Bridging the Gap between the e-learning environment and E-Resources: A case study in Saudi Arabia

AbstractThe new technology era is shifting the traditional ways of seeking knowledge and plays a new role in disseminating and sharing knowledge. E-learning systems have been introduced with the emergence of and developments in information technology (IT). However, most e-learning systems focus on allowing students to access and use official educational content, with less attention being paid to involve e-resources linked to curricula to support the educational process and the learners. The main objective of this research is to empower users in an e-learning environment with an Information Communication Technology (ICT) web-based system in order to play a bigger role in seeking and sharing e-resources for better understanding of the curricula. This study proposes a web-based system that integrates elements of e-resources within an e-learning environment, by using e-classes of 7th, 8th, and 9th grades enrolled at Al-Bayan Secondary School in Saudi Arabia as a test bed. The system deals with a set of learning cycles that support the aims of e-learning. The first cycle is the student; the second cycle is the teacher; and the third cycle is the librarian. In this study quantitative and qualitative approaches have been used in order to evaluate, investigate, and compare the impact of the system. The results of this study revealed that there is a significant difference between the students according to grade. Therefore, students at Al-Bayan Secondary School would benefit from a system which exposes them to e-resources linked directly to the curriculum in order to achieve and navigate knowledge understanding