Needs and Context of ODL at the Palestinian Institutions

The academic staff of Palestinian universities—open or campus-based institutions—are facing a number of pressures to integrate e-learning into the experiences of their students. Palestinian students see academic staffs around the world developing and using e-learning resources. The students increasingly expect this change, but there is considerable evidence that Palestinian faculty have limited resources, time, and support to devote to developing skills for e-learning or blended learning. Given this situation of workload pressure, Palestinian university academic staff need to be encouraged to develop knowledge and skills needed to integrate e-learning appropriately into their courses. It means there must be a new academic system that integrates e-learning as a way of giving scholarly validity and recognition by institutions as part of staff academic development.

The overall charge of this work is to propose a set of related findings and recommendations that provide a baseline for direction and strategy for using distance and open education and e-learning at Palestinian universities. Specifically, the work will:

1. review the current state of using distance education and e-learning in Palestinian universities;

2. identify opportunities for using and sharing ODL projects;

3. recommend how administrative and technical support for these projects and e-learning-supported courses should be conducted at Palestinian universities while paying special attention to providing rigorous academic programs for students; and

4. identify other relevant issues related to using ODL at our universities.

The study will examine how every actor (academic staff, students, other staffs in the educational institutions) participating in a computer mediated learning process has the adequate resources (on technical, logistical, and informational level) and skills to fulfill its role. To accomplish this work, the study will develop a comprehensive guide on the resources that have to be implemented in order to support and meet staff, student, and institution needs.

Higher education plays a vital role in developing the social, political, and economical situation of the Palestinian people. It is considered the main wealth of the Palestinian people in the absence of other natural resources. The increasing number of Palestinian universities is a result of the imposed Israeli siege that prohibits free movement. The number of higher education institutions in Palestine is 46, distributed as follows: 12 universities that award bachelor, master, and PhD degrees; 13 university colleges that offer bachelor's degrees and 2-year diplomas; and 21 community colleges that offer diplomas (Abuzir, 2008).

Educational development in Palestine is a unique, rich, and challenging experience. Unique because it is one of the very few places in the world, if not the only one, where a ministry of education is being built from scratch. Rich because of the eagerness and motivation of the Palestinians to learn from others. Challenging because Palestine is not yet an independent country and is witnessing conflict on a daily basis (Abuzir, 2008).

Distance learning is practiced around the world but in Palestine its importance takes on extra significance. The traditional function of open distance learning is particularly stressed in the Palestinian context, as it appears that existing universities cannot absorb the growing student demand. Over the last few years, Al-Quds Open University (QOU) has been the institution that, almost single-handedly, coped with the increasing demand. Student enrollment has increased in QOU in that short period. As a critical side effect, the conventional open university students—working adults, housewives, part-timers, disadvantaged, and so on—have been joined by an increasing number of fresh high school graduates seeking admission to QOU. Needless to say, this is perceived as a problematic trend by many in the Palestinian higher education community (Abuzir, 2007a).

From the perspective of the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE), QOU is playing a strategic role in tertiary education in Palestine, and therefore is potentially a very powerful tool for policy change. QOU is legally the only university entitled to provide distance education courses and programs in Palestine. Distance education and e-learning are strategic priorities for the overall tertiary education system, and some other “conventional” universities are already well advanced in providing e-learning services to their students. In this regard, QOU was a partner in Avicenna, a major international project, led by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization and financed by the European Union under the EUMEDIS (Euro-Mediterranean Information Society) program, which aims to create a network of distance and e-learning programs and services across all countries of the southern and eastern Mediterranean coast (Abuzir, 2006a, 2006b, 2007a; Laaser, 2006).

Palestinian universities need to invest in technologies that support e-learning. A starting point would be having access to useful examples of e-learning projects like the RUFO project (Abuzir, 2007b) and similar experiences that support professional development of academicians engaged in teaching online courses.

In most Palestinian academic institutions, there is a need for a comprehensive and coherent approach to develop and use e-learning resources in. Such an approach would enable academicians to join knowledge building and technical resources within institutional structures and integrate academic development. Providing access to appropriate knowledge and training in educational technologies: designing and administrating websites, video conferencing facilities, high-speed Internet service, office supplies, and having direct connection with computer maintenance center are badly needed. Furthermore, there should be on-demand technologies throughout the year which again optimize the opportunities for academicians to smoothly integrate these emerging technologies into their teaching.

