Tailoring SMS-Based M-Learning System to Malaysian Students’ Preferences

-Adopting SMS (Short Message Service)-based learning system in educational institutions needs clear understanding of the students’ preferences. As students increasingly accept mobile technologies to support and bridge the digital gap of teaching and learning environment, developing such systems that are not only effective, but also elicits their needs accurately has become more and more challenging due to incomplete initial analysis of users requirement. This paper presented students’ perceptions on their needs in an SMS-based learning system. A quantitative survey was administered to undergraduate students from Science University of Malaysia (USM). Respondents’ needs in SMS-based learning system were modelled according to components of system design as an attempt to design an effective SMS-based system to assist their learning process. Findings reported will serve as a platform to enable researchers to make recommendations and outline requirements in designing an effective SMS-based system for the case of Malaysian universities. Key-Words: user preferences, m-learning, system design, SMS, mobile technology.