Dr. Dimitrios Xanthidis, PhD, M.S.I.S., B.Sc. ... type of interaction including, but not limited to, online .... interviews or through online survey using Google docs.
eLearning in Saudi Universities Challenges and Issues Dr. Dimitrios Xanthidis, PhD, M.S.I.S., B.Sc.
Syed Waqee Wali, B.Sc. IT and Computing
Assistant Professor, Arab Open University Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Arab Open University Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Paul Nikolaidis, M.Sc., B.Sc. Birkbeck University London, Great Britain Abstract—In this research paper a number of diverse types of administrative, technical and general challenges and issues related to eLearning were covered in order to examine the current situation of eLearning progress in Saudi universities, investigate the obstacles preventing high rates of eLearning development and discover what kind of learning procedures people of Saudi prefer to accommodate their educational. A pretested questionnaire was used for the purpose of data collection. The data were gathered from individuals and educational institutions of Saudi Arabia, from all walks of life and from various employment statuses. This pilot research study suggested that the main reason behind the slow progress of eLearning in Saudi Arabia is the result of problems in the local telecommunications and other infrastructure as noted by the survey participants and far less the outcome of weaknesses of the established procedures and facilities available by the local eLearning institutions. Keywords—eLearning; universities; eLearning in Saudi Arabia; education in Saudi Arabia; eLearning challenges issues;
I.
INTRODUCTION
Information and Communication Technologies have changed the way we think and act. No one can deny the fact, that the influence and penetration of IT in our day to day lives is so intense that we cannot think of a day without utilizing the vast services and applications of ICTs. The prominence of ICT in education sector can be determined by how well eLearning has been adapted in the developed world and the ample benefits that have been deployed utilizing ICTs [1]. But, as the scientific community accepts, it is not an easy task to define eLearning in its exact meaning [2]. However, one can describe eLearning as learning that is made easy using digital instruments and learning topics/subjects that need some type of interaction including, but not limited to, online interactivity between the teacher and the student or between fellow companions [3]. Due to the limitations of face-to-face education, e-learning can be considered as its competent substitute or enhancing complement. As compared to schooling, eLearning is revolutionary in terms of how it deals with the time, space and the methodologies of teaching and learning. As to fulfill learner/students’ needs, many institutions have adapted the eLearning ambiance where Internet plays a major role in its implementation and utilization phase [4].
Additionally, eLearning has visible benefits on all groups of people. Single learners can accumulate substantial amount of knowledge without having to travel, or taking time out of their work. By enabling basic development of skills and providing the directions that result in more qualified labor force and expertise, Governments can use this opportunity to improve the quality of life for their citizens [1]. Christoph Marcinkowski mentions in his book, that e-learning has a major hand in providing literacy and knowledge for bringing about societal changes and encourage awareness about the problems that are being faced by many countries. He says that the adoption of eLearning can improve communication and increase understanding in the community that lets decision and policy makers and strategists to build plans and maintain development [5]. Of course there are certain conditions that must be met when referring to eLearning applications. In order for eLearning to be implemented and advanced, ICT infrastructure, the basis of eLearning, is required to be properly deployed and maintained. The ICT infrastructure consists of proper connection channels, hardware and software. This includes firm bandwidth highways for the prevention of disrupted services, lags, delays, probable data losses, and strong IT security so that the impacts of identity theft, abuse and security attack, could be minimized. Saudis, like other peoples in developed or developing countries, are computer and Internet literate and, also, have the skills and knowledge to use eLearning facilities for their benefit. The questions then is to what extend do they prefer eLearning over traditional means of education and what do they see as possible obstacles on the road of success and growth of eLearning in their society? II.
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
Following Saudis overall pattern about eLearning process the authors set as the main aim of this research study to review and discuss the progress of eLearning in the Saudi Arabian Universities, and to identify the possible technological and administrative challenges that may restrict or confine the growth of eLearning in Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, this study also seeks to shed light on the preference of the community with respect to ‘electronic’ vs. ‘traditional’ learning methods. In order to find practical and realistic answers, the following objectives are to be met:
• Examine the current status of eLearning in Saudi Arabia. • Explore the community’s view on the reasons behind the slow or no progress of eLearning (if any) in this region. • Investigate the administrative and technological challenges of eLearning in the local society. • Discover Saudi prefer to accommodate their literacy needs. III.
