Barriers, Risks and Value Creation by E-learning in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Higher Education - Research Proposal Example

Barriers, Risks and Value Creation by E-learning in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Higher Education Introduction Attitude has been defined as “a learned predisposition to respond positively or negatively to a specific object, situation, institution, or person” (Aiken 2000: 248). Hence, it is the attitude of people and all that they do that really matters. It provides people with a framework within which to interpret the world and integrate new experiences (Galletta and Lederer, 1989). That is to say by understanding an individuals attitude towards something, one can predict with high precision the individuals overall pattern of behavior to the object (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1977). Learning is like a change in behavior, the way some thinkers happen to interpret it as. Hence, when a new program is introduced in the purview of the people, it can either be welcomed with open arms, or it can be morbidly rejected. A similar innovation of E-Learning was introduced at the start of the century, which involved the basic application of all forms to technologies to proliferate the spread of education in all parts of the world. E-learning is naturally suited to distance learning and flexible learning, but can also be used in conjunction with face-to-face teaching, in which case the term Blended learning is commonly used. It had already been viewed that education is the most vital way of bringing about growth in competitiveness and knowledge in the various countries; with some amount of international cooperation, there is no knowing as to how far and wide education could have spread. Education has managed to influence the various branches and super structures of society in a major fashion. Education has evolved as a very clientele based service in the modern day and E-Learning has evolved as the apt way of providing the right kind of service provider to the clients, who are the learners or students. In the fast paced world it has proved to provide the right kind of time management that goes between learning and providing services. Technology is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. Humans have thus been able to derive the best out of this in the current century. Education is the key determination to enhancing modern technology needs through individuals to reduce the time period between the disbursement of funds and receiving products and services. To provide more options for consumer to access information that could not be reached. The development of computers and electronic communications has removed barriers of space and time. We can obtain and deliver knowledge anytime anywhere so Individuals who were disadvantaged for geographic, physical of social circumstances have increasingly better educational chances via e-learning. Also technology can reduce training cost if there are a large number of learners, if the learners are geographically dispersed, and if the course will be repeated several times. Nowadays the e-learning market is economically significant, in 1999,one in three US colleges offered some sort of accredited degree online and approximately one million students took online classes (13 million take traditional classes only) traditional students in higher education make up less than 20% of all students. The fastest growing group attending higher education institutions are working part-time students over 25 years of age (U.S. Department of education, national Center of education Statistics, 1007).Burrell described Playmouth State Colleges great success with its web portal for online student services and how the school worked effectively with vendor-developed infrastructure. More educational institutions around the world are embracing e-learning systems and investing heavily in this sector. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was not in isolation from this electronic environment, there has been preparation for the general framework of a plan to complete the requirements for the deployment technique of electronic society. It had been approved by the High Commissioner in 2001 to raise awareness of the importance of electronic learning and to highlight the wealth of benefits and advantages to promote confidence with efficiency and security of electronic transaction. Where the usage of the internet in the kingdom is developing rapidly, the growth of e-Learning is in the contrary where it has been much slower. The government has launched a national plan for the utilization of information technology (IT). The plan urges, "The implementation of e-learning and distance learning and all their prospective application in higher education"(national center of e-learning and Distance Learning, 2008.) Recently in August 2011 Saudi Arabia has announced plans to set up a world-class electronic university in Riyadh that will provide intensive online courses. The university would provide bachelors and masters degrees in Business and Industry as well as Research and Development. Khalid Al-Anqari, minister of higher education pointed out that the Saudi consumer electronic devices market alone, including computer devices, mobile handsets and video, audio and gaming products, is projected to grow to $5.5 billion in 2015.(Khan, 2011). This paper seeks to understand the barriers, risks and value creation with regards to E-Learning, since the right path to e-learning is possible only with the knowledge of these factors. This paper will delve into the problems faced by the higher education in Saudi Arabia and the various steps towards correction of certain obsolete methods of e-learning; since attitude of user towards the application of information technology is one of the most important factors. This paper also examines perceptions of virtual students’, including their attitudes towards e-learning in Saudi Arabia. A descriptive–correlation survey approach was used in this study. Students filled in a web-based closed questions questionnaire. Reliability and validity of instrument were determined by investigating the attitudes of e-learning specialists in Saudi Arabia University. Questionnaires received were analyzed, putting the students perceptions in relation to gender, age, knowledge of computers and attitudes to advantages and disadvantages of e-learning. Adult learning is also a large part of e-learning. Public libraries, nonprofit organizations and school systems administer these programs across the country. Many adult education centers from community colleges receive grants from Welfare and Unemployment departments to offer training to welfare and unemployment recipients. Educating adults differs from educating children in several ways. Most of the time it is voluntary and hence motivation is very high in the participants. Results showed that students have positive perception to e-learning. Liner regression analysis indicated that 68% of variation in virtual students perceptions of e-learning was determined by the four variables of: Students’ assessment about competency of e-learning, access to internet, computer and internet usage and assessment of current higher education system’s shortcomings. Research Objectives This research aims at: 1. Examining the current perceptions of e-learning among the students of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, higher education. 2. Understanding the views of the Board of educations that provides e-learning to Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, higher education. 