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The increasing use of online discussion forum (ODF) as an online computer-mediated communication (CMC) system that allows students to construct knowledge, collaborate and engage with new knowledge has resulted in a growing body of research that aimed at finding ways to enhance student learning outcomes using this platform. After an intensive web search was conducted using Google Scholar, seven previous systematic reviews that studied research trends in ODF were found. These studies have conducted systematic reviews on many different trends, factors and conditions to enhance student learning outcomes in ODF. The aim of the present study was to gather, analyze, and synthesize the seven previous systematic reviews in identifying holistic trends, factors, and conditions that have been reviewed and reported by them towards understanding the successful enhancement of student learning outcomes in this platform. The potential combinations of trends, factors, and conditions that emerged from the syntheses can act as a more holistic predetermined trends, factors and conditions for future improvement on the systematic review research. This study identified and categorized the trends, factors and conditions emerged under three different categories (i.e. general current trends, factors influencing ODF learning outcome (independent variables), and the achievement of ODF learning outcomes (dependent variables)). First and foremost, this study found that the general current trends reported on the ODF research area were based on the research site by region, academic context and academic discipline, forum platform, number of papers per year and research papers per journal, research design, type of analysis, and analysis framework. Next, in terms of the factors and conditions influencing the learning outcome of ODF, previous systematic reviews have reported their findings in terms of (i) stating the purpose in learning activity in ODF, (ii) protocol used in ODF, (iii) pedagogical strategies used in ODF, (iv) assessment used in ODF, (v) moderation used in ODF, (vi) student characteristics in ODF, and (vii) technology issues in ODF. Finally, in terms of the factors and conditions influencing the achievement of ODF learning outcome, they have reported their findings in terms of (i) thinking skills, (ii) achievement, (iii) social construction of knowledge, (iv) communication skills, and (v) others. The findings can help guide novice researchers in finding research gap from previous ODF studies and create opportunity that include forming an important reference base for a more holistic future systematic review in ODF field.

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Abstract21st century marked the advancement of teaching and learning environment. E-Learning has been regarded as part and parcel of educational platform that is recognized by many institutions. University Sains Malaysia, as one of the renowned higher educational institutions in Malaysia has introduced eLearn@USM an online learning platform. This paper explores the possible factors that promote the use of eLearn@USM among local and international postgraduate students. Through qualitative methodology, two local students and two international students were interviewed. The findings showed that there are various factors that promote the use of eLearn@USM among local and international postgraduate students. From the analysis, international students have more intrinsic motivation factor such as the curiosity to learn, the challenges of the eLearn@USM activities, the cooperation from students and instructor for some subject. Meanwhile, local students are more influenced by the extrinsic motivation such as marks and also the obligation to instruction order. Initiated from the findings, the study concludes that there is a need for new directions and strategies on the use of eLearn@USM for both instructors and students. This will eventually raise more interest among the students to use eLearn@USM. Overall, apart from setting up an elearning platform from sharing and collaborating and further solving issues and sharing resources, more importantly, there is a need to know the promoting factors of the platform towards the learners. Therefore, this study is significant to enlighten the motivational factors among students in using online platform.

Students' attendance taking and tracking are important in order to monitor students' performance in class which is closely related to their attendance. Good attendance usually leads to good performance and vice versa. Therefore, any problems related to students' attendance should be identified as early as possible so that appropriate measures can be taken to address them. However, tracking students' attendance, especially if done manually, can be tedious and time-consuming, especially for classes with a large number of students. Higher education institutions in Malaysia are now encouraged to explore the potential use of Quick Response (QR) code and smartphone as a future attendance management system to track and record the student's attendance to the class and tutorial. In response, this study attempts to explain the design and implementation of a proposed system developed using Google Drive, Google Form, Google Sheet, Notepad, and QR Code Generator Add-ons in Google Docs. Students were required to scan the unique QR code assigned to them using their smartphone during or at the beginning of each lecture in order to confirm their attendance. This affordable QR code-based attendance system enables lecturers to speed up the process of taking attendance, especially in a large classroom and would save them valuable teaching time. The proposed system provides better security than the traditional methods that depend on the sign-in sheet or roll calling student names including eliminating chances of students signing up for others who may not be present. In addition, it also provides a faster and simpler way to take attendance, which could be easily adopted by lecturers to facilitate the process of taking, managing and keeping the record of students' attendance.