very important. 
Parents and educators both should have good concern about the potential benefits and harm 
towards their children. With the advancement and continuously evolving technology, many 
resources are available and within reach for this generation students. Wide range of technologies 
and learning tools, either at home or school, are available for children. Sensible usage of these 
tools by educators and parents help them to teach and make children understand easily. With the 
expansion of internet availability, every household has easy access to it. The parents could also 
play a major role in supporting and helping their children to use these resources for gaining 
knowledge. This improves their interest in learning and practicing knowledge and the media. 
According to the National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES), conducted by the 
U.S. Department of Education?s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), in 2007, gives 
the estimates of the number and the percentage of the homeschooled students in the United 
States. This data was collected for the students ages 5 through 17 and with a grade equivalent to 
kindergarten through 12th grade. The percentage of the homeschooled children increased from 
2.2 percent to 2.9 percent, which shows that parents are showing interest in teaching their 
children [13]. 
Internet is widely used in many organizations, schools and universities. Now-a-days it 
has become completely impossible to work or operate without ubiquitous internet access. With 
 
2 
 
the advancements in the networks to 3G and 4G, the internet is accessible everywhere. Learning 
environments have become more popular with the extensive usage of internet. Researches are 
working hard to design more effective online learning environments, which can be used in 
teaching them in classrooms, and in informal places like science centers and after-school 
knowledge clubs. They can also be used as computer-based tutoring software. The online 
environments with interesting curricular materials also help teachers, to improve their knowledge 
and creating advanced educational software tools with collaborative activities. Learning science 
researchers are still investigating many other alternative models for students learning. These 
models particularly include the connections between the formal schooling and the other available 
learning methods like teaching institutions, after school clubs and online learning environments 
that can be accessed from home. Researches are also being focused on the collaboration between 
students and the working professionals. All these researches also prove that informal learning is 
also as important for students and in many cases is just as important as formal school learning. 
Parents and educators also contribute their support to in helping children and understand new 
concepts in detail [11]. 
 
1.1 Problem Statement 
There are numerous ways to keep the learners/children engaged in online environments. 
These online learning environments however focus on the concepts and support students of all 
ages. Many technologies are structured just for the high school students and this will cause 
younger generation to lose interest in learning with this environment. They may feel that it is too 
complicated and may feel overwhelmed by the content and presentations. This could lead them 
to miss the important concepts that are to be learned pertaining to their life and knowledge. 
 
3 
 
Formal schooling also involves regular standardized topics in their curriculum. The 
general topics however have to be taught to the students, but it doesn?t specify few important 
topics that younger generation students should learn in their learning age. Those topics that 
involve mandatory lessons for students during their young age are usually not included in the 
student curriculum. The lack of technology usage in improving the systems makes the younger 
generation reluctant towards such topics. These kinds of problems also increase burden on 
parents and the educators in making their students understand the concepts physically. Even if 
some online learning communities are available, it is very important that they should be at the 
proper learning level based on the student?s age. Due to the lack of utilization of technologies in 
developing such effective systems, parents and educators are also hassled to sit and teach their 
students and make them understand from the existing learning tools. Therefore, the main purpose 
of this research is to develop a student friendly and youth oriented online learning environment 
that increases the learning interest and ability of the younger generation.  
 
1.2 Research Justification 
Increase in the rapid growth of internet usage by all kinds of generations also made it 
possible to use the learning social networks online. Development of online social networks has 
now converted all the information into the online learning systems that can be communicated 
easily to the teachers, students and the general public. They are also responsible to provide some 
sort of entertainment for the users, to work collaboratively and engage them. These social 
networks are also responsible for satisfying the needs of the people in meeting their interests and 
imaginations. 
 
4 
 
Acquiring education through online learning communities has now become a preferred 
modality for many traditional students who often enroll in online programs.  Students have 
individualized ways of learning and acquiring knowledge. The differences in acquiring 
knowledge can be addressed through the social learning communities. Traditional classrooms 
tend to force students to learn, irrespective of their interests. Online learning communities 
provide such a good opportunity for students to learn topics of their interest. 
The growth and utilization of the technology in developing these online learning 
communities have attracted the younger students to understand their learning capacity.  There are 
various tools and features used, that are mainly responsible to increase the knowledge base of the 
younger generation. However, these learning communities become successful and open for wide 
usage only if these systems can support the educators as well as the learners in a way that they 
meet their expectations to keep them engaging, interactive and provide easy to use/understand 
options. 
 
1.3 Research Purpose 
The primary goals and objectives of this research were: 
? To develop an interactive online learning environment for K-12 children to acquire 
knowledge about the financial literacy, that is not being taught in the regular school 
curriculum. 
? To develop an online learning system that is responsible for a user-friendly environment 
that keeps the learners engaged with various attractive and interesting colors and features. 
? To develop an interactive learning system, that provides the educators and learners the 
ability to use the system easily through online sources. The current computer tools make 
 
5 
 
it easy for educators to understand, use and teach. The improved technology develops 
interest among students and engages them to use the online sources.  
? To improve the quality of education for the K-12 students, with the proper usage of the 
technology. Embedding various audio, video and interactive materials keep them engaged 
every time through these online learning environments. 
? To test the developed educational prototype with various users, to determine if it is 
effective for both educators as well as learners. 
 
1.4 Hypothesis 
The main hypothesis of the research is to create an application that supports financial 
literacy that provides more opportunities for interaction, understandable for educators and their 
students and to be easily used without any prior computer knowledge. We also want a system 
that is view as user friendly and more accessible when opposed to the classroom teaching 
methods. The second part of this hypothesis is to determine if students feel this system is much 
better, as is more engaging, user-friendly and easy to learn, compared to the traditional 
classroom environment and other online learning environments. And the last part of the 
hypothesis is to determine whether the informal online learning environment will be more 
attracted to students than the traditional classroom teaching of financial literacy and to see if it 
would have more number of learners and support more students when compared to the structural 
environments. 
 
 
 
 
6 
 
1.5 Document Review 
The rest of the thesis document is organized as follows:  
Chapter 2 consists of literature review which discusses topics on Computer-Supported 
Cooperative Work (CSCW), their types, core dimensions and comparison of CSCW with other 
systems, their role in the online learning environments. This chapter gives an overview of online 
learning, the differences between traditional classroom teaching and online learning and some 
advantages of online learning. It also discusses in detail about For Youth, For Life (FYFL) 
learning network, Cooperative Extension System (CES), their Community of Practice (CoP) 
concepts and the content present in each of them. It gives an overview on social learning 
environments, statistics on the population using these environments and the security measures 
that has to be taken in protecting these systems. 
Chapter 3 provides descriptions of eXtension and WordPress as Content Management 
Systems (CMS), problems that exist with the existing learning environments and the eXtension 
system, hypothesis, variables and developing criteria for online learning environments. It also 
discusses the software engineering process, UML diagrams with various scenarios from admin 
and student perspectives, the computer technologies used to develop the learning environments 
and the testing & experimenting procedures to test the finally developed environment. 
Chapter 4 discusses details on how different Content Management Systems (CMSs) like 
WordPress work, the problem statement and the proposed system using WordPress. It explains in 
detail the WordPress tool, the implementation process of the learning environment using this tool 
and various features created and used in the product development. 
 
7 
 
Chapter 5 discusses about how the system is being tested using surveys, which are being 
conducted and taken by different participants of different ages. It also shows the results of these 
surveys in the form of tables, graphs and pie diagrams. 
Chapter 6 concludes my thesis on the development of learning environments along with 
the future work that is yet to be done. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
8 
 
 
 
 
CHAPTER 2 
LITERATURE REVIEW 
2.1 Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) 
2.1.1 About CSCW 
The term Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) was first devised by Irene 
Greif and Paul M. Cashman in 1984 to consider how effectively computers are used by the 
people and researchers to support them in various tasks.  According to Carstensen and Schmidt, 
CSCW addresses "how collaborative activities and their coordination can be supported by means 
of computer systems" [27]. CSCW is a community of researchers and system designers who 
work collaboratively to develop an online environment and mainly addresses the collaborative 
work that individuals or groups carry out to perform certain activities by means of computer 
technology. 
From the study, it appears like the CSCW researchers adopted one of the two main 
viewpoints. One is technology-centric and the other is work-centric. Technology-centric 
emphasizes researchers on planning ways to design computer technology that supports the 
requirements of cooperative work. Work-centric focuses on work processes that design the 
computer systems so as to understand and support the cooperative work [28]. For example, 
Bannon and Schmidt [31] believe that ?CSCW should be conceived as an endeavor to understand 
the nature of cooperative work as a foundation to designing information systems to support the 
work.? 
 
9 
 
2.1.2 Types of CSCW: 
 CSCW is divided into two types called synchronous and asynchronous systems, based on 
time, space and their behaviors. Communicating at the same time refers to the synchronous or 
real-time collaboration and communication at different times refers to the asynchronous 
collaborative systems. There are three different categories of human behaviors: communication, 
information sharing and coordination with others. Each of these three categories has both 
synchronous and asynchronous collaboration making a two-dimensional collaboration 
framework of six different components. 
 
Table 2.1: Two-dimensional collaboration framework [28] 
 
 
 
 
10 
 
2.1.2.1 Synchronous CSCW Environments 
 Synchronous environments are real-time and deal with real objects in the form of 
communication, coordination and information sharing. A synchronous system deals with 
activities happening at the same time. The communication with other individuals or groups can 
be done in real-time using telephone, video conferencing, instant messaging and texting. 
Similarly, the information with others can be shared directly using whiteboards in meetings, 
application sharing, meeting felicitation and virtual worlds using computer technologies. In the 
same way, real-time coordination can be done by using session management, floor control and 
also a location tracking system. The team members can either share the same space or distributed 
space. Same space can be coordinated and in sync with the spontaneous collaborations, formal 
meetings and classrooms. In contrast, when individuals are located at distributed places, they can 
communicate and coordinate using video conference calls, net meetings or direct phone calls. 
2.1.2.2 Asynchronous CSCW Environments 
 Asynchronous environment is a system where the individuals or groups communicate and 
coordinated at different times. Asynchronous system deals with activities that are not happening 
at the same time. In asynchronous environments, the communication with others is done through 
emails, voice mails, blogs and social networking sites. Similarly, the information is shared using 
the document repositories, websites, team workspaces and wikis. The coordination among them 
is also done asynchronously using workflow management, CASE tools, project management and 
calendar scheduling. When using asynchronous environments, the individuals share the same 
space communicate through the design rooms and project scheduling. While in the distributed 
spaces, as shown in the diagram below, individuals communicate via emails, writing, voice mails 
and fax. 
 
11 
 
 
Figure 2.1: Synchronous and asynchronous Computer-Supported Collaborative Work 
matrix [33] 
 
2.2 Comparison of CSCW with Similar Software?s 
2.2.1 Groupware 
Most of the people/researchers/authors often consider groupware and CSCW to similar 
terminologies. Groupware is considered as computer software that makes group of people to 
work cooperatively. Groupware mainly refers to the real-time computer based systems such as 
video-conferencing systems, electronic-mails, application sharing programs and some software 
that supports the viewing of collaboratively developed websites. Whereas, CSCW concentrates 
on the study of the tools and techniques that groupware uses. 
 
 
 
12 
 
2.2.2 Workflow 
 Workflow is another term that is frequently used to refer to CSCW. Workflow mainly 
concentrates on the process of completing required work, though some pre-defined tasks with a 
set of people working collaboratively. Workflow software usually supports the formal work 
processes which is way different from groupware that deals with the software which supports the 
informal kind of work processes. From the above definitions it is clear that CSCW is similar to 
Work flow which involves collaborative work with people supporting each other in more formal 
way of work process, Groupware software. 
2.2.3 Team/Workgroup Computing 
The term, team computing or workgroup computing, is occasionally heard in the 
discussions of CSCW. This term, which was coined at Xerox PARC, talks about the 
collaborative systems that support group discussions and meetings. The collaboration of people 
and discussions of various topics in such meetings generally occur in face-to-face settings. 
Electronic meeting is another term recently being used in replacement to the team computing 
terminology. The meetings and group discussions according to electronic meetings (called as e-
meetings) are conducted with the use of computer technologies, networks and new software 
through internet. A less frequently used term called media spaces, is occasionally used during 
such collaborations. According to media spaces, a virtual meeting setup is provided where the 
collaborators from distributed areas can assemble electronically to discuss and share their 
knowledge and accomplishments with other collaborators to gain advantages among them. This 
is a kind of informal meeting being setup within the same physical location. 
 
