As Malaysian universities and other institutions of learning aspire to maximize and globalize their online education, there are series of questions that are begging for answers. This article looks critically at some serious challenges Online Education in Malaysia faces.
To start with, Malaysia Education Online (MEdO) is a Malaysian Government initiative that is aimed at transforming the process of international distance education in the country. It is a pet project that had been designated to make Malaysian institutions competitive in the area of international education delivery.
Apart from its possibility of bringing in some extra revenue, MEdO is expected to modify the processes of learning for both on-campus and long-distance students by integrating the traditional and modern course content into Malaysian education. This is projected to improve the quality of education delivered to students on both physical and virtual campuses.
The four main procedures for achieving the objectives of MEdO involve:
- Content development;
- Content delivery;
- Program aggregation; and
- Program management
Of utmost importance are the content development and delivery aspects of this process. It is a fact that online education demands a sizeable quantity of storage capacity to be functional. Malaysian institutions need to quickly provide easy and quick access to interactive videos, virtual academic chatrooms, teleconferences and digitized library and educational feedback procedures. As a matter of fact, online students will require unrestricted access to on-demand educational technologies like videos, webinars, recorded lessons on CDs etc which will enhance the quality of their learning processes. However, this will be a capital-intensive project in the sense that new servers, networks and storage facilities are required to handle the increase in the number of online students.
Cloud computing is one of the efficient ways of solving this problem of unexpected surge in IT expenditure in order to meet the surprising increase in storage requirements. Malaysia universities have a lot to gain by adopting cloud technology. Aside from cutting back on their overheard IT expenses, they can also enjoy some distinguishing features of flexibility, scalability, better speed and efficiency guaranteed by cloud technology.
For example, Malaysian institutions can reduce their IT budgets and concentrate on improving the quality of the education they offer, whether locally or globally through the adoption of some great educational technology and software/hardware that will surely maintain a good culture of proactive online education.
Some of the features available to Malaysian online students as provided by the cloud technology include but are not limited to:
- Software as a Service (SaaS)—whereby online students can use some software/applications to achieve their educational goals but having no power to control the hardware, operating and networking systems;
- Platform as a Service (PaaS)—for this software, users can use a hosting environment for their applications, but they are not allowed to control the hardware, operating system etc;
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)—with this application, Malaysian online students can control the hardware, operating system and the networking system in the course of using the storage facility, networking system and other principal computing services offered by the cloud computing firm managing their institutions’ IT infrastructure.
Considering the benefits of cloud computing described above, online Malaysian institutions should consider adopting cloud computing as one of their administrative strategies to make their institutions performance well. Another good thing about cloud technology is that it permits interoperability with other kinds of software/hardware. In other words, online learning institutions in Malaysia need not to bother themselves about the workability of their current hardware, networking system, servers and applications with the cloud technology. And the security concerns of cloud computing is improving on a regular basis, meaning that users of cloud technology will soon have nothing to worry about as far as their data protection and security are concerned.
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About the Guest Author:
Jerry Olasakinju, a Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech) degree holder, is a passionate researcher and writer whose interest in everything computing is unparalleled. He blogs about his literary works at
http://jerryolasakinju.blogspot.jp/
