Challenges of Change Management in E-Learning

Abstract

Higher Education, usually very slow in adopting changes, has become, in recent years, more receptive to them due to such external factors as expansion of the Internet, emergence of a new student body, and continued decline in government subsidies (Forlkers, 2005). E-learning is defined as the transmission of knowledge whereby the instructor and/or the student participate in the learning process from different places and/or different times (Henry, 2001). Many organizations have adopted e-learning with a hope to make learning process faster and better (Roshan, 2002, Needham & Thomas, 2005). However, recent studies have revealed that about 85% of students participating in e-learning and distance education fall short of completing their program. Low completion leads to low retention, which leads to low performance (Land, 2002). The problem, exacerbated by rapid changes in Information Technology, affects both the universities and the students. The university faculty attempts to deal with these radical technological and managerial changes by scaling instructions down to merely an automated text lectures with primary focus on the delivery of instructional materials ignoring other students’ needs. For students, e-learning may result in a limited experience coupled with little-known technologies for which they need extra guidance and ongoing support. The fundamental challenge is how to employ this new technology to provide students with the help they need when they need it (Gordon, 2003; Roberts, April, 2001; Sherbon, November, 2005).