 
13 
 
 
Figure 2.2: Comparison of CSCW with other terminologies [33] 
 
2.3 Core Dimensions of CSCW 
 CSCW researchers have derived few concepts and core dimensions in the field of 
cooperative work by doing researches and analysis on the existing systems, and the systems that 
are designed by them in the CSCW community. Below are the three core dimensions that have 
been identified by the researchers.  
2.3.1 Awareness 
 CSCW awareness generally deals with an individual?s ability to collaborate and work 
together with other individuals or groups to gain knowledge about each other?s activities. Events 
to support such awareness among the individuals can be supported by the meetings and 
discussions. Such group meetings or interactions with other team members help individuals to 
share their knowledge and ideas about their activities. This helps them to get to know others 
easily, and can interact with them comfortably for any further collaboration. 
2.3.2 Articulation Work 
 CSCW articulation work talks about dealing individuals in a team, to divide and share 
the work among them and integrate those tasks at the end. This element of articulating work 
 
14 
 
concentrates on individuals, grouping together for a project and managing to complete the tasks 
by dividing amongst themselves. Given a task, the team members must cooperate with others and 
divide the task into the number of work units among all the individuals in a team. Each 
individual must carry out their assigned activity and come up with the completion of their task. 
Once all the individual tasks are completed, they are then re-integrated to finish the whole 
module/project. This procedure must be done with very good cooperation and collaboration 
amongst the members in a team. There are some software tools, which are used to track the 
individual?s progress, step-by-step completion of work, compilation and their participation 
during integration. 
2.3.3 Appropriation or Tailorability 
 CSCW appropriation or tailorability deals with how an individual or a group gets 
adapted to a new technology on their own in given circumstances. The technology can be 
assumed in such a manner that is understandable by the individuals or groups. They can adopt 
the technology completely as per their requirement, which could be unintended by the designers. 
The designed technology can be used for a different purpose, than for which it was originally 
designed. This may be completely appropriated and the designers might not even be aware of it. 
 
2.4 Role of CSCW in Secure Online Learning Systems 
 Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) plays a vital role in today?s 
collaborative development and learning world. In order for collaborative environments to grow, 
the designers must be able to cooperate and work collaboratively to develop the product. They 
must be able to deal with other members in their team with proper awareness in articulating the 
work, and appropriating the technologies to accomplish the goals. The projects and tools 
 
15 
 
developed in the past 15 years have been using the CSCW attributes and dimensions to deliver a 
successful product. This approach along with proper communication, coordination and 
information sharing with others, reduces project time and produces effective results.  
 Recent developments in the online learning environments have also been using CSCW 
terms and concepts. While developing online learning communities such as websites, storing the 
content of different areas, good communication and coordination among different developers of 
different modules in a team is very important. The sharing of data, tasks and code files are 
transferred through different modes of synchronous or asynchronous applications. The meetings 
and discussions on various topics can also be done by communicating through face-to-face 
sessions, phone calls, video conference calls and emails if located at distributed places. Less 
formal information can be shared through instant messaging, texting, blogs or voice mails. Hence 
the role of CSCW is very important in every small step in coordinating, communicating, 
developing, data sharing and integrating of small to huge work units and tasks, in the 
development life cycle of an online learning community site. 
 
2.5 Online Learning/E-learning 1.0 
 Online learning or e-learning includes all kinds of electronically supported learning and 
teaching systems. E-learning is knowledge and skills transferring system, enabled by a computer 
system and Internet. E-learning 1.0 is direct transfer of these skills by the educators or direct 
internet/computer into children?s brain. E-learning is developed by creating a website or media 
files on a computer system. Content in these websites is collected from various sources like e-
books, regular books, publications, articles, YouTube and WIKIs. This content is delivered to the 
end users via Internet, intranet, audio or video files, television, news, and CD-ROM. The media 
 
16 
 
and the content in these online learning environments can be of text, image, audio, video and 
animation formats. The online learning applications include web/internet-based learning/training 
(WBT/IBT), computer-based learning/training (CBT), learning through virtual education and 
digital collaboration [34]. 
 Now-a-days, the younger generation students are attracted to the new technologies that 
strongly help them in quick education. Children ages 8 through 15 highly interact with systems 
that utilize new technologies, colorful themes, and new media like the animated stuff and 
engaging applications. Online learning can be self-explanatory or instructor-led. This kind of 
approach in learning either through self-learning or through parent/teacher instructing helps them 
in developing their knowledge, skills and the perception of the world [34]. 
2.5.1 K-12 Learning 
 E-learning has also been utilized in K-12 education in United States. This E-learning 
takes place in regular classrooms, where teachers instruct the students in content material. Some 
of them allow students to do self-learning or attending classes from home, making them 
comfortable without travelling. Some other states also use web and virtual school platforms for 
E-learning. Virtual school platforms allow children to open the websites either synchronously or 
asynchronously, from anywhere with enabled internet connection. Some of the well-developed 
schools in United States are now providing technology kits to their students that includes 
computers/laptops, internet connection and other required infrastructure for home usage. 
Students have to use these systems only for their school work and submission of their 
assignments and homework [34]. 
 
 
 
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2.5.2 Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) 
One of the promising innovations in recent times is the computer-supported collaborative 
learning (CSCL). The recent developments in CSCL include E-learning 2.0, which encourages 
students to work collaboratively, discuss the topics and perform tasks with group learning. E-
learning 1.0 is termed to be a traditional direct transfer of knowledge that reflects computer-
based learning systems (CBL), while E-learning 2.0 fully encourages collaborative learning, 
discussing ideas and promoting information using Web 2.0 tools. Some of the Web 2.0 network 
includes user-centered design, information sharing, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. 
Few examples of Web 2.0 applications are social networking sites, wikis, blogs, forums, video 
sharing sites and web applications [37]. The blogs, wikis and Google docs are some of the 
commonly used CSCL mediums for teaching. K-12 students are quick to learn. It is understood 
from their feedback that, once they get initial training on how to use these applications, they are 
very comfortable in using it with regular usage and gain lot of information and knowledge with 
these tools [34]. 
2.5.3 Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) 
 The main goal and purpose of technology-enhanced learning (TEL), is to provide 
advanced socio-technical innovations for E-learning practices, both synchronously and 
asynchronously. These innovations also help in improving the efficiency and cost effectiveness 
of the system. This field hence supports all the E-learning activities involving technologies, in 
order to improve their effectiveness and efficiency [34]. 
 
 
 
 
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2.5.4 Classroom Environment vs. Online Learning Environment for K-12 Students 
Online learning helps you do many things, including all the regular classroom activities 
easily, comfortably and at convenient timings at any place, with just a computer and internet 
connectivity. 
 
Table 2.2: Comparison between the regular Classroom Environments and Online Learning 
Environments [36] 
 
 
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2.5.5 On-line Learning Activities 
The online learning activities can be accomplished in more detail. Below are some of the 
online learning activities that have to be done by the K-12 students [36]. 
? Attend classes asynchronously ? access online course daily to check e-mails 
? Read and research specific information in the form of links to websites and articles 
? Participate in discussions through discussion forums 
? Collaborate online with other students during group assignments 
? Participate in role plays and case studies ? solve problems through discussion forums 
? Ask questions ? communicate using e-mails or discussion topics with instructors or other 
classmates 
? Socialize with other students ? using e-mails, discussion areas or chat rooms 
 
2.6 Advantages of Online Learning in K-12 Environment 
K-12 environments provide wide range of benefits for middle and high school students. 
Few advantages are listed below [38]: 
? Helpful for students living in small towns: Students who live in small town may not 
have quality schools and good education system. For such students, these online learning 
environments help them access easily from their home with just an internet connection to 
their computers. Such students could get quality education from well certified teachers 
who can instruct them and interact with various students from different locations. They 
can gain knowledge beyond their expectations and see beyond the perspective of their 
hometown. 
 
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? Helpful for parents who want to homeschool their children: Online learning 
environments are really helpful for those parents who want to homeschool their children 
or cannot send/drop their children at schools due to financial issues or busy schedules. 
There are some charter schools which allow this facility by providing the students with a 
technology kit, consisting of a laptop and an internet connection, to use it just for school 
purposes. 
? Helpful when schools do not have updated curricula: Some schools do not have 
updated curriculum that has been updated regularly with the growing new technologies. 
For students who want to keep themselves updated with the new technologies, gain more 
knowledge and be more practical, these kind of online learning environments are helpful. 
? Helpful when school have fixed teaching pace and standard: All students do not have 
same ability to pick immediately and keep up with the school?s standard pace. These 
online learning environments are flexible enough and lessons can be completed at the 
student?s pace. This flexibility is helpful for students who take more time in 
understanding and memorizing subject knowledge. 
? Helpful for students if they want to finish early: On the other hand, there are some 
students who are quick to learn and memorize materials and instead of wasting their time 
in remediation that may be required for larger classes, the flexibility of online classes is a 
great benefit for this group. Instead, these kinds of students have the option to finish their 
high school in less time by taking fast track courses online. 
 
 
 
 
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2.7 For Youth, For Life (FYFL) Learning Network 
FYFL is a collaborative platform and a workspace for youth and also educators. It is a 
certified eXtension Community of Practice (CoP) which was initially named as ?Youth SET for 
Life CoP.? FYFL is a safe and secure online learning environment for K-12 students and the 
adults/educators who serve them. This is an online learning area where, youth can keep 
themselves engaging in learning and gaining knowledge about science and technology, being 
healthy, living responsibly and serving others as a responsible member of the society. 
2.7.1 eXtension  
The For Youth, For Life (FYFL) Learning Network has begun as an eXtension 
Community of Practice (CoP). This is mainly focused on the data and content pages related to 
the science, agriculture and technology.  The faculty from across the country and various land-
grant universities have collaboratively worked and contributed for the development of the 
eXtension system. They have contributed the learning content from a variety of areas to a 
common public portal. This comprehensive approach of providing best content, resources and 
information from different land-grant universities across is termed as eXtension (pronounced as 
?e-extension?). The concept for youth separately concentrates on the younger generations 
knowledge requirements and this youth oriented eXtension system has been named ?For Youth, 
For Life.? 
The content from the eXtension pages, which represents itself as Cooperative Extension 
(CES) and the knowledge from different specialists from land-grant universities (LGUs) mainly, 
serves as the source for FYFL. 4-H, another integral part of CES and LGUs, also focuses on the 
development of broad range content areas for the youth.  The FYFL learning networks 
 
22 
 
encompass various applications created with different themes on different content areas. It 
includes large youth audience inclusive of 4-H school population and K-12 students. 
2.7.2 eXtension Community of Practice (CoP) 
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has initially created a content area and 
site for ?science, agriculture, engineering & technology.? One of the USDA councils has targeted 
to provide education and information on related fields to the farmers, woodlots and rancher 
owners through some national network. The NIFA and the Cooperative of Extension System 
(CES) has responded in providing an ?eXtension? Internet-based system for the customers, 
where they can go and access the website anytime, anywhere to get education on wide range of 
topics. eXtension is nation?s first ever developed collaborative system for non-formal education 
through internet based information system and online learning community sites. 
Cooperative eXtension, a vital mission of land-grant universities and USDA, is a 
cooperative system, which is organized into Communities of Practice (CoP). Each of these CoP 
has articles, news, events, topics, photos, videos, WIKI and frequently asked questions on 
various fields. The content is developed by the faculty specialists from around 104 land-grant 
universities (LGUs) and their staff experts. It undergoes many revisions before a CoP is 
published. Each CoP internally undergoes many peer reviews for changes and corrections on the 
content and the images. eXtension effectively delivers information and education nationwide to 
the public, including uneducated and young people, who are willing to learn new technologies.  
 
 
 
 
 
23 
 
 
Figure 2.3: eXtension Community of Practice (CoP) [24] 
 
eXtension also provides information on decision support tools and certification programs. 
It helps people improves their lives by providing better information and knowledge on science, 
agriculture and technology related topics. eXtension now has better search optimization methods 
incorporated, which results in providing better and quicker results of eXtension pages on a 
Google search. It has been seen from years that eXtension is one among the best websites to look 
for content and is a place where one can go and learn something. eXtension has also collaborated 
with FYFL in the Fall of 2008, to develop the content pages and an online learning environment 
for youth. Figure 2.4 is one such published page developed as a content page for ?For Youth, For 
Life.? 
 
