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This study aims to investigate the factors that influence user experience (UX) of eLearning systems implemented in two institutions in Tanzania.

The study adopted questionnaire consisting of Nielsen’s heuristics and didactic metrics as pragmatic metrics and hedonic metrics followed by focus group discussions with students.

The study found that the eLearning system of University of Dar es Salaam had 43 UX problems related to Nielsen’s heuristics and 54 UX problems related to didactic heuristics. The eLearning system of the Open University of Tanzania had 50 UX problems related to Nielsen’s heuristics and 59 UX problems related to didactic heuristics. Moreover, the two systems provided positive UX hedonic quality on identification and evocation dimensions while stimulation was perceived to be neutral.

The study has used learners as evaluators rather than expert evaluators. Learners are not particularly experienced in the learning domain, and therefore, it is difficult for them to identify many didactic violations of the eLearning systems.

The study contributes toward finding the underlying factors for non-use or underuse of the installed eLearning systems in various universities in sub-Saharan Africa.

The purpose of this paper is to offer insights into the development of eLearning systems and the perceptions of key players in the management of eLearning systems in three large universities in Saudi Arabia. It establishes the relative importance of different factors and compares these findings with studies conducted elsewhere in the world.

Desk research was conducted to gather a profile of the eLearning initiatives in the participating universities. Structured interviews were conducted with senior managers with responsibility for implementing and promoting eLearning in their universities. The interview protocol prompted discussion of the importance of the following sets of factors in the success and acceptance of eLearning: student characteristics, instructor characteristics, learning environment, instructional design, and support. Interviews were transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis.

Supported by the Saudi Government, the three universities in this study have been developing their eLearning services. The two most important groups of critical success factors in this process were regarded as those related to student and instructor characteristics. Further analysis within each group of factors suggested that participants regarded instructor knowledge with learning technologies and student knowledge of computer systems, and technical infrastructure as important facilitators of success. Amongst instructional design factors, clarity of learning objectives and content quality were regarded as important. Insights are offered as to the reasons for these selections.

This study furthers earlier research on eLearning managers’ views and contributes to understanding of eLearning and its management in the Middle East.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the unique d

mensions associated with knowledge quality (KQ) based on students’ perception in an educational institution.

Purposive sampling was used to select students who were active users of the electronic-Learning (eLearning) system at two faculties in a single university. The qualitative data gathering employed an unstructured open-ended questionnaire distributed to the 52 selected participants.

The qualitative findings unearth the students’ perspective about quality of knowledge gained from content used in online courses. In total, 34 underlying sub-dimensions of KQ emerged, which were categorized into five KQ dimensions: intrinsic KQ, contextual KQ, representational KQ, accessible KQ, and actionable KQ.

The findings provide an insight to educators to consider KQ dimensions in providing quality knowledge to students in an eLearning environment.

Previous studies have used information quality dimensions to measure KQ because of a lack of conceptualization of KQ that leads to difficulties in operationalizing this construct. In this study, a conceptual and operational definition of KQ, in the context of eLearning, is proposed based on grounded data from students participating in an online learning environment.

The paper, aims to introduce an educational content management system Hypermedia Learning Objects System (hylOs), which is fully compliant to the IEEE LOM eLearning object metadata standard. Enabled through an advanced authoring toolset, hylOs allows the definition of instructional overlays of a given eLearning object mesh.

In educational content management, simple file distribution is considered insufficient. Instead, IEEE LOM standardised eLearning objects have been well established as the basic building blocks for educational online content. They are nicely suited for self‐explorative learning approaches within adaptive hypermedia applications. Even though eLearning objects typically reside within content repositories, they may propagate metadata relations beyond repository limits. Given the explicit meaning of these interobject references, a semantic net of content strings can be knotted, overlaying the repository infrastructure.

Based on a newly introduced ontological evaluation layer, meaningful overlay relations between knowledge objects are shown to derive autonomously. A technology framework to extend the resulting semantic nets beyond repository limits is also presented.

This paper provides proof of concept for the derivation and use of semantic content networks in educational hypermedia. It thereby opens up new directions for future eLearning technologies and pedagogical adoption.

