The Readiness of Faculty Members to Develop and Implement e-learning

Globalisation is predicted to encourage universities in developing countries to invest heavily in the use of media and technology within open and flexible learning systems. Many universities around the world have not yet realised the potential of e-learning or experimented with how it might effectively be employed in teaching. Lack of technical and pedagogical readiness to support e-learning and low levels of readiness to experiment with new methods often perpetuate this situation (Fergusson et al., 2005).

In Egypt, there is growing interest in using modern technologies to deliver instruction and facilitate the process of teaching and learning. E-learning is being more rapidly adopted by many universities and is destined to become a larger part of the educational experience of students in years to come. South Valley University, for example, has made significant investments in its IT infrastructure over the last three years and is undergoing change to introduce and develop e-learning and using programmes of faculty development to support this process.

However, research has shown that adopting e-learning represents one of the major problems in faculty development plans at many universities (Shephard et al, 2004). The lack of knowledge and skills and the negative attitudes toward the use of technology are the main reasons faculty resist using e-learning materials in university teaching (Haynes et al., 2004). The proper use of technology in university teaching depends on such variables such as years of teaching experience, level of computer literacy, degree held, academic profession and training received (Kotrlik et al., 2000)