24 
 
 
Figure 2.4: Published eXtension page for ?For Youth, For Life? [16] 
 
2.8 Statistics on the Audience of FYFL, Social Learning Environments 
The audience from the younger generation for ?For Youth, For Life? using eXtension is 
approximately 56 million across the United States. Most of these audiences are those who 
browse and use internet connection for various purposes and to gain more knowledge. The 
population of the younger generation through 4-H Youth Development has been engaged in 
 
25 
 
learning that reaches approximately 6.0 million spread across the country as per USDA results, 
2007. These 4-H students are the main targeted audience for FYFL. Many younger generation 
students and other members who choose to become the members of 4-H and eventually become 
the audience for the social learning environments and also contribute a vital role as a user 
community. 
The For Youth, For Life Learning Network has a considerable potential to be a rich 
resource for young people throughout the United States and beyond. With an initial primary 
audience of 4-H members, there is a potential engagement of a significant portion of 
approximately 2.0 million youth. Targeting beyond 4-H to the general school age population, it 
becomes approximately 60 million school aged youth in the U.S. 
 
2.9 FYFL: eXtension Learning Environment for Youth 
In the present era, entertaining the audience involving youth and adults has become a 
challenge in comparing various online learning environments. Recently developed learning 
environments for younger generations mainly focused on the features and applications in the 
systems that keep them involved and engaging in entertainment. Social learning environments 
like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace etc. are brought into the learning environments and used as one 
of the applications that makes them engaging, thus acquiring more knowledge and information.  
The online learning environments are largely informal in nature, where in a user can learn 
and explore the system in a self-directed manner, without particulars instructions or directions. 
The learning systems that are more related to obtaining some sort of certification or a degree are 
deliberately made formal with instructions to the educational site. Any customer acceptance 
learning environment can be developed under FYFL CES system. A different approach with a 
 
26 
 
combination of both formal and informal system can also be developed. This approach called as 
a ?Non-Formal Learning,? involves few aspects of formal development and few other aspects of 
informal development. It also involves some experimental procedures and field studies which are 
predominant form of learning for youth in organizations such 4-H Youth Development and other 
youth organizations. 
2.9.1 Content of ?For Youth, For Life? 
The main content provider for ?For Youth, For Life? is eXtension that signifies both land-
grant universities (LGUs) and Cooperative Extension systems (CESs). Figure 2.5 illustrates 
collaboration of FYFL network with the eXtension system along with the 4-H clover, 
representing the content for the 4-H Youth Organizations. Many online learning environments do 
not provide a certified educational specialist; its purpose is to help an individual to learn new 
things required for one?s life in broader content and to educate oneself. FYFL system certainly 
contributes to the enhancement of its systems towards formal sites, but currently the main focus 
is on the development of such individual learner informal or non-informal sites. 
 
Figure 2.5: A logo for ?For Youth, For Life? in collaboration  
with eXtension and 4-H clover [17] 
 
2.10 Social Learning Environments: 
Social interactions usually begin among peers or group of learners in a society, school, 
classroom or a social gathering where the interactions take place. Even in a large gathering such 
 
27 
 
as social communities or clubs where people meet, interactions takes place within small groups 
that function as communities. These groups may be a small group with 4-5 individuals, small 
groups interacting with other small groups or work within a cluster of groups, or even have 
interactions with very large population. 
The social media apps like a Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace are 
being incorporated in social learning environments. These social media enhance the learners 
acquiring fundamentals through the content pages provided. In the learning process, the social 
learning environments allow the learners to learn the basics through browsing and gathering 
information about a particular topic. In the later stages, learners can jump into the deeper 
understanding and engagement as a registered user. 
Figure 2.6 illustrates how learners e.g. students, adults involving parents, educators, 
experts, and moderators interact within online social learning environments. It depicts the public 
view and access of the individual learners with the online learning networks. It also illustrates the 
collaboration among various groups, peer-to-peer, and groups of groups or within the population 
clusters. As per the following Figure 2.6, learning starts with an individual learner and continues 
as discussions with different groups and goes on with large populations and groups of groups. An 
individual learner can become a registered user and can have a learning portfolio and a personal 
profile for himself, when he has deep engagement with the learning environment. 
 
 
28 
 
 
Figure 2.6: For Youth, For Life ? Social Learning Environment: copyright ? 2009 Auburn 
University, Alabama Cooperative Extension System, All rights reserved.  
contact John A. (Tony) Cook  
 
2.11 Content Flow and Quality Assurance of Social Learning Networks 
2.11.1 Content Flow 
The volume of the content available for young learners in learning environments is 
massive. The huge online content present can be explored and learned either online or offline. 
Further, the developers have to concentrate on the process of managing the content flow while 
designing to assure the system?s efficiency and security. The important content related to news 
or advertisements may flow in the desired manner with regular checks for assuring system?s 
accuracy. Other content like the events, articles, images, videos and frequently asked questions 
may flow as per the designer?s choice, but maintain consistency throughout. Some content which 
 
29 
 
is extensive needs more revisions, peer reviews and testing the system for effectiveness, look and 
appearance, instructional design, and relevance to the appropriate academic and nation-wide 
standards. 
2.11.2 Quality Assurance 
 The system must be checked and tested repeatedly by the designers, peers, instructors, 
clients and the faculty advisors. A balance must be determined among the online learning 
experiences, offline learning experiences, and the process flow of the contents and their rigorous 
reviews to assure the quality of online learning environments. Quality, appearance, navigational 
ability and the usability are the important factors to be determined to maintain integrity of the 
learning environment. The accuracy and appropriateness of the content in the content pages 
would be addressed and assured within the CoP. 
 
2.12 For Youth, For Life Community of Practice (FYFL CoP) 
A Community of Practice (CoP) called ?For Youth, For Life (FYFL)? has been 
developed for the youth audience and the adult audience, who serve the youth.  FYFL has been 
designed as an online learning network that provides content and information for the younger 
and older generations. For Youth, For Life online learning network is knowledge resource for the 
youth and general public.  
A network called ?FYFLnet? has been developed by Auburn University IT service staff, 
with support from the office of the Vice President for Research. It mainly focuses to serve the 
developing online social learning environments on a single network. It is a platform and 
infrastructure that primarily supports the learning communities and secure environment functions 
for the youth learning networks. FYFLnet system has many servers and is currently located in 
 
30 
 
the College of Engineering. It has huge capacity to accommodate a number of software 
installations. FYFLnet is built on a network which is not exclusively for 4-H service, but 
incorporates all other installations of software required for youth audiences, education, science, 
technology and other youth organizations. The FYFLnet consists of the following areas: 
? A Knowledge Bank of content pages and information designed for youth 
? Learning Community Sites and pages within 
? A Secure Online Social Learning Network, and  
? An Interface with Social Media that connects the knowledge bank and the learning 
communities 
 
 
Figure 2.7: Illustration of FYFLnet Learning Network developed for Youth: copyright ? 2012 
Auburn University, Alabama Cooperative Extension System, All rights reserved.  
contact John A. (Tony) Cook 
 
 
31 
 
Figure 2.7 illustrates how the content pages in the knowledge bank are embedded in 
secure online learning environments accessed by various kinds of audience, interfaced with the 
social media. Each of these sections is described in detail as shown below: 
2.12.1 Knowledge Bank 
A ?knowledge bank? is a set of content pages from eXtension or from an external input 
that serves as a default knowledge source for the youth. This is developed focusing youth with 
the information and content related to them that is more engaging and entertaining. The 
?knowledge bank? with the content pages in it serves as the default learning resource for the 
youth. These content pages comprising of information on various topics were developed by 
different content teams. Content teams include the faculty specialists and faculty experts from 
land-grant universities, the people from Cooperative Extension System and other partner 
organizations. Content may involve basic and direct information about a topic or more detailed 
learning module. Before the content is published, it is tested and peer reviewed. 
2.12.2 Learning Community Sites 
 Learning community sites have to be engaging and dynamic for the youth audience and at 
the same time relate to the topic and their interest areas. Such sites provide an opportunity to 
share what is learned from others. They can also contribute the acquired knowledge to a larger 
community and network. They also serve as a gateway to various resources and methods of 
learning from credible sources.  
Learning communities are facilitated by practitioners who are experts or educators in a 
particular field and have an interest in contributing in certain areas. They may often serve as 
facilitators for forums, webinars, and other interactive components. In an environment through 
which online learning community is fostered, youth and adults are engaged in sharing and 
 
32 
 
interacting with each other in an appropriate and safe manner.  User generated content is openly 
shared. 
2.12.3 Secure Online Social Learning Networks 
 A social learning network provides learners with a personal learning space to load their 
activities and accomplishments.  It is a secure networking component that mainly focuses on 
providing space for individual learners, groups of learners and groups of groups like the 
educators (parents or teachers) who serve them. It also provides the content teams (faculty and 
other staff) to collaboratively work in such workspace. 
 
2.13 Safety and Security in Social Learning Environments 
In addition to maintaining clear guidelines and good communications, another important 
factor necessary for any social learning network is its safety and security. Unlike Facebook, this 
environment must be safe and secure as a learning environment for youth. The users and the 
learning environments have to be protected from unauthorized access. The members profile 
should be kept relatively safe from illegal entrees. Following are the key features to be taken into 
consideration while creating a social learning network [41]. 
2.13.1 Transparency 
 Communications needs to be public to everyone and has to be shared with all available 
authorized users. This implies that features like open chat has to be incorporated to make sure 
that each person in the group receives the message when any member posts, instead of private 
messaging. Open chat features do not allow inappropriate access to the system. 
 
 
 
33 
 
2.13.2 Membership Monitoring 
 The members of the group should have some functionality such as the ability to create 
and manage the user groups, ability to create custom groups for professional learning 
communities and the ability to have control on what groups are formed, who the moderator of 
the group is and who the members of the group are, in order to monitor unauthorized access. 
2.13.3 Data Encryption 
The social learning environments should have adequate infrastructure that provides a way 
to encrypt the confidential data like the login details, student?s personal information that is 
passed over Internet. These kinds of encryptions prevent students from being exposed to 
inappropriate content on the web pages. 
2.13.4 Admin Control 
The administrators of the learning environment must have administrative control to 
manage users and their information, access various settings, monitor all the activities over 
network, and apply appropriate filters to the content and data to make sure that all networking is 
productive, safe and transparent. The admins should view the system and user activity logs, 
performance of the system, how the system is being used on regular intervals and always has all 
the privileges to change the permissions of the members.  
In regard to safety and privacy, the children aged twelve and under need to have a private 
connection with other individuals who usually serve them. They need to be moderated by the 
adult groups. The data and the content have to be assured to make them secure by following 
some standards. Adults have to approve for the children aged twelve and under. A standard 
protocol for adult moderator?s approval must be established and followed everywhere to 
maintain consistency. This may vary somewhat from one land-grant University to other. 
 
34 
 
However, following an established standard protocol is recommended as FYFLnet is anticipated 
to be used nationwide. Adult moderators are anticipated to come from other institutions and 
professions as well. 
A good example of a secure online learning system is a WIKI that maintains 
confidentiality, integrity and is available to everyone with information on every small topic. It is 
an interactive website, driven by a specific web server, delivers dynamic and up-to-date content 
pages. They provide users with an efficient and user friendly environment. 
 
2.14 Existing Content Management Systems (CMS) 
Most of the websites are now being built using various content management systems. The 
popularity of these content management systems are now being grown in the technology area are 
by the developers and users. As the need for the website development increases, the demand for 
such developing technologies also increases. 
There are a wide range of CMS options available today. The decision in deciding which 
CMS has to be chosen in developing a website depends on many factors. These include the type 
of the website being developed, which CMS has best options to develop such kind of website, 
stability and available resources. These factors have to be considered before making a decision. 
Some of the popular content managements are described below. 
2.14.1 WordPress 
WordPress is considered as the most popularly used open source CMS by designers on 
internet. It allows developers an opportunity to build any type of website on its system. The 
standard WordPress installation provides most of the features with plenty of themes, plugins and 
widgets. These features bring added functionality to the websites. 
 
35 
 
 
Figure 2.8: WordPress Content Management System [62] 
2.14.2 Drupal 
Another leading content management system is Drupal. Large communities of users use 
Drupal to build various multi-author sites, blogs and community-driven websites.  
 