Socially—and culturally—distance learning addresses the needs of many students in Palestine, especially women and young mothers, who without such programs would not be able to continue their studies. But above these social issues, there are many issues directly related to the occupation. The priority mission of open and distance education is reaching out to disadvantaged and disabled students, which in this particular context entails liberated Palestinian prisoners, wounded citizens, and in general all those whose physical mobility is severely constrained due to the ongoing conflict.

Al-Quds Open University, established in 1991, is the first Palestinian open and distance university. The university's goal is to contribute to the expansion of access to public higher education in Palestine. As of 2010, QOU has a total student enrollment of 65,000; 876 administrative staff, 300 full-time faculty, and 1,081 part-time faculty. QOU has a network of 22 educational regions and study centers in Palestine. Three more study centers—in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Saudi Arabia—provide university services to Palestinians of the Diaspora.

A review of the current state of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in Palestine demonstrates that ICTs are being taken seriously in teaching and learning in the Palestinian universities. Most “conventional” universities are already well advanced in providing e-learning services to their students. Although e-learning is a strategic priority for the overall education system in Palestine, academic credibility and public confidence (recognition and transferability of credits, diplomas, and credentials, etc.) are big problems facing ODL in Palestine. Another factor is general technology and ICT infrastructure in Palestine for ODL communications; we often bemoan the lack of ICT infrastructure and the constraints and problems of ICT access.

An overview of the literature in ODL in Palestine describes an extremely diverse range of practices occurring with regard to e-learning in Palestinians universities. Some large, very sophisticated, implementations of leaning management systems (LMSs) were reported and reports were received of some institutions with a complete absence of technology for learning. This demonstrates that there is no common approach to e-learning across Palestinian universities. Is it about standardized, consistent use of an LMS or innovative pockets of practice within courses? Is it institutionally, academically, or student driven?

Infrastructure and access is obviously an issue for e-learning in the Palestinians universities. Issues related to resources (e.g., bandwidth, cost) may be considered as a barrier and certainly limit e-learning practice. Whilst this limitation does not mean that certain activities are not possible, they tend to be undertaken within specialized areas where on campus facilities can support the interventions and staff members are skilled in the specific applications.

Given the background of the main issues related to e-learning as described above, we were then interested in what the common barriers/issues were faced by Palestinians universities. Our study has identified and limited its procedure of work or course of action. Below is a brief description of its methodology:

1. First phase: Retrieving information from ODL project managers and staffs participating in the projects (like RUFO, Avicenna) and other available documentation using a variety of methods, such as surveying staffs involved in the projects, questionnaires, traditional meetings, and videos (interviews with students);

2. Second phase: Analyzing the available information;

3. Third phase: Documentation of our findings and recommendations;

4. Fourth phase: Review and feedback; and

5. Final report of our work.

One way of ascertaining how pervasive ICTs are in teaching and learning, and what staff and students have actually been doing, has been to survey individuals. Although our observations indicate that ICTs are used within teaching and learning environment, we note that the majority of academics have not yet used ICTs for teaching or learning on a daily basis and that other ICT uses such as research, communication, and administration occur more frequently. In addition, use of ICTs for teaching and learning is still quite narrow and confined to familiar technologies such as the Moodle LMS, Internet, e-mail, and desktop packages. However, this doesn't mean that there is not a range of varied uses of ICTs. It is simply a matter of this type of use occurring less frequently and amongst a smaller group of people.

In the survey of the ODL project managers and staffs participating and managing e-learning projects, the common issues that affected the implementation of e-learning were the lack of management support, lack of resources, lack of time, and negative perceptions of e-learning. LMSs are mentioned as another barrier; universities are not using the same LMS, and these LMSs are unstable and unreliable. Some respondents identified a dearth of skilled e-learning practitioners, as well as lecturers who are skilled in the use of ICT, as a barrier to the successful integration of e-learning. However, on top of infrastructure barriers, most barriers relate to perceptions and attitudes. Some respondents were similar to the study conducted by Czerniewicz and Brown (2006) in which academic staff were constrained in their use of ICTs for teaching through lack of adequate on-campus facilities, lack of integration between onand off-campus systems, and poor institutional and collegial support for e-learning.

Based on our methodology we elaborated a comprehensive guide to the resources that have to be implemented in order to support staff, student, and institutional needs. For example, a syllabus of each course, a student guide for the virtual environment, will be a student need. Table 1 summarizes the main finding about the need and demands of ODL at the Palestinian Universities (Abuzir, Abu Arqoub, Maraqa, Sughayyer, & Moreb, 2009).