BACKROUND
Generally speaking, the proliferation of ICTs drove eLearning system advancements and vice versa. Conventional or distance teaching institutions realized a huge impact on their teaching/learning procedures from eLearning applications. ELearning should by no means be confused with the term distance learning. eLearning can be considered more like a complex environment adapted by most universities nowadays as a part of their overall LMS (Learning Management System). On the other hand distance learning is rather a possibility that many universities provide to remote students by incorporating eLearning as its basic procedure to deliver teaching and learning services. [6] However, having implemented eLearning procedures and established the appropriate infrastructure and maintaining it to acceptable quality standards involves administrative and technological challenges that cannot be underestimated. Amir and Mehdi classified some challenges using a method named ordinal factor analysis. They list some problems in the technical level that include lack of framework, hardware, software, connectivity problems, limited access to education, rapidly changing technology and limitations in the access to proper learning materials [7]. According to a research in 2008, the major issues in application of eLearning in Kuwait, (an Arab country) were identified to be mostly, the lack of management support, language hurdles, lack of IT infrastructure, and lack of time for implementation of eLearning systems in universities and institutions [8]. Hassan found several critical success factors that need to be considered during the development and implementation of eLearning based courses. These included the importance of IT infrastructure, required for deploying and utilizing eLearning systems, and the significance of support by universities for the promotion of e-learning activities [9]. A research performed by Sandra, Juan and Joaquin identified some challenges. They say that in from a technical perspective, the challenges are the currently available infrastructures which can restrict the interoperability of learning elements and maintenance, administrative support for registration and enrolment, design of the joint curriculum, guaranteed privacy and security, shared authentication and Internationalization of content. On the other hand, the administrative challenges mentioned were, funding and tuition fees, issues relating to support, contracts with institutions and affirmation of quality of the curriculum [10]. Annika Andersson identified 37 challenges out of which she classified seven as being major, namely, student support, flexibility, teaching and learning activities, access, students’
academic confidence, localization of content and attitudes on eLearning. She mentioned that these factors’ crucial importance clearly show how the students’ older educational progress can limit their eLearning perspectives especially when eLearning does not match with the course requirements. To overcome this problem, she says that while the course is being prepared, this should be thought upon and conceived by altering the requirements or by providing preparatory courses. She goes on further mentioning that these factors also show how the course production team should be more involved in providing support functions. She says that in this case where eLearning has just stepped in and IT literacy is low, the students need guidance in understanding the administrative and technical issues [11]. Another dimension of eLearning enforcement is the Governmental and international sponsorships that should be provided, as Issa and Saad mentioned in their paper, which can contribute to find and provide a way to assist and serve larger group of people in their knowledge acquisition. Participation and support from well-known and experienced eLearning universities are required and ensures firmly branded and high quality courses. Learning materials and courses must be provided in a captivating manner using efficient technology for the successful operation of the eLearning university. Also, full time teachers and technical support staff must be available [1]. Ahmed and Marianne identified some elements of creating policies in eLearning. They mention that planning strategically, educational programs and their courses, Internet literacy, quality affirmation and approval, network layout and framework, professional advancement, copyright issues and partner affiliations and financial issues, all contribute to the creation of proper policies for eLearning [12]. IV.
METHODOLOGY
Saudi Arabia is the geographic scope of this pilot qualitative study aiming to shed light into eLearning status and developments in the Gulf counties. This paper is only one part of the study that involves other countries including UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman. At first the research began with an opening of a circle of contacts with educational stakeholders in Saudi Arabia trying to extract important information for time saving reasons as to what is the appropriate way to reach people due to distance restrictions or gender related obstacles, what is the level of interest in filling questionnaires of this kind, about translation issues to be solved and so on. After those initial conversations the study moved to the next phase where a questionnaire has been formatted in a way that could depict the prerequisites of the aims and objectives section. A draft of the questionnaire was first tested on a small sample of 20 individuals and valuable information was taken that helped fine-tune the final version of the questionnaire that was eventually used.