 
Figure 2.9: Drupal Content Management System [62] 
 
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It is a preferred choice for many communities of users because there are many modules 
and resources readily available to make use of. 
2.14.3 Expression Engine 
 
 
Figure 2.10: Expression Engine Content Management System [62] 
 Expression Engine is mainly used for commercial purposes that is powerful and offers 
various features. The Expression Engine costs $100 for developing personal websites, while it 
costs $250 for developing a professional one. It offers a long list of easy to use flexible 
templates, customizable area to fit the data using custom fields, a dedicated and flexible technical 
support makes the system reliable and vibrant active community helps is installing add-ons. It is 
more suitable for commercial related websites. 
2.14.4 Joomla 
Joomla is originated from Mambo. Joomla is a mixture of all the features from other open 
source CM systems. It also has large mixture of opinions when compared to other CM systems. 
 
37 
 
It allows developers to build all kinds of websites including e-commerce, online magazines and 
corporate ones. 
 
Figure 2.11: Joomla Content Management System [62] 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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CHAPTER 3 
METHODOLOGY 
3.1 Using eXtension as Content Management System 
eXtension is an internet and content-based collaborative environment where different 
providers like the land-grant University content providers exchange their materials and the 
research-based knowledge in order to solve many real time challenges. It is an interactive 
learning environment, which delivers the best and current researched knowledge from the great 
minds of land-grant university experts.  
eXtension is not like any other search engine. It is a place where the university content 
providers gather all the information and new educational resources on a wide-variety of topics.  
It provides information in solving various real-life problems in real time. It is widely available to 
students, professors/educators, researchers, as well as the general public through Internet access 
at any time. Content experts have unique skills and educational experience in a wide range of 
interesting content areas. eXtension leaders and members can collaborate with other consumers 
and colleagues to expand the work and to solve challenging problems. 
Content can be easily stored in systems like eXtension where it provides informative 
knowledge on a wide range of topics. It connects different knowledge consumers with different 
knowledge providers. eXtension offers reliable results based on the depth of the search, and 
provides great connections with intelligent people from different American Universities. The 
 
39 
 
content provided here is trustworthy and field-tested data. Users also find dynamic, relevant and 
timely answers. 
 
3.2 Problems with eXtension for Interactive Systems 
eXtension supports all kind of data entry and works as a great tool for managing the 
entire content. However, it fails when you have to develop more interactive system for various 
generations with different purposes for each. The current design is highly supportive of mature 
audiences, but provides little support or developed application for K-12 audience. eXtension 
provides a basic level content managing system where every published topic/page has a similar 
layout and structure. It is delivered and acceptable to a specific age group, as it looks very 
professional and is not very interactive in nature. Usage of eXtension for youth learners becomes 
problematic based on limited interactivity. 
 
3.3 Developing Criteria for Online Learning Environments 
 The development of the online educational sites must address the transition of the topic 
structure to the on-line learning environment. Online teaching can be done at school, taught by 
the educators or can be learned from home, where parents will be responsible for teaching their 
children. Research in such development mainly concentrates on quality issues, especially if that 
is for distance learning. The research is conducted with surveys taken from different graduate 
students and K-12 students. From the study, it was shown that there is a great importance of the 
potential quality indicators in online learning systems. The establishment of these online learning 
communities seems to be a significant feature in online education today [42]. 
 
40 
 
The study mainly focuses on the students? interests that makes software engaging and 
reaches their levels of expectations. Student?s interest should play a vital role in the education of 
younger students. The following are the significant quality-indicator factors to be taken into 
consideration while developing a secure online learning environment. 
3.3.1 Quality-Indicator Factors 
Some of the quality indicator factors are [49]: 
? Ability to create highly interactive environments for students 
? Ability to encourage the students to participate in discussion blogs 
? Ability to involve students in participating to reply to post and forums 
? Ability to re-use the resources of all the communities for future students 
? Meet the expectations of the students and instructors 
? Ease of use i.e., the system should be easy to navigate and understand 
? Easy to learn i.e., the system should be easily be learned by all K-12 grade students 
? System should be enabled in a student-centered teaching approach 
? Enhancing student-to-student communication with the implementation of forums and 
discussion blogs 
? User friendly i.e., the system should be easy for K-12 students to adapt to 
3.3.2 Principles while designing Online Learning Communities 
The significant principles while designing online learning communities are [43]: 
? Online learning communities needs to be grown, instead of built 
? They need more learners 
? Personal narrative is more important and plays a vital role in online learning communities 
 
41 
 
 The environment plays a very important role while developing the online learning 
communities. According to Foster, the environment that includes both the technical 
infrastructure and the user interface provides proper means to communicate the social cues and 
other information in the development of a vibrant online learning community.  
 
3.4 Existing Environments 
 
Figure 3.1: Moneyville home page [64] 
 
 The existing learning environments have all the static pages that have no functionality, 
just content, and do not seem to be very interesting. Most of the current learning communities 
help us in determining what the website is intended for. It is very important for developers 
design from a user?s point of view and concentrate on their requirements while developing. The 
final product of the web content management system should be easy to use and understand. One 
 
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of the existing prototypes called Moneyville was developed by Cornell University to help the 
youth get better understanding of financial literacy in their lives. This site has a lot of 
information, based on different financial areas, that gives good financial education to K-12 
students. However, this site has all static pages with plain text and images. It has lot of issues and 
complaints with its poor usability, navigation and unappealing look & feel. 
 
Figure 3.2: Unappealing navigation toolbar of existing system [64] 
 
Figure 3.3: Unappealing look and feel of Moneyville,  
with all text based static pages [64] 
 
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 The second prototype ?Add It Up? was developed for K-12 students for financial literacy 
in the cloud network. This was developed to overcome the pitfalls of the previous prototype, 
?Moneyville.? The navigation and connection to social media were addressed in this prototype, 
but the main intention behind developing the online learning environments for K-12 students was 
not given priority while developing this.  The website is missing attractive features like video 
files, discussion forums etc., that attract younger generations, though it has an appealing 
interface. The main issue in this prototype is that every user/student should have access rights to 
view the learning environment. Every user who wants to view the website has to be registered 
and have login details. Logging into the cloud network every time, may cause discomfort for the 
users when interacting with the learning community environment. 
 
 
Figure 3.4: ?Add It Up? prototype [57] 
 
 
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3.5 Software Development Process of Financial Literacy using CMS 
Iterative model 
 I have employed the iterative lifecycle model to build a very robust and reliable system in 
a structured manner. In this model, all the specifications of the requirements were not specified 
in the beginning of product development. Instead the design and development specifications 
were iteratively improved throughout the design and development process. This portion of the 
system that has been developed was reviewed many times by the clients to make sure it meets 
their requirements. This kind of approach was also helpful during development because the 
developed portion of the system can be reviewed repeatedly to identify further refined 
requirements. Once the new requirements or changes to the existing system are identified, the 
entire process is then repeated to produce an improved version of each portion of the entire 
system. This whole process is done in each cycle of the process model [45]. 
 One advantage of the iterative process model is that it is flexible and can easily 
accommodate the implementation of new features and components that the developer/client 
wants in a particular module, with minimal understanding/knowledge of the whole system. This 
model allows early adjustments in the system during the development phase, rather than finding 
the problem at the end, when it is too late to make any modifications or add features. With such 
an approach, a lot of money and time can be saved, instead of spending more time and cost at the 
end for making changes. Another advantage is that, at every stage, the outcome of each module 
can be shown to the customers and developers can make appropriate changes, if necessary. Every 
stage in this iterative model is considered as a vital phase in the developmental cycle and every 
module is developed with the approach of completeness.  
 
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Finally, the system grows iteratively and incrementally, with all the refinements and new 
functionalities incorporated. Furthermore, the time taken to test each unit or entire system can 
also be lessened as they will be tested and checked at each stage during development [46]. The 
main advantage is that the user group can be actively involved in getting feedback while using 
the system and making the appropriate changes. Configuration Management will be employed 
for all the changes that have to be made through the Configuration Control Board (CCB) team 
and new requirements will be updated, recoded and re-tested for the newly made changes. 
 
 
Figure 3.5: Iterative process model of FYFL system development [45] 
 
Phases of Product Life Cycle 
The iterative life cycle model is used in the development of the Financial Literacy system 
using a Content Management System (CMS). This development process is repetitive and is 
comprised of these following phases in sequence: 
 
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3.5.1 Requirements Phase  
This is the phase in which the requirements for the CMS system are gathered. All the 
requirements are gathered for the CMS system from the previous existing systems, i.e. 
?Moneyville? and ?Add It Up.? Additional requirements and changes to the existing ones are 
gathered in this phase. The new requirements, like the discussion boards, forums, video contents 
and understandable data along with graphical features, are the core requirements that are being 
implemented in the new Financial Literacy system. 
3.5.2 Analysis Phase   
Requirements that are gathered from the above phase are being defined and analyzed in 
this phase. The developer will get an overview of how the system has to be developed and what 
features are to be implemented in the system. These resources are being used by students who 
can get financial knowledge from this system and teachers/educators can utilize this environment 
to clearly structure and provide materials for future work. 
3.5.3 Design Phase 
This is the phase in which the software solution is designed and implemented. The new 
?Financial Literacy? system is the design of the extension of an existing system, ?Moneyville? 
and ?Add It Up.? This solution that has been designed fulfills all the requirements and meets all 
the expectations from the previous systems. Some of the new requirements include improving 
the look and feel of the system to make it more attractive to students, making it more user-
friendly and making the system easier to navigate.  It also includes more functionality like 
discussion boards, forums, animated images, flash movies, video files, login pages etc., being 
embedded in the new design of the CMS financial literacy website. 
 
 
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3.5.4 Implementation Phase 
This is a very important phase in the software development life cycle, which includes the 
main implementation of the code of a product. The system software is implemented in PHP, 
MySQL for database, HTML 5 and CSS 3. When the coding is completed, all the modules and 
the units have been integrated and implemented. The implementation will support system use on 
the following devices: desktop systems, laptops, mobile phones with windows, Linux and iOS. 
3.5.5 Testing Phase 
After the code has been integrated and implemented, it will be tested. Every unit and the 
modules were tested for correctness to see if they meet the expected requirements. The unit test, 
system test and the integrated test are conducted to validate the whole system. It is considered a 
robust system if the system passes all these tests. The system is also tested with the end users like 
students, teachers and parents to make sure that the system works correctly. Changes are made to 
the modules and the system, if required, from verbal feedback of the end users and the test 
results. Usability testing will be performed using pre-questionnaire and post-questionnaire 
surveys collected with an online survey system called ?survey monkey?. The survey link is sent to 
the end users through an online invitation link, and the survey results will be used to compare the 
existing and the present system and also to make any modifications, if needed. These surveys are 
also used to test the usability and user experiences with the system. Their valuable feedback is 
considered. 
3.5.6 Maintenance/Evaluation/Review Phase 
Once the CMS financial literacy system is delivered to the clients, the maintenance phase 
begins. This is a crucial phase that provides a mechanism to report and address failures or issues 
with the system after delivery for a specific time period is very important. The system also 
 
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should be well maintained while delivering it to the customers, by maintaining good 
documentation and notes provides information that helps novices easily understand the system. 
Usable technologies and good user interface design help support a successful system. The current 
requirements are reviewed and the system is evaluated to make sure that it has met all those 
requirements. If not, the additional changes will be proposed as iterative refinements and will be 
added to the system in the iterative process of the system development life cycle [45]. 
 
3.6 UML Diagrams and Scenarios - Financial Literacy using CMS 
The use?case scenarios are diagrammed using the Unified Modeling Language (UML) 
that is used to demonstrate the Object-Oriented Analysis and Design (OOAD) concepts. It is 
used for standardized language that can be used for Object Modeling. UML is the graphical 
language that can be used for modeling, visualizing, specifying, constructing and also 
documenting all the artifacts of the modules of the system, or the whole system itself. The main 
purpose of the UML diagrams is to present the system functionality in a 
graphical/diagrammatical overview, in terms of actors, their goals which are represented as 
elements of the model or use cases or behaviors and the dependencies between those elements. 
3.6.1 Scenario I 
A. Administrator 
Name: User and Administrator perspective of the FYFL CMS Financial Literacy system 
Primary Actor: Administrator/user/parent/student/teacher 
Secondary Actor: None 
Description: The below use case diagram represents the system as a whole. This scenario is for 
users like learners or students including children and also for the administrator. The entire 
 
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learner group utilizes similar features as the other users (students). It shows activities from 
viewing all the pages of the system, logging into the forum, making required changes to the 
system, and replying to the discussions & posts and choosing the required topic from the 
provided list of topics or material provided. 
 