Rowntree (2000) highlights the importance of thinking about students' needs when developing ODL materials. In ODL institutions students often need guidance and support during the learning process. The purpose of the student guide is to assist the student in interactive, self-directed learning (Training Educators, 2010a).

It is clear from Table 1 that students' issues are divided into two main categories: students' guide and students' needs. The students' guide will provide the design and the outlines of the work within the course. This guide includes the information and the issues that a student needs to know when he or she begins a course or subject, such as objectives, work methodology, evaluation criteria, calendar and basic references. To sum it up, the guide will provide information about:

• The content and the expected outcomes of the course;

• Instructions on how learners use the learning activities from cognitive and attitudinal perspectives; and

• When student have to turn in activities, make evaluation tasks; participate in forums, Skype meetings.

The purpose of this section is to examine the students' needs and their views of ODL. The study was conducted with 200 students at AL-Quds Open University, An-Najah University, Birzeit University, Hebron Polytechnic University, and Al-Quds University in Palestine. Two questionnaires were used to identify students' needs with regard to ODL. Additional data were gathered from interviewing the students; and records demonstrate students' participation in an e-learning environment. It has become clear from the evidence and comments presented to us that students need assistance in the following areas:

• Contact for technical support;

• Multimedia help (tutorials that will provide on how to use the environment and other tools that are frequently used by users in the platforms or that the management think interesting to promote);

• Student manual on the blended learning approach that offers a comprehensive guide about the expected role of a student in the environment (tools available, how to deal with content and materials, how to interact with others students, how to interact with teachers); and

• FAQ sections, with attention to the different profiles, specially teachers and students.

Palestinian university teachers, in case of open or campus-based institutions, are facing a number of pressures to integrate e-learning into the experiences of their students. Palestinian students are increasingly expecting this change as they see that, around the world, teachers are innovating with e-learning and disciplinary bodies are publishing key texts and research in electronic format. But there is overwhelming evidence that Palestinian teachers have limited resources, time, and support to devote to developing skills for e-learning. Given this situation of workload pressures, Palestinian university teaches need to be encouraged to develop their knowledge and skills needed to integrate e-learning appropriately in their courses. It means there must be a new academic system that integrates in staff academic development the e-learning as a way of giving scholarly validity and recognition by institutions. But, the question is how can an academic development system assist Palestinian academics facing these challenges to balance their efforts? Adopting new strategies for effective teaching and learning in higher education that link institutional development to teaching and learning and academic development would be the way. The right type of staff support in this regard is to acknowledge the academic value of e-learning knowledge for the quality of the student experience. One way of doing this is to organize preliminary workshops and training on e-learning development. In this way, the academic staff can provide courses designed to improve approaches to teaching using e-learning. This will help academic staff in their attempts to balance their workloads demands and provides them with professional development and practical skills, and raises the legitimacy of e-learning in the Palestinian education context.

To figure out these needs, our analysis through its direct and indirect contact with academic staffs who are directly involved in e-learning projects has identified the following main needs or demands:

1. Academic staffs have demonstrated a high degree of concern about their inadequate knowledge of technology as a learning tool, but they are strongly motivated to join training sessions that ease their task.

2. Academic staffs should know how to design and develop online courses. They ask for training on certain pedagogic skills.

3. Academic staffs should be acknowledged for their new responsibilities. Because e-learning is more demanding compared with other means, such as traditional or distance learning, this extra load has to be defined and measured. Therefore, their need in this respect is to have criteria for counting the academic teaching load in a blended learning environment in particular.

Based on the analysis of our study of ODL in the Palestinian universities from the perspective of the staff needs, we can see four issues related to the staff needs. This analysis covered all the projects and courses that have been carried out by each of e-learning projects. The following issues were considered in our analysis. Results and recommendations are presented in Table 2.

Technical support must ensure that all staff (administrative, faculty, etc.) can develop their duties without being technical themselves. When an institution plans to integrate e-learning into the mainstream of their programs all staff must have an adequate support (phone support, mail support, and procedures for supporting staff demands).

In most Palestinian cases, there is a need for a comprehensive and coherent approach to develop the use of e-learning in a way that enables academics to join knowledge building and technical resources sharing across institutional structures. This approach can integrate academic development into a scholarly activity. Moreover, it helps academics to receive appropriate knowledge and support that ultimately benefits student learning. The key characteristic of the sought support is by providing access to appropriate knowledge and training in educational technologies that include support in designing and administrating websites, videoconferencing facilities, fast Internet service, office supplies, and having direct connection with the computer maintenance center. Furthermore, there should be on-demand technologies throughout the year, which again optimize the opportunities for academics to adjust to learning about how to integrate these emerging technologies into their teaching in a time-sensitive manner.