V.
FINDINGS
A. ELearning progress and educational preferences The respondents’ opinions on whether eLearning progress in Saudi Arabia are satisfactory or not and whether they would prefer online from traditional learning are vividly illustrated in figure 1. The majority (58%; 73/126) see no progress of eLearning (12%; 15/126) or slow progress (46%; 58/126). This is particularly evident in the age range between 18-25 but also between 26-35. A significant 29% evaluate the progress towards this goal as sufficient (37/126) but just 1.5% (2/126) think of eLearning growth in Saudi Arabia as rapid. There was, also, a 11% (14/126) of the participants that did not or could not respond to this question.
Figure A1. Age of respondents The survey was deployed during a period of three weeks (March of 2013) by the authors and 126 individuals agreed to participate in it either offline through personal face-to-face interviews or through online survey using Google docs. The sample size should be considered as appropriate enough because this is only a part of a larger study that includes more countries of the Golf area as already mentioned earlier. Also the age of the respondents is considered satisfactory although not quite representative of all the age ranges. Indeed, although a considerable number of individuals were approached (more than 320) of all age ranges but only mainly those under 45 did accept to contribute to this research study as the figure A1 illustrates.
The second important point that figure 1 makes is that the vast majority of the participants stated they prefer online learning (67%; 84/126) either by itself (26%; 33/126) or in a mixure of both online and traditional learning (40%; 51/126). A quite significant 21% of them still favor the traditional learning in the classroom (27/126) and a small 12% (15/126) could not or did not want to respond.
The questionnaire consisted mainly of four questions extracting the Saudis opinion on eLearning current status of Universities and their views on the challenges they face related to them. A fifth question was about their preferred educating method giving a clear picture of the impact of eLearning concerning their literacy needs. The ultimate goal of the ongoing survey was to obtain a grouped and codified sample table suitable for data investigation through statistical packages that can perform cross tabulations and statistical calculations necessary. For this purpose SPSS was used to perform the statistical analysis, mainly cross-tabulations, and MS Excel was used to provide quality charts used to interpret the results.
Figure 1. ELearning progress and learning preferences
The most important finding was that given the young age of the people, i.e. between 18 and 35, that accepted to answer to these questions and given that the majority of Saudis are in this particular age range this strongly suggests where education, at least higher education, is heading towards. Let us not forget that these individuals will make families if not have already and it is only reasonable to expect that they will probably direct their children towards this type of education, i.e. eLearning, either by itself or as a necessary part of their university studies. There was not enough data to map more aged people’s preferences and opinions since they were not willing to participate in the survey. B. Reasons for slow or no progress in eLearning in Saudi Arabia Figure 2 does not leave, indeed, much room for speculations as to why eLearning growth in Saudi Arabia is not what is expected by the, mainly, young population of the country. The participants were given 6 possible reasons for the slow or no progress and they identified all of them as the main reasons for the problem.