Figure 3.6: Use-Case diagram of FYFL Financial Literacy system using CMS 
 
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Scope: CMS Server System 
Level: User and Administrator level 
Stakeholder Roles: 
1. User/Parent/Student/Teacher Role: The users can view the home page as well as the 
financial related pages like the money, savings, checking etc. They can interact with the 
system by playing flash games that have been created to engage young students. These 
interactivities include the activities and quizzes which implicitly include a pre-quiz and a 
unit quiz. The users can also access the discussion board like posts and forums. They can 
enter into these and add posts, comments and reply to each of these. There are more 
functionalities also included in the system like profile viewing, editing user profile etc. 
2. Administrator Role: The administrator can also upload videos and can view/edit posts. 
Administrators can also login into the system to have more access/privileges to the 
system. These activities are controlled by the database admin. 
Pre-Conditions: The user should have a desktop/laptop/mobile phone in working condition with 
internet connection to the above mentioned devices. The administrators should have valid login 
details to enter into the forum system. 
Post Conditions: A list of registered users, list of posts, topics and discussions are displayed. 
Even the replies to each of them are displayed as a result of the scenario. 
Basic Flow: 
? The users usually do not require a login to view the system/site. 
? Only the administrators require registration and login details to enter into the system to 
have more privileges. 
? The admin signs up for an account to get full access with the system and forum. 
 
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? The user can view all the pages/topics of the site, discussions in the forum, the posts and 
reply to all the above without any login access. 
? The system displays a list of all the topics to the user from the main menu, like the money 
values, checking, savings, advertising, credit, consumer and insurance. 
? The user can select one of these topics of his interest. 
? User can get financial knowledge based on the figures and content on each selected page. 
? Users can also play interactive flash games related to each category to get better 
understanding of each. 
? They also have a pre-quiz for each of these categories, to test their current knowledge 
before learning anything. 
? Once they get complete understanding of each of these terms and values, they can take 
the unit quiz to test their expertise. 
? Users can post topics under posts or add a topic to the existing discussion under forum. 
? They can also reply to these posts or discussions going on in the posts or forums about 
the system and their acquired knowledge. 
? The system saves all the details and displays the chain of posts and discussions of the 
forum and posts once users submit. 
? Admins can logout from the system once they are done with admin rights and actions. 
3.6.2 Scenario II 
B. Administrator 
Name: Administrator role in the FYFL CMS Financial Literacy system 
Primary Actor: Administrator 
Secondary Actor: None 
 
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Description: The below sequence diagram represents the system from the admin point of view. 
Admin has a few additional privileges in the system, along with the standard user rights. This 
scenario is only for admins who can access the database and whole system. The admins have a 
separate login for each to make any modifications from the backend. They have all access and 
permissions to make changes to the system through WordPress interface and code. 
 
Figure 3.7: Sequence diagram from admin perspective ? FYFL Financial Literacy system 
 
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Scope: CMS Server System 
Level: Administrator level 
Stakeholder Roles: 
1. Administrator Role: The administrator can also upload videos and can view/edit posts. 
Administrators can also login into the system to have more access/privileges to the 
system. These activities are controlled by the database admin. They can view all the 
pages such as the home page, money & values, checking, savings, advertising, credit, 
customer and insurance pages like any other user. In addition to this, they can also upload 
the audio and video files on these pages. They have access to add/view/edit the 
interactive items like the flash games and the quizzes. 
The administrators have permissions to login to the forum and the discussion 
boards like posts. They can login either from the final product of the website or can login 
from the backend database system. With this kind of access they can make many changes 
to the entire system. The look, appearance of the forum, system; the themes selection, 
implementation of plugins, access of user profiles, adding attractive widgets are all the 
important activities of an administrator. They will also have the permission to initiate 
group discussions which have further have more topics added to it by the users. 
Pre-Conditions: The admin should have a desktop/laptop/mobile phone in working condition 
with internet connection to the above mentioned devices. They should also have valid login 
details to the whole system through WordPress. 
Post Conditions: A list of registered users, list of discussions, user profiles, and changes in 
layout, colors, themes and content are displayed. 
 
 
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Basic Flow: 
? The administrators require registration and login details to enter into the system to have 
access to the entire system. 
? The admin signs up for an account to get full access with the system and forum. 
? He logs into the system through WordPress interface. 
? He can view the dashboard and the admin section on the interface. 
? To add new code or make changes to the existing code, he needs to go to the network 
admin section. 
? The admins can create new posts, add media like the audio or the video files, create new 
pages, and make changes to the appearance of the entire system. 
? In changing the appearance of the site, he has the access rights to add/change the themes, 
widgets, plugins, and main menus, colors of the background & header and layout of the 
entire system. 
? In the forum section, the admin will create the groups to start the new discussion. More 
than one topic can be added below each discussion by admins or users and more than one 
discussion can be added under each group by the admin. 
? In the system after login, the admins can view and open the forum toolset under specific 
topic in a discussion forum. 
? In the toolset, admins have the permission to lock a topic, pin a topic, edit the topic title, 
delete a topic, move a topic and view the properties of each topic. The properties include 
the IDs and titles of the group, forum and the topic. 
? Admins can also view the profile of all the users of the system and insert/update/delete 
the records of them accordingly from the database. 
 
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? An administrator can also create/edit the posts in the system, on a separate tab. 
? Once all the admin activities are completed, he logs out of the system. 
3.6.3 Scenario III 
C. Users 
Name: User perspective of the FYFL CMS Financial Literacy system 
Primary Actor: Users such as parents/students/teachers 
Secondary Actor: None 
Description: The below UML diagram represents the sequence diagram of the FYFL Content 
Management System Financial Literacy site. This scenario is from user?s point of view where 
they can perform various functions from the front end of the system. The functionalities include 
viewing all the pages of the system, viewing the forum or discussion board, making required 
changes to the system, replying to the discussions & posts and choosing the required topic from 
the provided list of topics or material provided. 
Scope: CMS Server System 
Level: User level 
Stakeholder Roles:  
1. User/Parent/Student/Teacher Role: The users can view the home page; view all the 
financial related pages like the money, savings, checking, insurance etc. They can interact 
with the system by playing the flash games that have been created to engage the K-12 
students. These interactive items include the activities and quizzes which implicitly 
include pre-quiz and unit quiz. They can open all the pages even by clicking the sliding 
images that are rolling on the top of the site. These sliding images look more attractive 
and engaging for the students as well. The users can also access the discussion board like 
 
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posts and forums. They can enter into these and add posts, comments and reply to each of 
these. There are more functionalities also included in the system like the profile viewing, 
editing user profile etc. 
 
Figure 3.8: Sequence diagram from student perspective ? FYFL  
Financial Literacy system 
 
Pre-Conditions: The user should have a desktop/laptop/mobile phone in working condition with 
internet connection to the above mentioned devices. The administrators should have valid login 
details to enter into the forum system. 
 
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Post Conditions: A list of registered users, list of posts, topics and discussion are displayed. 
Even the replies to each of them are displayed as a result of the scenario. 
Basic Flow 
? The most advantageous part of this site from users? perspective is that the users do not 
require to login to the system/forum to view the pages or the on-going discussions. 
? The user can view all the pages/topics of the site, discussions in the forum, the posts and 
reply to all the above without any login access. 
? The system displays a list of all the topics to the user from the main menu, like the money 
values, checking, savings, advertising, credit, consumer and insurance. 
? The user can select one of these topics of his interest and view all the related information. 
? One can get financial knowledge based on the figures and content on each selected page. 
? Users can also play interactive flash games related to each category to get better 
understanding of each. 
? They also have pre-quiz for each of these categories, to test their current knowledge 
before learning anything. 
? Once they get complete understanding of each of these terms and values, they can take 
the unit quiz to test their expertise. 
? Users can post topics under posts or add a topic to the existing discussion under forum. 
? They can also reply to these posts or on-going discussions in the posts or forums about 
the system and their acquired knowledge. 
? The system saves all the details and displays the chain of posts and discussions of the 
forum and posts once users submit. 
 
 
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3.7 How the Online Educational Environment will be tested? 
The CMS Financial literacy system tested through an online survey created using the 
survey monkey site, which is used to create surveys for various purposes. This survey will be 
taken by graduate students with usability or software engineering expertise and who has taken 
the CITI training at Auburn University in the CSSE department. This survey will be completed 
by novice users and also with experienced users, who have experience with online educational 
tools. They will compare the existing environments with the newly developed educational 
environment to compare the results and these results will be illustrated through graphs and 
models. These illustrations, along with the graphical charts, will be discussed in detail in 
chapters 5. 
 
3.8 Hypertext Preprocessor (PHP) 
This research work was fulfilled by researching which online educational tool is best 
suited for financial literacy site. It should have all the features embedded in it and should also be 
engaging for K-12 children. To develop such an environment, the code is written in PHP, HTML 
5, CSS 3 and MySQL. PHP is a server side scripting language that is embedded in HTML. This 
language was originally created by Rasmus Lerdorf in 1995. It was originally called the 
?Personal Home Page,? but now is called the ?Hypertext Preprocessor,? a recursive acronym. 
The code written in PHP is mainly helpful for the developers to develop the websites by writing 
server side scripts and dynamically generating those web pages. This code is then interpreted by 
a PHP processor web server that generates the resulting web page. 
In this development of the online educational environment, the PHP code has been 
written and edited for the themes of the pages, the layout, the functionality and the plugins that 
 
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are embedded in the widget area. Each project folder has many PHP files, along with a CSS file 
that is used for styling, colors and appearance of the entire system. 
 
3.9 Initial Study Description of the System 
The main goals of this study are 
? To decide which learning tool and environment best suits K-12 students 
? To make them aware of the online educational learning environments 
? To let students learn or understand the familiarity of computer usage 
? To teach users the importance of financial literacy in their life 
? To show the differences between the previous environments and the present developed 
environment with completely new look and features 
? To test the usability features of the new environment ?FYFL CMS Financial Literacy? 
when compared to ?Add It Up? and ?Moneyville? 
Prior to this study, data has been researched and collected from various testing groups. A 
detailed analysis has been made from the of previous surveys results and from the result of this 
study as shown in chapter 2. A wide range of questions has been prepared for testing 
participants, called as ?pre-questionnaire.? A set of questions were also made that have to be 
answered after the participants have seen the site and compared the existing and the previous 
one. These questions are called the post-questionnaire. 
 A series of tasks like the pre-questionnaire, the site visit & comparison and the post-
questionnaire will be given to the testing participants. These tasks will be given to the 
participants after the development has been completed and the entire system is shown to the 
 
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clients to get their sign-off. Once all the requirements have been fulfilled as per the client, the 
site goes for testing. 
 
3.10 Testing and Experimenting the Site Developed using Content Management System 
 Students were given traditional online lectures in a classroom environment before the 
online educational system evolved. For younger generations, the structured classroom teaching 
does not keep them engaged and entertained. This might reduce their interest in learning new 
concepts. Their interests automatically boosts if there are some practical implementations of each 
concept in their studies. Few online learning environments existed, but they were all designed for 
the older generations and are comprised of just the plain text with few images. Children would 
obviously look for something that catches their eyes and keeps them involved in the system. 
Such things also increase the interests in learning things. Therefore, the newly developed system 
has been designed with all such attractive features, along with new colors and images that attract 
one?s attention. 
As discussed above, once all the requirements have been fulfilled as per the client, the 
environment will be sent for testing by the researcher. The secured data required for testing is 
collected from the sites and loaded into the survey monkey electronically. Once the participants 
get the link to do the survey, they will be asked to complete a series of steps as required. The 
testing steps include: 
? Pre-Questionnaire ? Has to be done before viewing or accessing the system 
? Visit the WordPress site: http://www.fyflnetwork.org 
o Access various links related to the financial terms 
o Watch the videos related to them 
 
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o Play the interactive games for each of them like the money, savings, checking, 
advertising, credit, consumer and insurance 
o Take the quiz for each of them after playing the interactive games, to understand 
their knowledge (Each individual has different level of acquiring skills. Based on 
their capabilities, they could take the quiz as many times as needed) 
o Login to the Forum and view the existing topics in the forum 
o Participants have to create, edit, reply and delete the posts in the forum 
o View and access various widgets and attracting plugins on the site 
? Post-Questionnaire ? Answer a few questions related to the system usability, information 
and interaction quality of the site. 
 