Participation in curriculum-based workshops and courses is needed to support academic development. Palestinian universities need to invest in technologies that support e-learning. The diversity of these e-learning approaches reflects the needed different institutional responses for the development. A starting point would be having access to useful examples of e-learning offered by the RUFO project and similar experiences, which support professional development of academics engaged in teaching and course design. Many ways can be used like dissemination of information through specific events, workshops, and short courses, including online, and accrediting academic programs that adopt e-learning. Finally, staff training should include the proper use of Internet resources and learning management systems.

The introduction of an e-learning system should be seen as a major change program for the institution and supported by an associated training program:

• training needs analysis that identifies training requirements by job function;

• department strategy, the role of department managers in staff development;

• face-to-face, blended, commitment to e-learning, commitment of the institution when a real effort is made to face the real problems; and

• part time staff/external tutors.

According to Bates and Poole (2003), while information technology has an important role in university teaching, it needs to be utilized with care and discrimination. Most of the ODL institutions around the world have realized that effective pedagogies are crucial in retaining students. In addition, as technology becomes increasingly available and inexpensive, more ODL institutions are investing on various technologies of learning to provide more efficient and effective pedagogies. One of the fastest growing open and distance learning institutions in Palestine is Al-Quds Open University (QOU), which adopts a blend of learning approaches to educate its growing number of learners spread across Palestine and other Arab countries. This blend comprises print and electronic media to support self-learning, online learning, as well as learning that is facilitated by the academic supervisor (face-to-face interaction). The pedagogical richness can be achieved via the different types of media used in teaching and learning (Training Educators, 2010b).

The university in the Palestinian context is a learning community in which students and staff have a strong sense of shared purpose of knowledge transfer. In this learning community, formal and informal interactions shape the learning environment and advance the knowledge and capabilities of students and teachers alike. Traditionally, learning takes place through face-to-face interactions between students and staff. The university learning community is enriched further by introducing e-learning projects that adopt the blended learning methodology. It emphasizes the importance of student-centered education that arises in part from the need to foster autonomous learning practices as key attributes of a competent lifelong learner, which is extremely important for the Palestinian political situation. Blended learning emphasizes education that suits students' needs and interests. This can become possible when the students become skilled in autonomous learning, and learn to construct their own knowledge through interaction with peers, academic staff, and others. This means that universities need to implement new pedagogical practices that change the current image of instruction dominated by scholarly academics lecturing at groups of passive students. Universities must employ a great diversity of new flexible instructional methods.

E-learning experience in Palestine has proven that increasing the use of computer-based resources, which are produced locally, have a positive impact on the target groups. At the same time, it increased the academic work. For so long as academics and universities have existed in Palestine, the nature of academic work has been changing in response to social, economic, and technological developments. However, it never happened to reach such big change. Many aspects of this change appear to threaten some of the most valued aspects of academic work like autonomy and scholarship. However, there is increasing concern about the capacity of universities to retain and develop the high quality staff on which the success of this new trend depends.

Academic staff and other professional teams working with them must be adept at working within a new pedagogical paradigm: mandatory courses before assuming e-learning responsibilities (not usual in higher education), rolling program of seminars, and resource sites.

Explore the sensitive areas that will indicate the linkage between institutional rhetoric regarding e-learning and the reality experienced by staff involved.

During recent years the need for pedagogic development in the Palestinian universities has been given great prominence in the public discussion of higher education. This section indicates how the conditions for such development can be studied from various perspectives. It is a work in progress. The initial round of interviews, documents analysis, and subsequent data analysis has identified that a variety of ICTs are being used for teaching and learning, in various forms, and for different reasons. The selection of the modes and resources is dependent upon learner and institution needs, resources, class size, and resources available. Some of the universities in Palestine are using Moodle as a learning management system.

QOU has developed an in-house and customized delivery system (QOU Academic Portal). The portal is integrated with different learning management systems like Moodle and pleiad (Plei@d) to present different type of learning materials (i.e, e-course template, video streaming, e-learning courses, e-assignments, and different types of collaborative online activities (i.e., virtual classes and online discussion groups). However, as with the conventional universities, there is still a heavy reliance on print-based materials, and CDROM. Video and video onferencing is also in use at the universities as a means of supporting instruction.