The paper illustrates capabilities of the hylOs eLearning content management. The hylOs is built upon the more general Media Information Repository (MIR) and the MIR Adaptive Context Linking Environment (MIRaCLE): its linking extension. MIR is an open system supporting the standard XML, CORBA and JNDI. hylOs benefits from manageable information structures, sophisticated access logic and high‐level authoring tools like the eLO editor responsible for the semi‐manual creation of meta data and WYSIWYG like XML–content editing, allowing for rapid distributed content development.

Over the last few years, networking technologies and distributed information systems have moved up the OSI layer and are established well within application‐centric middleware. Most recently, content overlay networks have matured, incorporating the semantics of data files into their self‐organisational structure with the aim of optimising data‐centric distributed indexing and retrieval. This paper elaborates a corresponding concept of semantic structuring for educational content objects. It introduces and analyses the autonomous generation and educational exploitation of semantic content nets, providing proof of concept by a full‐featured implementation within the hylOs educational content management system.

This paper aims to study how a library can be best integrated into eLearning platform, thereby making it easier for both the instructors and students to search the library resources with ease. Further, it explores the perceived usefulness of library integration in the eLearning platform and ease of access of library resources and services through the integrated system by students.

The study has adopted quantitative research design to garner the perceptions of students towards library integration system in eLearning and its perceived usefulness of integration. In total, 156 responses were collected from both first-year and second-year students of the institute. Collected data were analysed using descriptive statistics and ANOVA.

The author argues that by integrating library in Moodle LMS, the library plays a more significant role in the eLearning environment, especially in facilitating access to electronic resources to the students. Research findings suggest that respondents had positive perceptions towards the library integration in eLearning.

This paper offers technical strategies for integrating library in learning management system (LMS), thereby strengthening relation with faculties, increasing relevance with students and improving visibility of library.

In the eLearning environment, this paper will be of immense value for the librarians who are looking for establishing their presence in LMS.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and examine the antecedents that enable or constrain the adoption and diffusion of eLearning in higher education (HE). The key focus of the study is on the examination of how the organisation's diffusion structures, systems or processes influence the individual adoption of eLearning. The findings from this literature review contribute to practice through providing a better understanding of the issues associated with institutional diffusion mechanisms that aid the adoption of learning technologies.

An extensive search of the literature was conducted. The selected references were analysed into a number of categories; macro-level studies examining HE context of eLearning, micro-level studies focusing on individual and social factors and articles focusing on management issues of adoption and diffusion of technological innovations. Finally, over 300 articles were used to compile the findings of this paper.

The paper argues that future research studies should not model the adoption and diffusion of eLearning based primarily on either an individualist (Micro) or structuralist (Macro) perspective, but by using a more interactive approach to examine the complexity and multiple levels and dimensions of social reality.

A significant exclusion and one which clearly calls for further research, is the aspect of institutional structures such as library systems, virtual learning environments, administrative support systems and other technical systems such as enrolment, registration, assessment and students, with respect to the adoption of eLearning. Future studies may want to explore the interplay between these structures and agency.

The study findings contribute to practice through providing a better understanding of the issues associated with institutional diffusion mechanisms that aid the adoption of learning technologies. Considering the slow and often disappointing adoption of eLearning within higher education institutions (HEIs), the study reveals the nature of adoption that may inform the development of institutional eLearning diffusion structures.

The paper identifies that the importance of individual factors influencing the adoption of eLearning has been acknowledged by the above studies, and the underlying message has emerged that levels of eLearning adoption would be higher if strategic managers recognised the social dimensions of eLearning innovation and diffusion, such as: academic and professional goals, interests and needs; technology interests; patterns of work; sources of support; and social networks. The argument is that currently eLearning is geared towards technically “literate” and innovative staff, and this strategy reduces the likelihood of mainstream faculty actually adopting instructional technology for their own teaching.

A review of the eLearning literature shows that there only a few substantive theoretical accounts which adequately integrate multiple levels of analysis and explain adoption and diffusion of eLearning in terms of the interplay between structural influences and individual action. The paper argues for future research to be integrated in a general analytical framework.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the results of a research study on eLearning across Europe. The aims are to identify the main focus of eLearning projects supported by the European Leonardo da Vinci programme and to give recommendations for the future.

