Online Community and Its Impact on E-Learners' Commitment To Stay in their Programmes

Attrition rate has been found to be higher in non traditional universities compared to traditional universities. Feeling of isolation has been identified as one of the key factors that cause attrition. Thus many universities developed the Learning Management System (LMS) to increase contact hours for their learners as well as providing learning support. This tool if managed well can silently trigger the creation of an Online Community and engage learners, tutors and management staff. This paper focuses on the impact of Online Community on learners Commitment to stay in their programmes. Data analysis on 1,116 respondents from Open University Malaysia found that there was a strong correlation between the Sense of Community, Satisfaction, Motivation and their Commitment to stay in their programmes. Sense of Community, Satisfaction and Motivation explains 68 percent of their Commitment to stay. (Authors' abstract