Integrating the Webinar as a Tool to Support Adult Training: A Case Study on the Training for Entrepreneurs of SMEs in Thailand

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented significant challenges for the education and training sector. We could have witnessed the rise of technology for webinars which are tools to deliver training and education through video and audio communication in the form of distance learning for instructors and participants. How-ever, commercial webinars such as zoom or webex may lack a management system for organizing the amount of participants for long term courses. The present study aimed to develop a webinar tool for the context of adult training for entrepreneurs of SMEs in Thailand. In order to develop a webinar tool, we proposed a general framework which consisted of three stages. The requirement stage aimed to explore the baseline survey from 411 participants and summarize the feature list of the webinar. The development stage employed the kanban methodology to develop each feature list and proposed the architecture of the system. Finally, the evaluation stage compares two groups of 110 participants between our webinar approach and zoom application with statistics of attendance regarding those who attended the course and also contains a satisfaction survey. The results show that the important feature to engage participants in long term courses were system notifications and the availability of a web-based platform for providing easy access to webinar.