The objectives were achieved in two different steps: First, the projects were categorized by the researchers according to an agreed set of criteria. This in turn led through the so‐called funnel methodology to a representative selection of eLearning projects which were evaluated more deeply by means of expert interviews.

The study showed that technical matters and narrowly‐defined subject areas still receive the most emphasis by eLearning developers. What is needed, however, is a stronger focus on the learners and their needs. The need for innovation in eLearning is not in the area of technological innovation, rather pedagogical innovation and increased value, for the learners need to play a more important role in eLearning projects.

This thematic monitoring should be seen as only a first step and needs to be continued to help steer the development of eLearning projects financed by the European Commission.

The main focus of the outcomes is the necessity of the enforcement of learner‐oriented approaches instead of technology‐driven approaches in order to create added value for the eLearners.

This project was the first overall European monitoring in the field of eLearning, analysing the actual changes in thinking on eLearning and defining clear recommendations for the future.

The purpose of this paper is to present an innovative web-based eLearning platform called ICT-FLAG that provides e-assessment tools with general-purpose formative assessment services featuring learning analytics and gamification.

The paper reports on the technical development of the platform driven by the Reference Model for Open Distributed Processing software methodology, which guides the platform construction, including the analysis and design steps.

The ICT-FLAG platform is technically tested by integrating it into a real e-assessment tool. Results are positive in terms of functional and non-functional aspects as well as user’s satisfaction on usability, emotional state, thus validating the platform as a valuable educational tool.

Because of the chosen technical paper as article type, validation of the impact of the ICT-FLAG platform in the learning process is not provided. Ongoing research with this platform is to measure the learning outcomes of its use in a real context of eLearning.

The paper shows implications of the main technical issues and challenges encountered during the integration of the ICT-FLAG platform with external eLearning tools, involving relevant aspects of interoperability, security, modularity, scalability, portability and so on.

This platform can fill the gap of many e-assessment systems, which currently do not have built-in analytical and gamification tools for learning, thus providing them with the experience to improve the quality of education and learning.

Whilst online and blended learning approaches are now widely used by many higher education institutions, the extent and depth of eLearning implementation often depend more on the efforts of enthusiastic individual lecturers rather than effective institution-wide strategies. Innovation is thus frequently restricted to local settings and the enrichment of existing educational approaches rather than radically questioning current paradigms and creating new ways of delivering education. In recent years, there has been more urgency in calling for a deeper re-thinking of how higher education can be made more flexible, scalable and individualised not only at the level of courses but in a systemic and strategic way. This article describes a strategic approach to implementing blended learning at Management Center Innsbruck in Austria. I argue that the whole-of-programme approach taken in this case is an effective way to strategically introduce sustainable and scalable blended learning, and thus not only respond to but actively shape the disruption brought about by online education.

This paper aims to report on the efforts made to enhance the engagement of IT students with non-IT-specific content. The mechanism to foster this engagement was the introduction of an eLearning information system (ELIS) for a finance-related subject within an IT undergraduate degree at the university. The subject developers were primarily concerned with both the learning design and the engagement of the student to enable the effective incorporation of an ELIS into the classroom.

This interpretive research used a comparative case study as the aim was to gain an in-depth understanding of a particular situation. The research approach also allows an open-minded interpretation of the collected data as the researcher is interested in looking for the “Why and not the How”. Data were collected via an online university student feedback survey.

Four key themes emerged from the data as follows: IT students learning non-IT-related content was a major driving force behind the changes to the course; staff change brought fresh eyes to the subject content and enabled improvements to occur; introducing the ELIS assisted the teaching staff to reduce preparation time while also helping students learn at the own pace; and collaborative group work helped facilitated student insights into real life work scenarios. The findings show that each of the key themes identified played a role in improving student engagement and satisfaction with the non-IT subject matter.

The value of this paper is from its practical perspective. Engaging IT students in non-IT subject matter is a challenging proposition for which there is no simple solution. This paper shows that over a five-semester period and through a phased implementation of major changes, student satisfaction and engagement with non-IT subject matter has improved steadily. This paper is of interest, and hence value, to academics who encounter problems or issues of engaging students in non-domain-related subject matter.