CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS FOR E-LEARNING
Kum Leng Chin Patrice Ng Kon
School of Information Systems Curtin University of Technology Perth, Australia
ABSTRACT This paper investigates, from four different perspectives, the critical success factors in order to enable the delivery of a postgraduate course in a fully online e-learning mode. These perspectives include students, academic staff, IT support and management. The critical success factors were identified through the use of a three round Delphi study. Khan’s (2001) e-learning framework was used to categorise the identified factors. The outcome of this study has shown that there were huge differences between the four different perspectives on what should be considered as critical factors. Despite the fact that there was no consensus amongst the four different views, the outcomes of this study has provided a very rich picture of what is really required for this kind of learning and teaching mode. KEYWORDS
E-learning, Online Learning, Khan’s E-learning Framework
1. INTRODUCTION
This paper investigates the critical success factors that would enable the School of Information Systems (SIS), one of the schools that is housed within the Business Division in a large university in Western Australia, to offer a postgraduate course in a fully online e-learning mode. Identifying critical success factors or issues before offering a fully online education delivery mode is essential for management considerations. A fully online e-learning mode implies that all learning activities and other related services are integrated and delivered online (Stuparich, 2001). This research study aims to: • Identify the critical success factors perceived by the different categories of respondents in order to enable the SIS to deliver a postgraduate course in Information Systems in a fully online elearning mode; • Identify among those identified factors the most critical ones that would require management attention. There have been...