2017•10•27     Porto

A paper by UNU-EGOV Postdoctoral Fellow, Irfanullah Arfeen, was presented at the 16th European Conference on e-Learning (ECEL 2017), which took place in Porto, Portugal, from 26 to 27 October 2017. Established 17 years ago, ECEL is generally attended by participants from more than 40 countries and attracts an interesting combination of academic scholars, practitioners, and individuals who are engaged in various aspects of e-Learning.

The paper, entitled Assessment of e-Learning System of the Virtual University of Pakistan, discusses the online mode of education by the Virtual University of Pakistan (VUP). The paper covers rationales of a Moodle-based learning management system to provide higher education to the students of VUP. The focus of e-Learning is towards the working class, on-the-job work force training, and deprived people and women in particular who, due to different reasons, cannot afford to go to the universities often. It has the potential to empower women through overcoming their physical boundaries and provide them access to higher education. This study provides the SWOT analysis of an e-Learning system which is a cost-effective solution in a developing country like Pakistan. It sheds light on the modernization of goals of higher education sector, tertiary education innovation, transformation, and enhancing educational services by providing unlimited access to knowledge.