3.11 Hypothesis 
 The main hypothesis of this study is to investigate the usability and interaction quality of 
the online learning environment for Financial Literacy using WordPress. The educators and 
students should feel that the site provides more opportunities for student engagement and 
interactivity and can be used very easily without any prior technical knowledge. The 
development experts and clients should feel that this system is much better compared to the 
previous Moneyville and Add It Up environments, as it is more engaging, user-friendly and easy 
to learn, as they have features like plugins, discussion boards and forums to keep creating posts 
and replying to them. Another hypothesis is that the informal online learning environment has 
the opportunity for scaling upward to supports more students when compared to the traditional 
classroom environment. 
 
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There are many new modules and features that have been added to this new environment 
that make it much more usable and user friendly to young audiences. These features include 
forums and discussion boards, plugins developed, and interactive games. We will assess 
feedback to evaluate the user population that will be collected through surveys and tests. There 
are also interactive quizzes and tutorials that are available in this site as new features that will 
also add to the positive interaction quality of the application, based on iterative refinement of 
requirements from our clients. 
 To test the hypothesis, we use the pre and post questionnaire that have Likert type Scale 
with 1-5 ratings to test the look, feel, accessibility and appearance of the system. A Likert Scale 
is a psychometric scale that is commonly used in various types of surveys and psychometric 
questionnaires. A typical Likert Scale item takes the following format from 1 through 5 [48]: 
1. Strongly Disagree 
2. Disagree 
3. Neither Agree Nor Disagree 
4. Agree 
5. Strongly Agree 
The types of surveys created using Survey Monkey for the participants are mainly to check 
the user-experience, computer accessing and understanding, usefulness, usability, ease of use and 
the user interaction satisfaction. There are also surveys related to the Information quality of the 
site. 
 
 
 
 
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3.12 Experimental Procedure 
There are a few steps that have to be followed by the researcher to conduct the experiment 
with the participants. They are: 
? The participants are sent an email regarding the surveys and their links 
? The emails have links to the pre-questionnaire, the Financial Literacy website and the 
post-questionnaire 
? The participants have to answer a few set of questions in the pre-questionnaire, before 
looking at the site 
? Open the newly developed Financial Literacy Prototype and compare it with the previous 
versions, Moneyville and Add It Up 
? Now, the participants have to answer the set of questions from the post-questionnaire 
It takes about 15-20 minutes to do all the above mentioned steps. There is a limited time 
period given to the participants. They can spend some of their leisure time to answer these 
questions, if they wish to take longer than the given time in order to explore and understand the 
whole prototype.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Table 3.1: Financial Literacy survey flowchart 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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CHAPTER 4 
IMPLEMENTATION 
4.1 Implementation of the FYFL Financial Literacy using Content Management System 
(CMS) 
This chapter details the development of FYFL Financial Literacy System utilizing 
WordPress, a Content Management System. The existing systems have poor usability and 
unsophisticated appearance. This work will improve the user interface and user interaction of the 
system and its overall usability. A content management system provides a development platform 
that will produce a professional system interface, interaction, and enhanced usability to better 
maintain student motivation and explore the provided financial literacy content. 
4.1.1 What is a Content Management System (CMS)? 
A Content Management System is a web based tool that allows creating, editing, 
modifying and publishing the content in a website. It has a central management system that 
maintains and manages the site from a central page. There are a set of procedures that are used to 
manage the flow of the system in a collaborative environment. There are many features in the 
CMS systems that vary from system to the system. Some of them are [55]: 
? It allows people to share and contribute to the stored data. 
? Role based authentication can be employed using CMS where the data can be accessed 
by different users differently. 
? It facilitates the storage and retrieval of data. 
 
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? Improves the communication among the users. 
? Data can be defined as videos, images, articles, games etc. 
CMS mainly acts as a central repository that is frequently used for storing, controlling, 
managing, revising and publishing the documentation. 
4.1.2 How CMS Works? 
 
Figure 4.1: CMS workflow 
There is an administrator who manages the entire CMS system, including the data access 
and manipulations, server transactions and the publications of the content to the websites. The 
administrator has all the access rights to perform any kind of changes/modifications to the 
system. Below are the three main roles whose act in the CMS workflow is very critical. 
? Content Creator: His role includes the creation, modification and deletion of the data on 
the content pages. 
 
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? Content Approver: The content approver can either approve or reject the created content 
on the pages, before publishing. 
? Content Publisher: His main role is to publish or remove the approved content. If these 
pages are approved by the content approver, the content publisher will publish them on 
the website to the public. Otherwise, they are removed from the system. 
4.1.3 Types of Content Management Systems 
There are three types of content management systems [55]: 
1. Enterprise Content Management System (ECM): An ECM organizes all the enterprise 
or a commercial organization related documents, content, data and the records. It is 
responsible to manage the organization?s unstructured content. This can be achieved by 
maintaining the integrity, improving security to the system and eliminating the 
bottlenecks. 
2. Web Content Management System (WCM): This is a stand-alone application that is 
used to create, modify, manage, deploy and publish the content on various sites. Web 
content includes many ways to interact with the users like the text, audio files, video files, 
graphics, images and code for wide range of applications. 
3. Component Content Management System (CCM): This is a specialized form of CMS 
that is designed to enable the documents creation from component parts. This is helpful 
in system development where the content needs to be consistent across the entire system. 
 
4.2 Problem Statement 
There are multiple ways to keep the users engaged in online learning environments. The 
existing online learning systems are focused mainly on the older students and are not very 
 
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engaging and interactive. Younger students expect the environment that they interact with to be 
more colorful, informative, provide different activities, and have good usability. Moneyville has 
lot of information regarding finance and money terms, but it has many usability design issues. 
The look and feel of this site is not very appealing and has only static webpages. Add It Up was 
developed as an improved version of Moneyville, which has resolved some usability issues, but 
the functionality of Add It Up was not fully functional. It provides a basic web page with images 
and acceptable navigation.  
 
4.3 Proposed System 
To overcome this problem, we have provided an improved solution. The planned 
educational environment is a learning environment developed in WordPress, a Content 
Management System, that is completely based on user interaction and appeal. The developed 
educational environment for Financial Literacy has resolved all the discrepancies by adding new 
features that are engaging and attractive as well.  
 
4.4 WordPress as Content Management System 
WordPress is a free open source web based dynamic content management system. 
WordPress is based upon PHP and MySQL. It has many features including the themes, plugins, 
templates, widgets and different tools. WordPress is a very popular Content Management System 
used by many people on the Internet. 
In WordPress, a presentation layer is present that displays the content of the website to 
site visitors and users. This layer is managed with a set of templates and is comprised of all the 
application developed front end pages. Most of the CMS systems use the server side caching to 
 
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improve the performance of the site [54]. WordPress has much functionality embedded within 
the system. It has a web template system that uses the template processor and the following are 
briefly described features of WordPress: 
4.4.1 Themes 
There are a wide range of downloadable themes to provide the web developer many 
alternatives to support the preferences of the target user population. These themes can be 
downloaded and installed from the ?Themes? section from the Network Administration tool in 
the WordPress dashboard. They can also be uploaded using the .zip file from the themes folder 
using an FTP connection. The HTML and PHP code can also be edited and modified according 
to the requirement for more advanced customizations. The images and layout of the theme can 
also be modified by editing the code using admin rights. The theme is applied to the website 
using the themes tab from the appearance section in the site dashboard. The header, background, 
the title and the menus of the current can also be customized. 
4.4.2 Plugins 
The most popular feature of WordPress is its plugin architecture. This allows the 
developers and other users to extend the available functionality beyond the existing features. 
WordPress has a collection of around 18,000 plugins in its database. It has a directory of all the 
plugins that have the most popular tags. 
4.4.3 Widgets 
Widgets are small components that add additional functionality to the website. The 
widgets can be dragged and dropped in the sidebars of the site. Some of the most common 
widgets are the calendar, categories, and comments section. 
 
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Figure 4.2: Network Admin dashboard of WordPress 
 
4.4.4 Multi-User and Multi-Blogging 
WordPress supports just one blog per one installation prior to Wordpress 3.0. Now it 
allows creation of multiple sites/blogs and accesses all of them concurrently. These can be run 
from different directories and access different database tables. Multiple users can be registered 
within a single WordPress installation. It has a centralized administrator who maintains multiples 
users and blogs of WordPress. WordPress Multi-User (WP MU) makes it possible to control and 
moderate all these blogs from a single dashboard and it adds eight new database tables for the 
creation of each new website. 
4.4.5 Mobiles 
Websites created using WordPress can be accessed from any mobile devices like the iOS 
(iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch), Android, WebOS, Windows Phone 7 and Blackberry. All the 
applications and features like the plugins and widgets can also be accessed from these phones. 
 
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These mobile devices also provide access to the Wordpress regular dashboard and the Network 
Admin panel to work with the development and deployment of the sites [56]. 
 
 
Figure 4.3: WordPress dashboard with Network Admin panel 
 
4.5 Design and Model of the System using WordPress 
The functionality of the website is also completed in addition to adding new features like 
registration, forums, posts and discussion boards. It has other features like various plugins and 
widgets on the sidebars that stand as the master page for all the webpages in the site. It also has 
sliding images on the top, which redirect to their respective menus items and is also included in 
the master page. This new Financial Literacy website also has features like the videos, interactive 
flash games, maps to locate where they are sending the messages from and where they are 
located, and also a chat window to keep users always in contact with the other users or students 
 
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using the site. This supports users in learning functionality more easily and clarifies their doubts 
immediately with their user group.  
 
 
Figure 4.4: FYFL network home page 
The proposed system has been developed in WordPress using PHP, HTML 5, CSS 3 and 
SQL languages. It has an administrator panel and a registered user?s panel. The admin panel has 
options to make changes to the themes, plugins and widgets. We have made changes to the 
layout, functionalities, adding/removing sidebars, adding/removing the images and colors in the 
themes and made changes to the plugins to appear as per the requirement using PHP, HTML 5 
and CSS 3 languages. A forum or a discussion board has also been developed to provide 
opportunities for more engagement and social networking of the group. 
 
 
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4.6 Descriptions of the Modules of FYFL Financial Literacy 
Features included in Money and Values Page 
Features include the calendar, various categories, the map and the tag cloud in this money 
and values page. This page talks about what money as a resource is and how students should use 
the money. It also describes about the importance of money in their regular lives.  
 
Figure 4.5: The Money and Values page of FYFL Financial Literacy 
The entire website has a ?Tag Cloud? embedded in it where the tags and categories of 
various posts and data are rotating and revolving continuously. This is a very interesting new 
feature we have added to website that provides the K-12 students more opportunities for 
interaction and engagement. It acts as a search toolbar, where the tags and the categories are 
visible for selection. They have to just click on one of the desired tags or the categories and they 
are redirected to their desired page. 
 
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4.6.1 Interactive Pages 
 
Figure 4.6: Displays the interactivities of the Money and Values page 
 
Figure 4.6 illustrates all the categories of content that are available in the system. There 
are interactive games and activities that provide additional support for all content areas. There 
are also interactive activities, case studies, quizzes and vocabulary created for every financial 
page. The financial pages include Money, Checking, Savings, Advertising, Credit, Consumer 
and Insurance. A Search toolbar is also located on every page to search for the required items. 
Each of these siding images shown in the Figure 4.6 are also redirected to their respective 
financial pages as written on each image and are directly related to the menu items below each of 
them. 
 
 
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4.6.2 Activities included under each of the Interactivities 
As mentioned above, each financial page has Activities, Case Studies, Quizzes and 
Vocabulary. Each of these activities is divided into variety of interactive flash games. The flash 
games are divided as per the description of each financial page.  
 
Figure 4.7: Flash games under the Activities section of each  
financial activities page 
 
For example, the activities of the Consumer page are shown below which includes few 
flash games like the Bubble Gram, Hangman, Word Search and Pattern Matching. These games 
provide to encourage student interest with a greater frequency of play; students will learn lots of 
information related to financial literacy including terms and important processes. With this 
environment, kids are the consumers. They will be introduced to the following concepts: why do 
they go to banks, and what kind of terminology bankers generally speak? There are flash games 
are different for different financial pages. They vary according to the finance terminology. 
 