In Palestine, where universities do not receive direct governmental funding, concerns about the costs of IT-intensive instruction are generally well founded. Rapid technological advances combined with vigorous marketing of the latest technologies imply that hardware and software have a short lifetime, and that ITbased teaching resources require repackaging or re-authoring earlier than might be justified on academic grounds. However, increasing experience within the university provides a growing number of case studies that have successfully dealt with these issues, and it will be important to encourage the rapid and widespread dissemination of such examples of good practice. One of the important examples in Palestine is the establishment of an e-learning unit in Palestine Polytechnic University, which was a response to the given need to take advantage of modern education technology. The establishment of the e-learning unit, within the operating units at the center of the Friends of Fawzi Kawash IT Center of Excellence, was to provide e-learning services in collaboration with the faculties according to the approved university strategic and operational plans.

Palestinian universities also need to develop more policies with respect to credit recognition of blended learning and increasing the flexibility of its adoption in the available programs. An emphasis on increasing flexibility in their educational programs will assist the universities to address several strategic priorities. Universities should encourage and support the development of educational technologies that provide assistance in the development of blended learning across discipline boundaries. They need to work with the Ministry of Higher Education in Palestine on the development of the Higher Education Act or regulations, and determining criteria for accreditation of online and blended programs or degrees based on these programs.

In embracing blended learning approaches, universities should strive to reduce constraints on the modes by which they offer their courses. Their core business should continue to be the provision of a high quality, enriched education within a learning community in which the geographical and temporal boundaries steadily expand. In other words, universities should move towards offering students a greater choice of learning modes. Furthermore, Palestinian universities should expand their offerings of flexible, high quality courses for continuing professional education and upgrading the skills of graduates.

Where it is academically appropriate to do so, Palestinian universities should move away from passive information-transmission via teacher-centered lectures, to interactive learning experiences such as small-group activities. Therefore, training must be help academic staff understand how flexible learning methods could be used to address resource limitations.

Palestinian universities should adopt a global policy for development that provides support for students in a more flexible university: address the needs to develop and assess the acquisition of high-level, lifelong learning skills, and to maintain academic quality in flexible education. Helping staff: address the nature and balance of academic work change as flexibilities are introduced, and how can staff be supported to deal with this change. Resourcing greater educational flexibility: provide the requirement like library, IT infrastructure and administrative systems as the learning community becomes more flexible.

In conclusion, there is a discussion of the possibilities for, and obstacles to, pedagogic development. The main recommendations we would like to present are:

• research and analyze best practices for the development of e-learning activities;

• system for rewarding and esteem activities;

• a global focus, not a department focus; and

• instructional designers are important to the course development process.

Obviously, there are multiple pressures on academics to use e-learning in teaching. This has become increasingly problematic as a result of the lack of training opportunities and support for better use of new educational technologies. Lack of time is not the only recognized impediment to academics' adoption of new technologies given the intensive teaching loads in Palestinian universities. This is added to the lack of resources, expertise in e-learning pedagogical concepts, knowledge of what is technologically possible and valuing teaching and learning activities. Therefore, academic staff need to know how to manage and deal with the additional technology stresses within their current work and life demands. Of course, they need support to understand new emerging and converging educational technologies and to relate them to appropriate ways of teaching their students. Although new technologies may enable innovative forms of teaching and learning to take place, they cannot by themselves ensure that effective and appropriate learning outcomes are achieved. It is not the technologies, but the educational purposes and pedagogy that must lead to an improvement in the quality of students.

There are many aspects of academic workloads in Palestinian universities that need to be reviewed and updated. The initial step would be the definition of the credit hour regarding e-learning courses. Another important aspect would be the criteria for promotion to university teacher should include e-learning professional practices among the activities considered. Incentives to encourage training uptake need to be provided by the institutions for new and existing academics. Policies and principles on use of university teachers should recognize the demands of the new role, whether full-time appointment or part-time. In the case of e-learning the following can be considered:

1. University teachers make relatively greater contributions to teaching services or administration.

2. Actual allocation of hours should take account of the e-learning circumstances and should be seen within the context of a departmental workload model according to each case and area.

