Exploration of Challenges of Online Distance Education in the Context of Saudi Arabia - Literature review Example

The paper "Exploration of Challenges of Online Distance Education in the Context of Saudi Arabia" is an outstanding example of a management literature review. Because the system development lifecycle (SDLC) is traditionally broken down into phases, most forms of analysis have functioned by breaking systems down into separate independent components (Russell, 2010, p. 94). This is however not the approach with system thinking as system thinking emphasises the holistic approach towards analysis (Seddon, 2008, p. 153). With system thinking, the interrelatedness of the constituent parts of the system is the emphasis of analysts.

Russell (2010, p. 45) therefore reiterated the fact that a system consists of interrelated parts and components that interact with each other in order to perform a specific activity. Systems’ thinking is a holistic approach whereby a system is analyzed or studied by breaking it down into separate elements. Systems thinking can be used to conduct research in different subject matters such as educational systems, political matters, environmental aspects, economic conditions, medical research and human resource amongst many others.

According to the systems thinking approach, a particular behaviour results from the effects of reinforcing and balancing. Reinforcing is the process by which the different components of a system are put into action (Cordoba-Pachon, 2010, p. 67). The balancing process makes sure that every component of a system is in equilibrium with each other. Feedback forms an integral part of the systems thinking approach. For instance, while analyzing a project on human resource; the management is considering increasing the number of employees in the organization, however past results show that increasing the number of workers has proven to be counterproductive.

Therefore in such a scenario, the firm must take into consideration feedbacks generated from past actions to analyse the current system (Checkland and Poulter, 2010, p. 90). System thinking was founded in the year 1956 by MIT professor Jay Forrestor. Forrestor had recognized that there was a need for a better way of testing new ideas and aspects of the social system like in the manner how ideas are tested in engineering.