Affordances of E-Learning in Indonesian Higher Education Institutions

Abstract

E-learning has become indispensable since the Covid-19 outbreak in March 2020. The sudden change of learning model might not have been anticipated by many educational institutions, causing a few confusions on how to conduct e-learning properly, especially in providing an e-learning management system (LMS). This study aims to examine the affordances of higher education institutions (universities) in Indonesia in conducting the e-learning during the pandemic. We conducted an online survey towards 100 university lecturers from several universities in Indonesia to ask about the implementation of e-learning in their respective institutions. The questions include the e-LMS used, the preferred learning model, and the challenges for implementation. The results revealed that 79% of the participants used a specially built LMS in their universities, while the rest still used commercially build LMS like Moodle. Then, 82% of the participants prefer blended learning model which combined face to face and e-learning models, and 46% of them wanted to have a fifty-fifty division between face to face and e-learning. As for the challenges, no interaction with students was deemed as the most disturbing challenge for the lectures. The results imply that e-learning will continue to be implemented in Indonesia, regardless of the condition of the pandemic. Thus, universities should provide an e-LMS that can cater all the elearning needs, while lecturers should also equip themselves with pedagogical as well as technological skills to face the e-learning challenges.