Asian Journal of Distance Education
Yazarlar: Harish VENKATASUBRAMANIAN, Sudharani RAVINN, Mansurali ANIFA
Konular:
Anahtar Kelimeler:E books,Digital Natives,University,E Learning,Teaching -learning
Özet: Universities play a crucial role in creating a better pathway for providing better education to the young generation of students. While many studies worldwide have indicated the benefits of using E books and a higher preference of E books among the younger generation Gelfand (2002), the acceptance of E books is relatively slow. Many research indicate that Digital Learning or E books are able to meet the expectations of this current generation popularly known as Digital Natives. There are also a great number of challenges faced by stakeholders in adoption of E books in their academic process Rowlands (2007). Universities will have to move towards adopting Digital learning platforms for a better teaching learning process thus acting as a pioneer for other colleges to follow. This paper attempts to study why Universities should push towards E books and find out the stakeholders view about the usage of E books as a learning platform and to obtain the benefits and drawbacks of using E books and what are the benefits and challenges for the key stakeholders in the higher educational system. The study was carried out as a descriptive study in which four major stakeholders were selected, and interviews were conducted and data collected. Using structured and semi-structured questions, participants were asked to describe and reflect on their E book experiences. The results of the study indicate that all major stakeholders agree on the benefits of using E books have also identified few challenges. The challenges vary for each stakeholder and the analysis of the pain points indicate the need for universities to play an key role and ensure that the challenges are taken care before the benefits of E books be reaped. By analysing the benefits and drawbacks of the various stakeholders the benefits of using E books outweigh the disadvantages and hence universities should act as nodal centers to find solutions to overcome the stated problem.