3. Innovations in the field of e-learning in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for higher education in the past decade. 4. Possible attrition and refurbishing criteria in e-learning in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, higher education. Research Methodology Sharable Course Objects (SCOs), which are created by using sound, text, graphic and animation are accessible to students, registered for that course, in the Learning Management System (LMS) system, through the internet or intranet. Selected universities use SCORM standard for their courses and SCOs are mostly made in flash environment. These universities offer CDs as part of their educational system, related to the online courses or as general information. It should be noted that live classes with audio and video are not compulsory at the moment in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This is mainly due to insufficient bandwidth, available to end users. So, in virtual branch of these universities, all courses (except practical courses and laboratories) are digitized and saved with high quality. Students can attend on-line classes whenever and wherever they have access to the Internet. One important fact in selecting virtual universities mentioned above is that they all use blended learning method, which has been recognized as the most effective way for virtual learning in the world. Due to the ability of most LMS systems, all on-line activities of students can be recorded, such that the details of their connectivity are available to professors, administrators and supervisors. According to the educational rules of universities in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, students are not allowed to be absent from classes more than a predefined level. Although courses are available on-line to all students at all times, which is considered as the most important benefit of virtual learning, students must follow a weekly schedule to attend these classes; else they will receive a warning note, and finally a failing grade. On the basis of review of the literature, a questionnaire was developed to collect the necessary data. The questionnaire covered four areas: 1) demographic characteristics such as age, sex, university, and field of study; 2) extent of computer and internet use which were measured on a five-point Likert scale which ranged from1(very little) to 5 (very much); 3) advantages of e-learning system which were measured on a five-point Likert scale which ranged from 1(strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree); and 4) disadvantages of e-learning system which were measured on a five-point Likert scale that ranged from 1(strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Research Questions 1. What are the trends for the faculty members at the universities of Saudi Arabia towards higher education e-learning? 2. Does e-learning come with the adequate expertise in instructional designing? 3. How customized are the e-learning manuals in Saudi Arabia higher education? 4. Is the current e-learning content adopting the measures for freeing the students from weaknesses in self directed learning? 5. What are the innovations to spread a standard in e-learning environment? Research Problem The resultant of most of the tests and questionnaires that were conducted brought forth the following problems in E-learning. Computer and internet skills affected students’ use of electronic information resources. For this research, computer and Internet use were measured using a five-point Likert-type scale. Table1 shows the skills of the respondents use the internet. As shown in Table1, the most important uses are Internet surfing and email. The least are chat, news groups and data banks. Respondents perceived level of computer and Internet use Compute and Internet Use Mean SD. C.V. Internet Surfing 4.49 0.81 0.18 E-Mail 4.45 0.62 0.14 Excel 4.30 0.54 0.13 Power point 4.16 0.52 0.13 Word 4.07 0.94 0.23 Chat 2.40 1.47 0.61 News groups 2.15 1.39 0.65 Data Bank 1.65 1.46 0.88 Scale- 1-: Very Little, 2-: Little, 3-: Somewhat, 4-: Much, 5-: Very Much Viewing this table one can understand that the perceived level of recipients of E-Learning varies and are not uniform all across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Hence, despite the advantages of e-learning which are very many, there were many disadvantages that are plaguing the field; such as: Reduced social and cultural interaction, inappropriate content, up-front investment etc. Conclusion Deploying advanced higher education institutes and colleges equipped with modern e-learning facilities is one of todays urgent needs in developing countries like Iran. But the sustainability of such learning systems depends on making sound and realistic pedagogical strategies. New learning technologies need to be targeted so that they may develop applied learning skills in the students. As the writers of this paper have proposed, developing e-learning systems could be considered as a solution for the hazed situation of online higher education in Iran. If e-learning is to have a meaningful role in higher education, it is important that universities focus on students’ attitudes and their expectations with regard to the role of e-learning within their higher education experiences. E-learning represents an important, growing trend in the application of technology to facilitate student learning in Iran. The study presented here focused on virtual students’ perceptions of e-learning among users with mostly limited prior e-learning experience. The findings provide important insight about students’ perceptions of e-learning and raise practical considerations for its implementation. This study is thus just an initial effort at providing Insightful analyses to the policy makers of developing countries such as Iran’s higher education institutes. Additional studies are recommended to extend the research on both professors’ and students’ perceptions to their overall attitude, such as willingness to use e-learning, their need for educational technology, as well as technical assistance and training support. Research limits The researcher will stick to the following limitations: 1. Limited study on the attitudes of faculty members in Saudi universities around technique of electronic learning in Saudi universities. 2. Temporal border In the academic year 2012. 3. Border spatial Faculty members at universities in Saudi Arabia. 4. Society and the research sample 5. The research community in the faculty of Saudi universities in the temporal period throughout the year and a stratified cluster sample of faculties of the universities in Saudi Arabia will be randomly drawn. References 1. Burrell, S (2002). The New Digital Campus, T.H.E. Journal.30 (2), p.20, 5p. 2. Holmes, B., Gardner, J., 2006. E-learning in the 21st century: e-learning: Concept and Practice. Sage, London. 3. Horton, W. (2000), Designing Web-based Training. New York: John Wiley and Sons. 4. Garrison,D., Anderson, T., 2003.e-learning in the 21st century : A framework for Research and Practice. Routledge, New York. 5. Kahn, B., 2005. Managing e-learning: design, Delivery, Implementation and Evaluation. Information science Publishing, Hershey. 6. Khan,G.,2011.http://www.zawya.com/story.cfm/sidZAWYA20110814031953/Electronic_university_in_KSA_to_help_youth_keep_pace_with_time. 7. Anawati, D., & Craig, A. (2006). Behavioral adaptation within cross-cultural virtual teams. 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