Barriers to using E Learning in an Advanced Way

Abstract

E‑Learning has become a common way to teach and learn. The number of technologies for a variety of educational purposes is already quite high and constantly rising. Scientific experiments and studies increasingly confirm the usefulness of various technologies for teaching purposes. Nevertheless, there is still a lack of formal training and support of digital skills within faculty training. Studies that report the potential of E‑Learning are matched by those reporting the barriers. Universities throughout Europe have now established Learning Management Systems (LMS); instead of using these to their full potential, lecturers often just upload their syllabus and some reading material. At the same time, higher education institutions all over Europe are expected to implement innovative technologies and scenarios such as Open Educational Resources (OER) or Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), but only a small number of universities actually do so. What are the reasons for not utilizing the pedagogic potentials of E‑Learning? What findings does the current research provide on this topic? Which barriers can be derived from studies and what can be done to avoid them? What are the individual barriers of one institution or university? This contribution summarizes barriers that were identified in recent studies and discusses possible solutions to finding connections between barriers to mitigate the negative effects. It also describes a data collection method (group concept mapping) suitable for identifying the individual barriers at an institution or university using a study in the European ERASMUS+ project AduLeT (Advanced Use of Technologies in Higher Education) as an example.