3. Teaching should be a mix of lectures (face to face and online) and tutorials (face to face and online).

4. Preparation for teaching materials and assessment of course work online.

5. Coordinating online courses, programs, and examinations.

6. Online course design and planning.

7. Developing and implementing new online courses or programs.

8. Operating quality assurance procedures for e-learning.

Some opportunities for increasing flexibility and student-centeredness can be introduced without much impact on academic work. However, the nature of academic workloads in Palestinian universities that include several different courses each semester means unless there are carefully planned and properly supported measures a risk of failure will be imminent. Greater pressure to employ new skills without adequate support will not succeed. Strategies which can be used to improve the conditions of academic work while introducing greater flexibility include:

• development of enduring pedagogies that help staff to best use courseware;

• greater emphasis on helping academic staff develop requisite skills through high-quality, effective staff training;

• focusing on staff sharing of experiences in the management of the introduction of new educational technologies and flexible methodologies;

• developing university regulations to meet instructors' demands of the e-learning environment;

• spreading cultural awareness of the e-learning environment among all employees at Palestinian universities;

• taking into considerations learners' needs: lectures, virtual meetings, evaluation, and technical support (sophisticated computer labs); and

• taking into considerations the academic load, incentives, career development, office hours, nonacademic duties.

Palestinian universities should facilitate the communication of developments in blended education through the provision of mechanisms to support the transfer of expertise and knowledge, particularly among academic staff.

One of the most important changes for Palestinian university students will be increased expectations of students to accept increased responsibility for learning, and to exhibit overtly the acquisition of generic, lifelong learning skills. These developments have undoubted potential to enhance the learning community, but the universities will need to provide strong support for students to ensure that they are advantaged and not overwhelmed by these expectations. This will require careful attention to the progressive development of higher level skills as a student moves along an academic pathway. Several aspects of increased flexibility will stimulate changed interactions with academic staff in the learning community, which means enriching learning pathways, reducing barriers, exploring new modes of teaching, and introducing new educational technologies. The costs of producing teaching resources for students are generally obstacles because the full costs to produce quality materials are not properly estimated. While some concerns about costs arise from the administrative burden of increased complexity (at faculty and instructor level), the overwhelming concern is the cost of increased flexibility in terms of (a) increased teaching loads and (b) increased and ongoing costs of IT facilities. Both concerns are legitimate, but the problems are avoidable in some cases. For example, increasing knowledge of and experience in new instructional design methodologies in Palestinian universities shows that strategies will increase the reusability of courseware. Moreover, the adoption of a wellconceived learner-centered educational strategy should generally involve reduced contact time between learner and teacher, and increase the proportion of self-directed learning. Provided that the curriculum involves explicit efforts to teach the attributes required of high level, autonomous learners, these educational strategies should help improve the learning outcomes. Universities should explore ways in which educational technology can be used to facilitate teaching in small groups and with individual students.

This part of the work focuses on legal issues related to development and use of e-learning materials at the institutional, regional, and national levels in Palestine.

Forming an advisory body in Palestine responsible for all legal aspects related to e-learning environment is an urgent need for our institutions. Among the main legal issues that should be addressed are: ownership of electronic courses (intellectual property); copyright; developing electronic courses; use of materials or parts of electronic courses; and use or delivery of ready-made e-courses.

In brief, the blended learning approach at Palestinian universities is at its early stages. Generally speaking, our institutions are partially ready to launch blended courses. Consequently, decision makers should seek solutions to e-learning problems or challenges in Palestine.

The main recommendations we would like to present:

• E-learning is a new experience in Palestine. This pattern or style of learning should be developed and reinforced since it becomes a priority for the development of our academic institutions.

• The Ministry of Higher Education should work with universities to fix a comprehensive guide for e-learning programs or courses.

• A contract should be developed to determine the obligations and rights of all partners in an e-learning environment: learners, staffs, and institutions.

• Cultural awareness of e-learning is highly needed. It is a prerequisite for success in launching online courses.

• Technology is the servant for all partners of the learning process: learners, staffs, and institutions. Partners should have access to technology and know how to use it.

• Institutions should motivate both learners and staffs to make use of technology as an effective learning and teaching tool.

• Institutions should be ready to meet the obligations of e-learning courses.

• University focuses on the ICT infrastructure requires supporting large scale deployment and applications of technology in education.

Despite our infrastructural constraints and the range of organizational practices and cultures, e-learning is very much part of Palestinian HEIs. ICTs are used by almost all staff and students for teaching and learning activities in some way, although use is still quite narrow and confined to familiar technologies.

We are convinced that despite our varied HE institutional contexts, each with its own infrastructural and organizational challenges, there are definite areas for collaboration, joint research projects and sharing of good practice. These opportunities are critical for e-learning practitioners, especially whilst we are operating in an environment of resource constraint.