The aforementioned pattern just very slightly shifts towards disagreement with the suggestions in the case of considering iliteracy as one of the reasons for slow or no progress towards eLearning. Not surprisingly age does not play a role in the shift of the results but just follows, or shapes, the pattern. (Agree: 67/126; 53%, Undecided: 24/126; 16%, Disagree: 25/126; 20%, Don’t know/Can’t say: 10/126; 8%). Financial problems and lack of promotional efforts towards the goal are attributed for the slow or no progress of eLearning in the country in the same way. (Financial problems: Agree: 72/126; 57%, Undecided: 16/126; 12.6%, Disagree: 27/126; 21.4%, Don’t know/Can’t say: 11/126; 8.7%. Lack of Promotion: Agree: 76/126; 60%, Undecided: 21/126; 16.7%, Disagree: 18/126; 14.3%, Don’t know/Can’t say: 11/126; 8.7%). The main obstacle, as the respondents see, blocking the road to eLearning is the lack of institutions that properly support the idea and implement it. A very large 68% of the participants (86/126) identified this as the number one problem, 14.3% (18/126) could not decide and a small 10.3% (13/126) disagreed with the suggestion. C. Administrative challenges Figure 3 presents a very mixed picture of the participants’ perception as to which of the administrative processes are responsible for the slow or no progress towards eLearning in Saudi Arabia. In general it could be safely stated that whatever problems blocking the roads towards eLearning are not related to the institutions but, as it was mentioned in the previous section, with the infrastructure available locally to those interested in following eLearning practices. The institutions are recognized by the respondents as having properly in place all those procedure necessary to support such learning methods. Indeed, when asked whether they believe the quality of the online curriculum offered by eLearning institutions is low and causes problems in the effort to promote it in the country their views were divided. Almost half of them (48.4%; 61/126) were in agreement with the suggestion but a little more than half (51.6%; 65/126) disagreed. The data based on their age are not conclusive as to whether age affects the results.
Figure 2. Reasons for slow or no progress of eLearning Most of the individuals (60%; 76/126) agreed that lack of infrastructure is one of the main obstacles towards the goal of eLearning growth, 12% of them could not decide (15/126) and a significant 19% (24/126) disagreed. There was a 8.7% (11/126) that either could not say or did not want to. Age does not seems to play a particular role in their responses given, again, that people more than 45 did not want to get involve in this survey. The pattern is quite similar in their perceptions of the language hurdles as a big problem that blocks the progress of eLearning and age, once again, does not affect it significantly. (Agree: 73/126; 58%, Undecided: 21/126; 17%, Disagree: 22/126; 17.5%, Don’t know/Can’t say: 10/126; 8%).
The big majority did not complain for the support of the local eLearning institutions by reputed international ones (76/126; 60%) when a 40% did (50/126). Almost exactly the same stats when individuals were asked for complains on usage training, i.e. if they believed that the eLearning insitutions did not train them enough to use eLearning facilities comfortably. Most of them disagreed (59%; 74/126) and just 41% (52/126) agreed. Once again age does not seem to affect their perceptions.
for having little or no access to educational software. (Agree: 50/126; 40%, 76/126; 60%). They don’t even mind that indeed ICT is changing rapidly and it does not affect their perception on eLearning. (Agree: 22/126; 17%, Disagree: 104/126; 83%). VI.
Figure 3. Administrative reasons for slow or no progress of eLearning The vast majority of the participants did not find any problems with the affiliations of the eLearning institutions with major universities either local or international (69%; 87/126) and did not have any problem to accept the online curriculum (74%; 93/126). It looks that the elder a person the less problems faced with these aforementioned issues.
CONCLUSIONS
There are a number of clear conclusions that can be easily drawn from this pilot research of eLearning in Saudi Arabia. The first is that those individuals older than 45 are not very willing to contribute to a general discussion related to eLearning and the new technologies and, perhaps (maybe needs to be studied further), not willing to get involved with practices related with information and communications’ technologies except, probably, the everyday trivial usage of smartphone devices and tablets in its most basic and simplest form. At the same time the young people, aged between 18 and 35 are very demanding as to the technologies, services and prospects of ICT intruding in their lives in a variety of ways. As far as eLearning they believe there is only a slow progress towards that goal despite the fact that they make it clear that they are very much in favor of using eLearning tools in their education either by itself or together with traditional classroom education. This is not to say, of course and coming from the analysis of the findings, that the people are against the traditional ways of learning and education but just prefer a blend of both paradigms.
