Evolving Adoption of eLearning Tools and Developing Online Courses: A Practical Case Study from Al-Baha University, Saudi Arabia

eLearning or online learning has gained acceptance worldwide, particularly after the Covid-19 pandemic. Although the pandemic has forced the shift towards this learning mode, there is still a continuous need to improve instructors' cognitive and practical competencies to effectively design and deliver online courses. In this paper, a practical case study from Al-Baha University, a Higher Education Institution (HEI) in Saudi Arabia, is presented, showing the development stages of eLearning at the university and how effective utilization of eLearning tools through a structured methodology in a short time, with minimum resources, has helped to improve the teaching and learning experiences for both instructors and students at the university before the pandemic. Various standards and research techniques have been adopted to develop and assess the methodology and its viability of implementation in other higher education institutions. The findings show the methodology’s effectiveness and how it helps Al-Baha University smoothly adapt to the online shift at the onset of the pandemic. The methodology is presented to and gained acceptance and recommendation for application in other HEIs in Saudi Arabia from the committee of eLearning and distance education deans in Saudi Universities in March 2023. It also receives the Anthology Middle East award for community engagement in November 2023.

@article{Alghamdi2024,
  title     = {Evolving Adoption of eLearning Tools and Developing Online Courses: A Practical Case Study from Al-Baha University, Saudi Arabia},
  journal   = {International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications},
  volume    = {15},
  number    = {1},
  year      = {2024},
  publisher = {The Science and Information Organization},
  author    = {Hassan Alghamdi and Naif Alzahrani},
  doi       = {10.14569/IJACSA.2024.0150156},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.14569/IJACSA.2024.0150156}
}