By JEDDAH: AFIFA JABEEN QURAISHI ARABNEWS

IS online education the next big thing or will it remain a distant entity awaiting its large-scale acceptance in the higher education landscape of Saudi Arabia?

The image of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah launching the first phase of the university and higher education city projects on an iPad in a ceremony last week perhaps speaks more than the proverbial 1,000 words.

Educators believe the time is ripe for the full-fledged implementation of online programs into mainstream traditional learning to meet the higher education needs of the Kingdom’s growing youth population as envisioned by a number of billion-dollar projects of King Abdullah.

However, the transition from a blackboard and chalk to a more efficient technology integrated education system may not be easy for teachers, students and administrators.

“Some of the issues that we face include: technology phobia, user training, technology support, right technology selection, and technology integration,” said Hamzeh M.I. Al-Rjoub, ICT and Educational Technology senior consultant at King Saud University, Riyadh.

The university has adopted online-centric programs and uses technology such as the BlackBoard as LMS (Learning Management System) with plug-ins and tools, and Smart Classroom Automation (ePodium, Interactiveboard, lecture sharing, eAttendance, Video Conferencing, Digital Signage System, etc.)

“One of our major problems is that we consider email as the only official way of communication. Each student has his university email address, where we send notifications and important information. However, we found over 50 percent of students do not like this way of communication and prefer using their personal email accounts. So we are now looking at ways to link together both the accounts and there should be a way to solve this in the e-learning system,” Al-Rjoub said.

A study, titled “Web-Based Instructions (WBI): An Assessment of Preparedness of Conventional Universities in Saudi Arabia” by Mohammed Saleh Albalawi, King Fahd Naval Academy, noted that the Saudi education system is shifting gradually from the traditional classroom to Web-based distance learning in higher-education.

The 2007 study said some administrators believe that creating education programs that make use of modern technology addresses the financial constraints and limited resources being experienced in the Kingdom.

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