miércoles, 6 de abril de 2011

E Learning and developing countries

E Learning and developing countries
March 31, 2011
Analysis by: GLG Expert Contributor
Summary
There is need for eleraning setups at universities level in developing country than in developed countries and organizations are simply ignoring this fact. Some elearning organizations simply do not have the idea of paving the revenue stream back in the financial pool.
Lethargically, open source software shall occupy the space, and some competitive elearning organizations shall loose large market share.


Article talks about the need and ignorance of some elearning companies.
Analysis
Two of the largest world universities by enrolment exactly lie in the densely populated area of the world, Indira Gandhi National Open University, IGNOU and Allama Iqbal Open University, AIOU, in India and Pakistan respectively. The modus operandi is distance education.
If you look in the sphere of the largest universities by enrolment you will see that developing countries are way ahead in the race. The credit goes to the population but it’s not all about the population itself. It’s also the ease, reliability and convenience.
Teaching at one of the study center of AIOU around 10 years back, I noticed that there is a dire need of a medium to provide the learning facilities at students' door step. Students were mostly job goers yet they want to further their education.
Around two years back, working a project manager of installing VSAT Very Small Aperture Terminal to of AIO U, I found myself working on complex project scope of providing and facilitating the learning to students in the far flung areas in Pakistan. The idea was to provide collaborating learning both in Symmetric and Asymmetric ways to students. Unfortunately, the project could not go ahead than the conception stage due to shortage of funds. There remained a persistent need for a complete eLearning solution implementation. These universities have already available well designed instruction material. This gives an cost advantage for companies working for them on elearning.
E learning organizations who could adapt to vendor financing model by coordinating agreement with these universities can take lead in the market.
With an advent in the cloud computing and high speed networks, it is much easier now to Implement any such elearning facilitiy.
Institute planning to go with software like Moodle, Sakai and ILIAS etc may not be able to serve the purpose as all of them are open source. Knowingly that open source shall not be able to finance any such project with a paln in mind of earning for years to come.
A well-financed project by a reputable eLearning company with a plan to collect the revenue directly from the students, there seem no reason for not taking any initiative on the constant revenue inflow for years.


Writer is an e learning policy consultant and provided consultation to large education institutions and companies.
Analyses are solely the work of the authors and have not been edited or endorsed by GLG.
Contributed by a Member of the GLG Technology, Media & Telecom Councils

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