A discussion on E-learning offered in Malaysian universities: Pros and Cons from students perspective

In twenty-first century, the traditional teaching method by most of the universities worldwide has evolved into a more advanced and technological method through the introduction of e-learning. It is the modem process of education where part of the learning experience takes place without face to face communication between the teacher and his students. It is also known as distance learning. The most common method of e-learning is where tutors or lecturers post up several course modules on the university intranet (for example, wble of UTAR), and students will have to access to that intranet to get the materials that they needed as well as bulletin boards in order to keep them up to date. However, there are some pros and cons in adopting these technologies. In Malaysia, e-learning was begun in the late 1980's and MARA University of Technology (UTM) is one of the universities that offering distance learning during 1990.

Without much questions, e-learning is the innovative and advanced way of learning, however, it is significant to discuss both its pros and cons as well.

Pros
E-learning provides accessibility to all students irrespective of their residence. It can help students to communicate with their tutors, get clarifications regarding their subjects and study and access teaching materials through the e-libraries. Besides that, it also provides wider learning options for students, where it is not restricted to the geographic location. In other words, it means that a student studying in Malaysia can still access to the resources uploaded by foreign University. This makes the life of a student easier in his process of study and learns more about foreign knowledge. This also builds a link between local and foreign students from all over the world. Furthermore, more information or opinions can be exchanged among them.

Another advantage of e-learning is its time flexibility. Students can get online resources, communicate with his tutor or class mates, send his query and write term paper at any time he can get access to the Internet. Students' interactions have become much easier than face-to-face communication.

Moreover, online students have the capability to study at their own pace. In a traditional setting, students need to finish their given assignments within a particular period of time, while through online education they can study whenever they are free. The online faculty assigns projects with a deadline and students can finish their projects at whatever time that they find feasible before the deadline.

Therefore, e-learning enable students to reduce travelling cost and time because of the accessibility, time flexibility of e-learning as well as the capability of the student to study at their own pace with e-learning.

Cons
One of the cons of using e-learning is that it might be costly. In order to use e-learning, certain installation costs are needed, such as high-speed internet costs and software applications. Therefore, it requires some costs to implement e-learning.

Besides that, unmotivated learners or students with poor study habits might find it difficult to follow e-learning as they are not familiar with the structure and routine of the process. They may require much more time to understand it.

E-learning sometimes might not be working successfully due to the slow or unreliable internet connections. This may cause inability to access to the resources or inability to upload the resources in time.

Furthermore, lack of face-to-face communication with lecturers contributes lack of understanding between a student and a lecturer. While a lecturer cannot easily feel a student's demands, interests and motivations, a student can simply be lazy being non-motivated enough and having free time schedule for his e-learning. This may result a low scope of the student's knowledge and the lecturer's accusation in lack of proficiency.