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Item Distance Education through E-learning in Developing Countries:An Indian Perspective(4th International Conference on Social Sciences 2018, Research Centre for Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2018) Dr.Subhani, S.R.In this era of 21st century, education plays a prominent role which paves the path towards the growth and development of any nation. Distance Education is a method of teaching where the instructor and learners are separated by time and or physical distance. E-learning is naturally suited to distance learning and flexible learning. Distance Education in the form of e-learning is the only way to reach the larger pitcher in this field. The presence of world-class education, India has been a major role to play in the international e-learning services industry; though some development efforts are taking place in developing countries, like India. The Indian government has been conducting much number of e-learning programmes through distance mode. However, everything has its pros and cons, India also not exempted. Even though there are some drawbacks in the system of Distance Education and there is a need to examine and review the present system, whether the larger number of people benefit from it or not. In this context, this paper concentrates on the Indian education scenario, e-learning content preparation and presentation tools, and application of e-learning to spread education to the remote areas, pros and cons of e-learning and future of e-learning in India. For this purpose, analytical and descriptive method was adopted and analyzed with the source of secondary data. A few suggestions have been made to use e-learning in distance education system, which is highly effective for a developing country like India where most of the population is living in rural areas and has received almost negligible formal education. The present paper aim creates an efficient platform for the enhancement of e-learning knowledge in the field of distance educationItem A Contextual Framework to Guide the Introduction and Use of e-learning(Research Centre for Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) Suraweera, S.A.D.H.N.; Liew, C.L.; Cranefield, J.In Sri Lanka, under the government’s vision of higher education, Information Management (IM) education is seen as important for fostering the development of a high quality market-oriented and knowledge-based society. However, a number of barriers currently restrict access to IM education by Sri Lankan information workers: the provision of education is limited to face-to-face teaching at three institutions in the Colombo (capital city) area, and the country’s physical infrastructure makes it difficult for full-time workers to attend classes without missing substantial work time. This results in IM employer reluctance to support education. Hence there is a growing need to provide equity of access to IM education. In response to World Bank reports, the Quality Assurance and Accreditation Council (QAAC) of Sri Lanka aims to foster transformative change in IM education with the goal of increasing equality of access to IM education through the use of e-learning. This research was guided by two questions: (i) what are the contextual factors and (ii) how do these factors affect the introduction and use of e-learning in tertiary-level IM education in Sri Lanka? An interpretive case study research was conducted. Thirty semistructured interviews were conducted with information management education providers, existing e-learning providers and relevant stakeholders, and three focus group discussions were conducted with information workers and academics. Relevant documents were also analysed: (i) official government documents (ii) official documents from private sources and other internal records; and (iii) relevant internet resources. Fullan’s educational change theory and Hofstede, Hofstede, and Minkov’s cultural dimensions provided a basis for a conceptual model to guide the process of data collection and analysis in this study to gain an understanding of factors affecting the introduction and use of e-learning. A key outcome of this study is the development of a contextual framework to guide the introduction and use of e-learning in IM education in developing country context like Sri Lanka. Factors that are perceived to have an impact on the introduction and use of elearning were found at different levels. Macro-level factors included social and cultural factors, governmental factors, and technological factors. Meso-level factors included resistance to pedagogical change, lack of human and other resources, lack of collaboration/partnership among stakeholders and collective perception of e-learning acceptance. The findings of this study have implications for IM educators and practice in the forms of development of policies, implementation of e-learning, and prioritization and allocation of resources.