The effectiveness of e-learning: Academic and business comparison

Abstract

Countries‘ success in the knowledge economy increasingly rely on highly-skilled and qualified people, which in turn, requires rapid, effective, and less expensive education and training. In this context, e-Learning has emerged; e-Learning is scalable, less expensive than traditional learning, and clearly advantageous for learners to access educational information and content anywhere and anytime. However, for evaluating the effectiveness of e-learning programs, a definition of ‗effectiveness‘ should to be established. In addition, understanding the factors influencing the effectiveness of e-Learning programs will help learning institutions to channel resources to significant factors rather than unimportant ones. Accordingly, this study intends to develop measures for the effectiveness of e-Learning and define the factors influencing them, and how both –the effectiveness measures and influencing factors- are perceived by different e-Learning practitioners, in particular, business and academic ones. More importantly, a comparison of both groups‘ perceptions is examined.