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4.6.3 Activities under each Financial Page 
There are multiple flash games present under each section of the financial literacy. One 
of the games called the Bubble Gram game is shown in Figure 4.8.  
 
Figure 4.8: Bubble Gram game under Advertising page 
 
Each game is provided with instructions, which are easily understandable for the students 
before attempting to play the game. Some of the common activities included are the Hangman, 
Bubble Gram, the Pyramid Game, the Bean Game, Virtual ATM Machine, Inflation Calculator, 
the Word Search, Crossword and many more. 
4.6.4 Quizzes 
Each financial page like the Money, Checking, Savings, Advertising, Credit, Consumer 
and Insurance has a Quiz section provided for reinforcement. Each of these quizzes is comprised 
 
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of a Pre-Quiz and a Unit Quiz. These quizzes are taken by the children, students and other users 
before and after playing the interactive flash games.  
 
 
Figure 4.9: Pre-Quiz section under Consumer Protection page 
 
These quizzes are mainly to check the caliber of each and test their ability in learning the 
materials. Pre-Quiz is usually taken before playing and acquiring the knowledge while the Unit 
Quizzes are played after they get the knowledge from repetitive playing. These quizzes help the 
students to learn more from their mistakes and get better knowledge by testing themselves. The 
Figure 4.9 illustrates an example of a Pre-Quiz of Consumer Protection. The other Pre and Unit 
quizzes are also of the same pattern. The quizzes are user friendly to navigate and understand. 
They have the links connected from the top menu item, links directed from each Quiz main page 
 
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too. Figure 4.9 illustrates that the Financial Literacy system has good navigation and is very 
user-friendly. 
4.6.5 Forum 
This is the main and important feature that has been implemented in this Financial 
Literacy Online Learning Environment. This is the forum or the discussion board where people 
can talk, discuss on various topics. This is one such feature that keeps the users really engaging 
while interacting with others which has not been implemented in any of the previous prototypes. 
 
 
Figure 4.10: Registration form for the Forum 
If the users are not in the database list or not a registered, he gets a registration page for 
the first time he logs in to the Forum Page. This is a one-time activity. Once registered, the user 
can login every time he/she accesses the Forum. The user session ends every time he/she closes 
the browser and needs to login to the Forum network for each new session. Figure 4.10 shows 
 
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the User Registration Page which is very simple and straight forward. User needs to enter only 
his Username, and email address as mandate fields. To maintain the password security, the 
password is sent to the email and he could change the password after his first login to the 
network. 
4.6.5.1 Forum after Login 
Once the new user registers with username and email address, he/she will be redirected to 
the forum screen where he/she can login with their username and password, which will be 
received by email. Below is the screenshot of the forum after login. If the user is not registered, 
he/she can just view all the topics and their related posts. User cannot make any 
changes/additions to the posts or the topics.  
A registered user, not logged in as an administrator, can add a new topic to the existing 
forum. This user has all kinds of permissions like the editing, locking and pinning their own 
topic. They can also edit the timestamp of their topic in the forum. The registered users have 
access to add new topics or add a reply to the existing topics in the forum. They can just post a 
reply but cannot edit the previous posts/replies nor topics.  
The admin with full administrator access can add a new topic, edit the existing topics or 
replies, add a reply to the current topic and can also add a completely new forum. As an Admin, 
one can open the Forum Toolset for a particular topic. This Forum Toolset has different options 
such as Lock the current topic, Pin the topic, Reverse sort of the forum, Edit the topic title, 
Delete the current topic, Move the topic and View properties of the topic. 
There are lot of information present in the forum that displays members profile, other 
registered members in the forum, a search toolbar and a logout option. It also shows many stats, 
time zone, recently added members, moderators and administrator?s information at the bottom. 
 
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Figure 4.11: Forum/Discussion Board of FYFL system 
 
4.6.6 Posts 
The last feature that has been created in the Financial Literacy site using WordPress is the 
?Posts?. These posts are not related to any particular discussion, as in the forum. They are treated 
separately outside the forum, as general discussion topics. An admin creates the first post and all 
the visitors or the users who want to continue discussion on that post would reply and go 
forward. These posts have the tags and categories specified and hence can be easily searched 
from the Tag Cloud. 
 
 
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Figure 4.12: Posts page from the website 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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CHAPTER 5 
RESULTS AND ANALYSIS 
5.1 Objectives and Goals of Learning Environment 
As mentioned in chapter 1, the primary objectives of this thesis were to address the 
following design goals:  
? Design an interactive online learning environment for K-12 students to acquire 
knowledge about the financial literacy which is not being taught in the regular school 
curricular. 
? Design a learning environment which provides the ability to use the online system that is 
interactive and is responsible for a user-friendly environment that keeps the learners 
engaging with various attractive and interesting colors and features. 
? Investigate existing learning environments and design a prototype that address the issues 
and provides the educators and learners the ability to use the system easily through online 
sources. The FYFL Financial Literacy learning environment developed thus makes it 
easy to understand and teach for the educators and generates interest among younger 
generation students. 
? Determine if the educational learning environment improves the quality of education to 
the students, with the proper usage of the technology, embedding various audio, video 
 
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and interactive materials that keep them engaging every time through these online 
learning environments. 
? Test the developed educational environment with various users and participants to 
determine if it is effective for both educators as well as learners. 
To develop the learning environment and to make it successful, a few research questions 
have to be answered. Some of them are the following: 
Research Question 1: Are the online learning environments suitable for K-12 education? 
Research Question 2: Will the developed FYFL Financial Literacy tool support and meet the        
                                     requirements of the clients? 
Research Question 3: Does it meet the expectations of K-12 students in providing knowledge on  
                                    financial literacy? 
Research Question 4: Does FYFL Financial Literacy tool have good user interface? 
Research Question 5: Is the learning environment effective and provide required information? 
To answer such questions, we have conducted a few surveys at Auburn University. 
Participants include students from Auburn University and other colleges. It is not a surprise that 
all the participants understood computer usage and email. The participants have good knowledge 
of how the user interfaces have to be used as they have taken required courses on these concepts. 
The online learning environment termed ?FYFL Financial Literacy? was developed using PHP, 
HTML 5, MySQL and CSS 3. 
 
5.2 Information Gathered from Pre-Questionnaire 
Participants involve students from high school, under-graduate to graduate students. 
Based on the information taken from surveys, participants, aged in between 16 and 24, knew 
 
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some basic information that is related to using computers. Some of them are still considered 
computer novices, but can understand most of the computer terminology. About 80% of the 
participants have very good computer knowledge and were mostly high school and university 
students. Most of the participants have good computer experience and knowledge on how to use 
computer and the Internet. About 91.2% believe that K-12 teaching should involve online 
learning tools as a method to supplement the traditional classroom lessons. Though most of the 
participants do not have much experience with the online educational tools, 78% of the 
participants think that financial literacy would be better if it?s taught online, rather than the 
traditional classroom teaching. Our belief is that having the material with them all the time and 
available for study at any time they wish to, is of great belief to students. 
Among the participants, 76% students hold either Masters or Bachelor?s degree and 
remaining 24% are the high school students. Among the high school students, about 87% 
students have basic computer knowledge. The remaining students are still in the early stages of 
their computer education, but still understood most of the computer terms required for the 
survey. While considering the university students, there is almost an equal distribution of 
participants from Bachelors and Master?s degree. Students from Master?s Degree comprises of 
34%, while the students from Bachelor?s Degree comprises of 42%. From the pre-questionnaire 
surveys, it is determined that few students have good subject knowledge as well as good 
exposure to the online learning environments. About 79.6% of the participants have good 
knowledge on usage with online learning tools. 
In the social networking world, it is very common and important to interact with others. 
96.4% students who use Facebook and 34.7% who use other social networking sites like Twitter, 
LinkedIn, MySpace, Google+ believe that K-12 learning networks should also be utilizing online 
 
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learning tools. In a survey 87.5% said ?yes? or ?may be? to use live chat and online educational 
forum to communicate and interact with other students, if they are available. Figure 5.1 
illustrates the percentage of the participants preferring learning financial education through 
online teaching to classroom teaching. 
 
Figure 5.1: Pre-Survey results of Classroom Teaching vs. Online Learning  
 
5.2.1 Pre-Questionnaire Results 
The total number of participants from all categories participated in the survey were 
around 50 students of which 12 were high school students and 38 were under-graduate and 
graduate students. Table 5.1 illustrates the summary of the data collected from the student 
participants. From the results, it is clear that none of the participants are novice users to 
computers. They have good computer knowledge and good computer experience. However, 
some of them do not have good knowledge on online learning environments.  
 
 
 
 
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Table 5.1: Pre-Questionnaire results 
 
The questions such as above, helps to understand student?s perception on online 
education tools. This survey also helps them understand if online education for financial literacy 
is essential to supplement traditional classroom teaching. From the results above, it can be seen 
that students gave good feedback of about 76.8% acceptance on implementing the online 
learning environments by replacing the traditional teaching. 
 
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Table 5.2 illustrates participant?s perception on some interactive tools involving online 
educational forum and live chat. Such interactive features can be embedded into the online 
learning environments to make the students engaging and interacting. 
Table 5.2: Students perception on interactive tools like Forum and Live Chat 
 
 The developed online learning environment for financial literacy is said to be successful, 
if the participants who have answered ?may be? in the pre-questionnaire switches to ?yes? in the 
post-questionnaire, after viewing the forum and the chat features and rate the prototype 
environment as a better educational tool. 
 
Figure 5.2: Illustrates graphical representation of pre-questionnaire survey responses 
 
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Figure 5.2 illustrates the graphical representation of responses of the participants for all 
the pre-questionnaire survey responses, involving a ?Yes? or ?No? option. The data collected 
from each of these questions tells us if the students have interest in online learning environments 
and learning financial literacy through it. 
 
5.3 Information Gathered from Post-Questionnaire 
According to the results of pre-questionnaire, all of the participants are comfortable with 
basic computer usage. Additionally, the focus of this study is to consider the significant quality-
indicator factors in developing the secure online learning environment. Some of the significant 
quality-indicators include the development of highly interactive learning environments with 
forums, chat and discussion blogs, meet the expectations of students and other learners and 
develop a user-friendly environment that is easy to learn and use.  
Post-questionnaire information is gathered after testing and exploring the learning 
environment. Two surveys are conducted to test the experience of the participants with the 
system. One of the surveys is related to the quality of the information and content related to 
course and the other survey is related to system usability and interaction quality.  
Figure 5.3 illustrates the responses from the participants, which are better than the 
expected ratings. It is very important to know the students? view of the interface and the entire 
system. From the response shown in the Figure 5.3, it is clearly stated that 92% of the 
participants strongly and moderately agree with the overall satisfaction of the system. The 
responses to each question from the surveys on information, usability and interaction quality are 
listed in the below tables. 
 
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Figure 5.3: Post-Survey results of overall system satisfaction 
 It is also crucial to know the participants view on system?s ease of use, navigation, colors, 
images, themes and layout, which are key factors in engaging students for prolonged use. If they 
do not find the system easy to use, this will impact the adoption of the system for learning 
financial concepts. Features like forums, live chat and discussion boards helps students to 
interactively collaborate by sending messages through posts or chat. 
Figures 5.4 and 5.5 illustrate the participants experience and thoughts on the system?s usability, 
interface, colors, menu navigations and layouts. They show the percentage of the responses of 
the participants, along with the response count. 
 
 
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Figure 5.4: Post-Survey ratings on system?s usability 
 
Figure 5.5: Post-Survey ratings on system?s colors, images, layout and appearance 
 
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 It is also important to rate the system?s effectiveness by assigning different tasks to 
follow before taking the post survey. This can be either self-paced or by following the given task 
list. If the participants were able to complete all the given tasks easily, without any guidance or 
issues, it can be proved that the learning environment is very effective and met the audience?s 
expectations. Figure 5.6 illustrates the survey results of the navigation through the sliding 
images. 
 
Figure 5.6: Post-Survey ratings on system?s navigation 
5.3.1 Post-Questionnaire Results 
Based on the collected data from pre-questionnaire, most of the participants indicated that 
they have sufficient computer usage knowledge. Also, majority of the participants perceived 
themselves as comfortable with computers and have positive attitudes towards newly developed 
technologies. 
 
