This paper provides a broad overview of e-learning as a modern educational delivery method, examining its key advantages such as flexibility, customization, and accessibility, alongside disadvantages including technical barriers and procrastination. The paper presents research trends showing improved student performance in e-learning environments and projected growth rates, then analyzes e-learning adoption across the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Azerbaijan. A case study of university blended-learning implementation using Moodle demonstrates practical application, while the conclusion argues that declining costs and multimodal communication capabilities position e-learning as the foundation for future global education.
Information is now growing at speeds never before imagined. Today's world of information technology has provided a dynamic platform in which exponentially growing information resources emerge. This complex arena of knowledge management provides tremendous advantages to modern society by allowing individuals greater and faster access to resources that can be used to facilitate more accurate decision making, especially in the business world.
However, this situation simultaneously demands new and improved methods of distributing educational resources to those in need of training. In the modern world, it is difficult to take time away from work to participate in a traditional academic curriculum. Making training content available in a manner that can be adapted to fit end users' scheduling requirements is therefore of paramount importance. E-learning provides the most potential among all alternatives to fill this market demand.
E-learning provides many inherent advantages through its method of delivery. Digital content can be implemented nearly as fast as it is created with virtually no risk of obsolescence. It can act as a standalone educational solution or be blended with other teaching methods to enhance more traditional approaches. This flexibility allows more options in design than conventional approaches. Curricula can be customized to fit users in any location or with any aptitude level and can combine various types of multimodal content to ensure efficiency in retention.
Disadvantages of e-learning are generally composed of issues related to cultural adaptation to the system. For instance, students must possess a minimal amount of technical understanding in order to access the content. When this competence does not already exist, students must learn how to use the system as well as master the intended educational content. Another potentially negative issue associated with e-learning is time management. Since much of the available material can be worked through at one's own pace, it is up to students to create their own schedule, which in many cases leads to procrastination. It should also be noted that each of these disadvantages could be viewed as essential training areas that are actually indirect benefits to e-learning (Bates).
A study conducted by the U.S. Department of Education found that students generally performed better when instructed through e-learning courses than in face-to-face classes (Means, et al.). Another study found that the rate of growth for e-learning is 12.8 percent over the next five years (Adkins, 2010). If you consider the results of these two studies together, it is easy to speculate that e-learning development will continue to escalate until it is commonplace in mainstream academic institutions. In fact, a majority of modern classroom settings already have the technological capabilities in place and incorporate some form of blended e-learning functions into their curriculum; open source software such as Moodle provides a low-cost solution for a blended e-learning educational software package.
The United States boasts a 913 billion dollar education and training budget according to the United States Distance Learning Association. The percentage of this budget being allocated to e-learning is growing exponentially, and development of new technologies is struggling to keep pace with market demand. Currently, entire degree programs are being offered in the United States that are taught solely via distance education, meaning students can complete a degree program without ever stepping foot in a classroom.
The United Kingdom and Germany, as well as a majority of European countries, are also seeing significant increases in e-learning as the preferred educational delivery method. Germany has developed a curriculum in Zurich for instructors to acquire e-learning teaching skills, known as e-competencies (B. Volk). Upon completion of the program, instructors are awarded the Zurich E-Learning Certificate.
In the United Kingdom, the largest e-learning organization is the Open University, which has over 200,000 registered users and customers (J. Davis). This movement was part of a larger government-led push to increase participation rates of young adults in higher education to exceed 50 percent. Educators looked to e-learning technologies to provide the platform through which such goals could be met. The advantage that e-learning provides to this goal is that it can increase accessibility to students.
Azerbaijan is currently realizing similar trajectories. One such trend exists in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector, which has favorable conditions for further development of e-learning systems. However, one factor inhibits implementation of e-learning systems: higher education institutions in Azerbaijan have study programs in Azeri, Russian, and English, so the content volume is multiple times larger than that of a monolingual system. Though the efficiencies created by e-learning will be further leveraged as implementation costs decrease and benefits increase.
One university has created a Moodle-based blended learning environment that combines face-to-face teaching with web-based learning. The blended-learning courses were developed and first implemented in 2009. All courses were built with a wide range of features in hopes of increasing students' understanding and expanding their knowledge. With access to a variety of content—including the course syllabus, current readings, weekly assignments and quizzes, forums and wikis that allow students to collaborate, and message boards to notify students about important events—the platform uses simulation as a basic tool.
It should be noted that standardized open source software decreases system development costs and deployment time. However, from the users' standpoint, course content is the main component of the system. Its development requires a great deal of faculty contribution, time, and effort. In general, educators can minimize content development efforts by outsourcing to appropriate vendors. However, in the case of Azerbaijan, it is more difficult to find appropriate sources in digital format.
Analysis of blended e-learning solutions shows that vast arrays of options are available. Each requires different degrees of faculty and student involvement in the teaching and learning process. At the lower end of the continuum exists simple web-enhanced classroom teaching. The higher end options include full-scale distance learning systems.
It is necessary to note that the integration of such systems has many related technological and legal issues. One example is the e-components to be used in the student evaluation process. In some cases, the legal status of distance learning must be officially determined by state officials. When developing e-learning, blended learning, and other web-enhanced training systems, each university should make decisions based on its specific criteria.
Though e-learning does have substantial upfront costs in terms of hardware, software is now being developed as open source and free. This greatly reduces the total costs of implementing different versions of e-learning systems. As a result, the number of students using some form of e-learning is growing exponentially across the world. This trend is unlikely to lose its momentum any time soon.
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