C. Technical challenges Finally, the participants were also asked to identify possible technical reasons for the perceived as slow or no progress of eLearning in Saudi Arabia. Figure 4 illustrates their responses which could be seen, in general, as being in full disagreement with the suggested problems. In other words, once again like in the previous case of the administrative challenges, the local sample population seems to be pointing towards the local telecommunications infrastructure and relevant issues and much less to the processes established and facilities available to the eLearning users/students by the respective local institutions. Indeed, they don’t believe privacy concerns is a problem for the advent of eLearning in the country. (Agree: 23/126; 18%, Disagree: 103/126; 82%). They don’t seem to have any security concerns related to eLearning, perhaps more than the usual. (Agree: 33/126; 26%, Disagree: 93/126; 74%). They don’t seem to agree that there are any administrative weaknesses related with supporting admissions. (Agree: 54/126; 43%, Disagree: 72/126; 57%). They don’t complain
Figure 4. Technical reasons for slow or no progress of eLearning in Saudi Arabia
The Saudis, the younger people as stated before, are not happy with the progress of eLearning in their country but do not blame the local eLearning institutions for that. They don’t believe the problem is with the established eLearning practices and procedures of these institutions but, rather, with certain issues that are more related with the Saudi society and infrastructure. They see problems in the telecommunications infrastructure causing problems in the advent of eLearning in the country, they believe that illiteracy is a problem; they feel the problems caused by the fact that there are language hurdles blocking them from enjoying the fruits of technology. They note the lack of promotional strategies to attract individuals interested in education, especially higher education, to join the eLearning paradigm and they believe that there are not enough institutions that support such practices. It remains to be seen whether the same apply in the other Gulf countries and whether there are any suggestions to further develop eLearning for the benefit of all but especially younger people. As it is already stated this is only a part of a larger research project related with the advent of eLearning and Social Media in the Gulf countries. As more and more data are incorporated in the research more conclusive results will help shed light to the future of the digital technologies and media in the region and its affects on the local populations.
VII. REFERENCES [1]
Issa M. Shehabat, and Saad A. Mahdi, “E-Learning and its Impact to the Educational System in the Arab World” 2009 International Conference on Information Management and Engineering, 2009. [2] Albert Sangrà, Dimitrios Vlachopoulos, and Nati Cabrera, "Building an Inclusive Definition of E-learning: An approach to the Conceptual Framework", IRRODL, April 2012. [3] Ministry of Communication and Technology of New Zealand, 2008. [4] Ding Aixia and Dan Wang, “Factors Influencing Learner Attitudes Toward E-learning”, International Journal of e-Education, e-Business, eManagement and e-Learning, 2011. [5] Christoph Marcinkowski, “The Islamic World and the West” LIT Verlag Münster, 2009. [6] S. Campanella, G. Dimauro, A. Ferrante, D. Impedovo, S. Impedovo , M. G. Lucchese, R. Modugno, G. Pirlo, L. Sarcinella, E. Stasolla, and C. A. Trullo, “E-learning platforms in the Italian Universities: the technological solutions at the University of Bari”, WSEAS Transactions on Advances in Engineering Education, vol 5, pp. 1790-1979, January 2008. [7] Amir Ahmadpour and Mehdi Mirdamadi, “Determining Challenges in the Application of E-Learning in Agricultural Extension Services in Iran”, International Digital Organization For Scientific Information – IDOSI 2010. [8] Ghadah Essa Ali and Rodrigo Magalhaes “Barriers to implementing elearning: a Kuwaiti case study”, International Journal of Training and Development, 2008 [9] Hassan M. Selim, “Critical success factors for e-learning acceptance: Confirmatory factor models”, Science Direct, 2007. [10] Sandra Aguirre, Juan Quemada, Joaquín Salvachúa, “Integrated Study Programs through e-Learning”, IEEE Computer Society – 2010 [11] Annika Andersson and Ake Gronlund, “A Conceptual Framework For E-Learning In Developing Countries: A Critical Review Of Research Challenges”, The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, Vol 38 (2009).
[12] Ahmed M. El-Sherbini and Marianne A. Azer, “E-learning Policies Strategies Tools and Content Development: A case Study”, IEEE MultiDisciplinary Engineering Education Magazine, 2008.