 
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Table 5.3: Post-Questionnaire results for Information Quality 
 
 Table 5.3 illustrates the responses for all the questions of the post-questionnaires. It 
shows the responses for information quality of the system as well as the usability and interaction 
quality of the interface. Table 5.3 describes the ratings that participants have given to rate the 
information content present in the system. It asks the participants if system has the required 
information and how it is organized. It also asks whether it was easy to understand and effective 
in completing the given tasks. As shown in the Table 5.3, about 78.6% of the participants 
?strongly agree? and ?agree? to the questions asked. 
 
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 Table 5.4 shows the results of the survey of the post-questionnaire that includes questions 
on system usability and interactivity. It discusses about the user satisfaction, ease and simplicity 
to learn the system, the navigation, sliding menus, regular menus, colors, themes, images and 
layout. Once the ratings for all these are taken, the overall system satisfaction rating is also taken 
from the participants. These surveys are taken on a scale of 1 to 5 where 1 refers to strongly 
agree and 5 refers to strongly disagree. Most of the participants have rated 1 and 2 for their 
system satisfaction, which is definitely better than the expected result.  
These responses show that the Financial Literacy learning environment has the potential to 
support multiple audiences and to be used widespread by many populations.  The students can 
utilize the FYFL Financial Literacy tool in their regular life to educate themselves by self-paced 
instruction and providing a financial literacy community with other students. They can extend 
their communication with others using the forum style learning, by chatting and discussing the 
topics and by sending posts and replies to their colleagues.   
 The communication can be done either synchronously or asynchronously using the 
instant messenger chat that can be used to chat with anyone at the same time instantly. Also, the 
forum updates when a post is made lets the students communicate asynchronously. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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Table 5.4: Post-Questionnaire results for System and Interaction Quality 
 
 
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5.4 Participant?s Comments 
 Some of our student participants have made some specific comments in regards to the 
system in the comment section of the post-questionnaire. Few other comments were made in the 
?good features of the system? section provided at the bottom. Some of the comments included in 
the ?good features? pertaining to the system are listed as below: 
? Instant Messaging Chat 
? Layout 
? Topics 
? Visuals 
? Matching Games 
? Sliding Menus/Top Navigation 
? Sliding images 
? Forums 
? Interactive Games 
? Whole Interface 
? Word Search and Virtual ATM Machine games 
? Buttons  
? Activities 
? Tag Cloud 
Anonymous Participant 1: ?Very clean website. It did run a tad slow however that just could 
have been the internet connection. Only other thing is that the tag 
cloud sometimes blocked view of the dropdown bars on the menu.? 
Anonymous Participant 2: ?This site teaches well on the practice on how to spend wisely.? 
 
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Anonymous Participant 3: ?I have found very good information with nice examples for each on 
                                            the learning environment.? 
Anonymous Participant 4: ?There are wide options of categories with nice activities and 
                                           examples.? 
Anonymous Participant 5: ?The environment has great learning with good usage, navigation, 
                                           look and simplicity.? 
Anonymous Participant 6: ?The system is very easy to use with good information on financial  
                                           terms.? 
Anonymous Participant 7: ?I like the forum and the chat and is a very good idea to implement 
                                           them.? 
 Some of the comments that participants have responded in the negative features section 
are listed below. 
Anonymous Participant 1: ?The system and the chat get slow down when many students are  
                                              using it simultaneously.? 
Anonymous Participant 2: ?Sometimes it is hard to click on the interactive links, which is may  
                                              be because of the system slowness or internet connectivity.? 
Anonymous Participant 3: ?Tag cloud and other ads sometimes block menus.? 
Anonymous Participant 4: ?There is small print on some of the games, which is not very clear.? 
 
5.5 Evaluation of the Study 
 In the beginning of this chapter, the objectives and goals of the thesis were presented. 
Keeping the goals in mind, a learning environment has been developed that meets all the 
requirements of the clients and expectations of the students. In includes many features like 
 
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interactive games, activities, quizzes etc. that increases student?s interaction and engagement. 
Additionally, it includes a forum/discussion board and a live chat to communicate and 
collaborate simultaneously with others.  
 Based upon the new features and functionality that have been added to the new 
environment, the following Table 5.5 compares the features, functionalities, appearance, 
effectiveness and efficiency among three online learning environments (i.e. Moneyville, Add It 
Up and FYFL Financial Literacy).  
Table 5.5: Comparison among three Financial Literacy environments 
 
 
 
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 A survey has been conducted to test the experiences of the students with the learning 
environments. This survey was completely taken by the students from high school, under-
graduate and graduate school. Before they see and explore the learning environment, a pre-
questionnaire survey was conducted to check their usage with computers and online learning 
tools, and how interested they are to learn financial literacy through learning tool. The 
participants were asked to perform pre-determined tasks with the developed environment, FYFL 
Financial Literacy learning environment. These tasks are given in such a way to structure their 
exploration and help them understand and explore all the features. A post-questionnaire survey 
 
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was administered to users, after performing all the tasks to evaluate their acceptance and 
satisfaction with the system usability, interaction and information. 
 There were approximately 50 students who participated in these surveys of pre-
questionnaire and post-questionnaire. About 92% of the participants believe that K-12 teaching 
should involve more online teaching tools to supplement the traditional classroom teachings. 
This has been shown in the Figure 5.7 below.  
 
Figure 5.7: Pie chart showing the percentage of people who believe that online learning 
environments should be involved to supplement the traditional classroom teachings. 
 
 From the results and responses of these surveys, it has been clearly proved that 92% of 
the participants liked the system and were satisfied with the overall system information, features, 
usability and interface. This gives us a satisfaction for creating a successful online learning 
environment for K-12 students. A graph shown below in Figure 5.8 demonstrates the system 
 
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satisfaction results, which shows the number of participants who have taken the survey and their 
ratings. 
 
Figure 5.8: Shows the responses of participants for System Interaction and Features 
 The students were really excited with the live chat and the forum facility that has 
increased their collaboration with other students. 87.5% of the participants told that these online 
educational forums and such live chat to discuss and communicate, if it were available to them. 
Creation of these functionalities has addressed the issues from the existing learning 
environments. Usage of the information, media files, technology and interactive materials has 
also helped the students in improving the quality of their education through online environments. 
 
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This has been verified with their responses in the post-questionnaire survey. The results for these 
questions are illustrated in Figure 5.9. 
 
Figure 5.9: Illustrates pie diagram of approximate participant percentages on Information 
Quality and Usability of FYFL Financial Literacy system  
 
 With all these results and responses, the FYFL Financial Literacy Online Learning 
Environment has been proved an effective system that helps students in accomplishing their 
tasks and get good knowledge on financial terms. It has also been proved to be a good interactive 
system that keeps the students engaging with various features and forum style learning. Hence 
satisfies the end users and fulfills the requirements of the clients. 
 
 
 
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CHAPTER 6 
CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK 
6.1 Conclusion 
The aim of this thesis is to explore the existing online learning environments developed 
for K-12 students and develop a new educational prototype that overcomes the existing 
drawbacks. Online learning for K-12 students has great potential to transform the traditional 
classroom teaching and instructional approaches into self-paced learning that enhances the 
student?s knowledge and performance across wide range of topics. In this contemporary world, 
online learning is cited as the essential element for students to gain sufficient knowledge on 
various topics. 
 The online learning environment mainly focuses on exchanging ideas, concepts, work 
and information in between the instructors and students, and also among groups of students from 
any place in the world. The students can have a possibility of contacting any other person he/she 
would like to share ideas and conduct group discussions. Such discussions enhance interactivity 
and collaboration among students. An online learning environment can be developed effectively 
by understanding the goals and objectives of the course being developed. Prior to developing, the 
designer must conduct meetings with various sections of people related to the course, to identify 
and clearly articulate on what the goals and objectives of the course are and what the students are 
going to procure from interacting with the system. 
 Online learning is emerging as an important component in K-12 learning. To provide 
more opportunities for a secure and bright future, it is necessary to have good exposure and 
 
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financial training to be financially responsible and the productive citizens, K-12 students must 
have access to the online learning opportunities in many different forms as students have 
multiple learning styles and learning preferences. Financial education is usually given less 
importance in schools, but it is very important for students to have good knowledge in finance 
and related terminologies. This thesis provides a secure and interactive tool for K-12 students to 
interact and gain knowledge on financial literacy. The Financial Literacy tool is engaging and 
accessible to everyone. It provides interaction with the system through many educational games 
that provide financial knowledge and collaboration through discussion boards, forums, posts and 
live chats with other students. 
 Through the surveys conducted, it is noticed that many students found this tool very 
interesting and helpful in providing them an education in financial matters. From the 
observations and the feedback of the students who took surveys, it is found that they were very 
involved and engaged with the interactive features that were incorporated in the learning 
environment. They have also liked the appearance and theme of the system, which proves that 
the developed Financial Literacy tool which rarely exists is very effective and beneficial to the 
students. 
 
6.2 Future Work 
 The Financial Literacy tool is developed to enhance the finance literacy education to K-
12 students across the United States. This project is evolving with many new changes and 
versions for each new phase of development, as per the requirements. Every version of this 
project is being developed using state of the art technologies for each version, such as developing 
the prototype using Cloud Computing and WordPress ? a Content Management System. The 
 
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requirements for this Cloud Computing version of the Financial Literacy System FYFL 2.0, were 
derived from the future work of the previous version of this learning environment ?Add It Up,? 
FYFL 1.0. A new prototype has been developed successfully in this version of the system. It 
includes features like discussion boards, forums, RSS feeds, live chat etc. that make the system 
dynamic and interactive. These updates help them to collaborate with other students 
conveniently from any place and at any time.  
The clients of ?For Youth, For Life? and ?Stoneware, are from many different populations 
all across the U.S., with plans to support international populations, therefore they will need to 
support universal usability requirements. Many user requirements have been fulfilled in the 
current tool that we have developed. The developed learning environment has been delivered to 
the clients and has been evaluated. We will utilize the results based on client evaluation to revise 
the requirements for further changes to the system and final product.  
Future development work for this educational environment include refinement of the 
client?s requirements and redesign/development based upon changing needs and goals of the 
project. During their evaluation of the developed learning environment, the clients may provide 
future modifications or additional requirements to be delivered with the next version of the 
financial tool. Many new web features and applications are also provided that can still be 
incorporated in the future development of Financial Literacy tool. Future evaluation work will 
fully utilize K-12 students as participatory design partners. The students will be more involved in 
the process to provide additional details on their social computing needs and system interaction 
requirements. This allows the students to have more input into system development and provide 
the designers with more detailed feedback for future implementations. To conduct this process, a 
complete research on the students, parents, schools and the faculty members will be conducted. 
 
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In addition, new flash games and the content can still be added with more terminologies 
and existing ones can be modified to have good instructions on how to play them and provide 
better understanding when a student accesses the applications. Financial Literacy is a broad 
topic. The system can be developed with clear and extensive data and information for each of the 
menu items. Future research plans include more investigation into the system?s security and the 
impact of additional features, content and information. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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APPENDIX A 
 
 
112 
 
 
 
113 
 
 
 
114 
 
APPENDIX C 
Pre-Questionnaire  
For Youth, For Life (FYFL) ? Financial Literacy 
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FYFLLearningEnvironmentPreSurvey 
 
 
115 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
116 
 
APPENDIX D 
TASK LIST 
1. Open Firefox/Internet Explorer 
2. Open fyflnetwork.org 
3. Go through the entire website; browse all the pages you wish to 
4. Go to Checking ->  
? Interactive Checking ->  
? Activities -> 
? Virtual ATM Machine => See how an ATM machine works. 
5. Go to Consumer ->  
? Interactive Consumer ->  
? Activities ->  
? Matching => Open two boxes at a time. Memorize the places where those words are 
located. Open repeatedly and finally match all the words as a couple. 
6. Go to Insurance -> 
? Interactive Insurance -> 
? Activities -> 
? Insurance Word Search => Play the game to search for the words below, which are 
located on the screen horizontally, vertically or diagonally. 
7. Chat with your friends (who has the site opened), by typing your name in the chat 
window on the side bar 
8. Click on Forum  
? Click on any of the forum topics you want 
? Add a topic 
 
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APPENDIX E 
Post-Questionnaire 1 
FYFL - SYSTEM INTERACTION and USABILITY 
 https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FYFLLearningEnvironmentPostSurvey1 
 
 
118 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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APPENDIX F 
Post-Questionnaire 2 
FYFL ? INFORMATION QUALITY 
 https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FYFLLearningEnvironmentPostSurvey2