تجربة التعليم الإلكتروني لقسم دراسات المعلومات بجامعة السلطان قابوس في ظل جائحة كورونا

Abstract EN

The spread of COVID-19 worldwide has led to major changes in social practices and how institutions operate.

The education sector has not been far from these changes, as the pandemic has imposed unprecedented measures that have led to the suspension of work in many institutions and the application of social distancing.

The educational process is based on interaction between individuals and contradicts social distancing principles which threatened the entire educational process.

As a result, educational institutions began to seek alternatives to traditional education by adopting e-learning through the various electronic platforms that support the educational process electronically.

This study aimed to evaluate the Information Studies Department’s experience at Sultan Qaboos University in e-learning.

The study adopted a quantitative approach by distributing a questionnaire to the department’s students to identify their perception of the e-learning experience.

The findings revealed that the education system in the Information Studies Department at Sultan Qaboos University relied mainly on the use of a combination of electronic platforms.

The students agreed that some practical courses are not suitable for e-learning: such as field training, indexing and classification courses.

Among the main challenges revealed by the study was the lack of constant availability of Internet access and many courses needed traditional interaction and were not suitable for distance education.

Based on the results, the study recommended increasing the technological awareness of both students and educators and training them in the optimal use of distance education tools and software