Abstract
This paper describes the design and evaluation of an ERP system design course, which utilizes experiential learning theory and an open ERP system to provide the students with a holistic and cost-free learning environment. The objective of the course is to familiarize students with the ERP selection and implementation life-cycle. When designing the pedagogical framework, the goal was to help students, especially those with little to no working experience, acquire the necessary knowledge and develop practical technical experience. Additionally, it was necessary to help students appreciate the depth and issues involved in the ERP system selection and implementation life-cycle. Lectures, case discussions, system demos with interactive labs, and group projects were used all together to enable in-depth learning of the proposed topics. We focus on an open-source ERP system to provide the students with the required hands-on experience and demonstrate that such an approach can be utilized even by low-resource universities. This paper includes details of the proposed framework. The proposed framework was taught and evaluated in a 1-semester graduate-level course at the University of Jeddah, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The course design was indirectly assessed using a survey, and the results revealed the positive impact that the proposed framework had on students' learning outcomes. The assessment results in support that experiential-based learning using open-source ERP systems can improve the learning outcome. For future work, we recommend evaluating the impact of the proposed framework over a larger period and systematically compare it with the more traditional lecture-based approach to teaching this course.