E–Learning and Digital Media

Volume 9 Number 2 2012

www.wwwords.co.uk/ELEA

The Use of Virtual Classrooms in E-learning:

a case study in King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia

HANA ABDULLAH AL-NUAIM

Department of Computer Science,
King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

ABSTRACT The phenomenal growth and subsequent increasing use of Information and
Communication Technology (ICT) innovations has led to an increase in their use in higher education
over the past decade. Past research has criticised e-learning (compared to traditional face-to-face
lecturing) for its failure to engage students in their learning. However, King Abdulaziz University
(KAU) has only limited seats available for its traditional face-to-face programmes and therefore was
determined to provide a viable alternative in the form of an e-learning programme, the first in Saudi
Arabia. One of the requirements of this programme was that it should fit current sociocultural
customs, enabling students from the K-12 Saudi educational system who are not skilled in independent
learning or discovery to construct their own knowledge. The university created a programme that
underwent rigorous course development and quality control to engage students more actively through
asynchronous technologies – virtual classrooms for every face-to-face hour of every course – with
synchronous components, using a learning management system developed in-house to integrate with
all other university systems. The virtual classrooms enable students and instructors to communicate
synchronously using audio, video, interactive whiteboard, application sharing, instant polling, text
chat, and other features as though they were standing face to face in a regular classroom. All instructor
activities and interactions with students are monitored within the LMS and virtual classroom.
Instructors and departments are provided with detailed reports on instructor performance and
continuous assessments of their interactions with students. Due to their distinct methods of delivery, it
is difficult to make exact comparisons between face-to-face and e-learning models of learning; to allow
for the most accurate comparisons, the performance of students in face-to-face courses was compared
to that of students in scheduled virtual classrooms who were taught by the same instructors. The
overall results show that for most courses, there were no significant differences in the performance of
online and face-to-face students assigned to the same course and taught by the same instructor.

Introduction
The increasing use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) innovations has led to
the phenomenal growth and use of ICT in higher education over the past decade. Contemporary
educational settings are now supporting curricula that promote competency and performance,
which emphasise capabilities regarding how the information will be used rather than what that
information entails (Oliver, 2002). Contemporary ICT innovations are able to provide strong
support for requirements moving educational institutions toward competency and performance-
based curricula, including access to a variety of information sources and types; student-centred
learning settings based on information access and analysis; learning environments centred on
problem-solving and inquiry-based activities; authentic examples and case studies; and teachers as
facilitators and mentors, rather than content experts (Oliver, 2002).

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Today, online learners demand more than mere information; as in a traditional learning
environment, they expect to interact with someone representative of their teacher and to feel as
though they are in a classroom, learning from other students, enjoying the learning process, and
emotionally engaged with the lesson (Ayad & Rigas, 2010). As a result of modern technology, they
also learn from the teacher’s facial expressions, gestures, hand movements, and other activities that
convey the message and instruction (Ayad & Rigas, 2010).
The incorporation of technology into the delivery of academic coursework may include two
distinct modalities, namely the fully online modality and the traditional face-to-face modality.
Although the structure of both can vary, each of these two modalities possesses unique
characteristics (Brittan-Powell et al, 2008). Among the most significant differences, fully online
courses currently tend to be highly dependent upon the use of an Internet-based course
management system (CMS) or learning management systems (LMS) through which student-
instructor interaction and communication occur. In contrast, interaction and communication
between students and instructors in face-to-face classes generally occur in person within a
traditional classroom setting (Brittan-Powell et al, 2008).
Previous research on the need for interaction in distance learning, such as the study
conducted by Schullo et al (2007), found that (i) learners require continuous support and guidance
by means of a combination of student-instructor and student-student interactions to make the most
of their distance learning experiences; (ii) learners need to feel involved and comfortable by
developing a sense of social presence; (iii) learners benefit significantly from being part of a learning
community that is based on shared responsibility with individual efforts and on learning in small
groups that provide support and encouragement; and (iv) learners are motivated through frequent,
structured contact with the instructor/facilitator in synchronous environments.
The growth in higher education e-learning programmes over the past decade has been
considerable to say the least, changing the face of university campuses around the world. E-
learning can be thought of as an extension, if not a natural progression, of distance education,
whereby students learned from a distance and made use of the technology available at that
particular time, beginning with correspondence with instructors via the mail and moving on to
television, videoconferencing, and finally, the Web. In their report ‘Evaluation Research on Online
Learning,’ researchers for the US Department of Education (2010) conducted a search of the
research literature from 1996 through to July 2008 and identified more than a thousand empirical
studies on online learning. They categorised these studies into those that (a) contrasted online
learning with face-to-face learning; (b) measured student learning outcomes; (c) integrated a
rigorous research design; and (d) provided adequate information to calculate an effect size.
Through their analysis, they determined that, on average, students in online learning conditions
performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction (Means et al, 2009). Today, e-learning
incorporates many different types of technologies in accordance with different models of learning
in order to adapt to the changing face of the typical learner and allow him or her to learn,
communicate, create new media, contribute, construct new knowledge, collaborate with others,
and seek out assistance. Asynchronous tools include emails, bulletin boards, discussion forums,
Wikis, and blogs. Most of these tools are supported by features of various learning management
systems.
Multimodality is an area of research covering the study of human-to-human spoken and
gestural communications and audio-visual speech perception as well as the incorporation of
multiple modalities into human-to-system communication. It can be defined as the use of two or
more of the five senses for the exchange of information (Wrubel et al, 2009). The multimodality
principle for synchronous e-learning requires the delivery of instructional material across visual and
audible sensory channels to support learning (Wrubel et al, 2009). Multimodality can also be
described as ‘read it, hear it, see it’ learning, in which video assists in making the richness of
gestural and body language communication available but is balanced with graphics and other
supporting media to enable the full multimodal experience (Wrubel et al, 2009).
Past research has criticised e-learning (compared to traditional face-to-face lecturing) for its
failure to engage students in their learning. But policy makers have since reasoned that if online
learning and instruction is no worse than traditional instruction in terms of student performance
and educational outcomes, then online learning initiatives might well be justified on the basis of
cost efficiency or the need to provide access to learners in settings in which face-to-face instruction

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is not feasible or for institutions that cannot accommodate the sheer number of students (Means et
al, 2009). Especially in light of today’s online learning applications, which can take advantage of a
wide range of Web resources, ranging from multimedia to web-based applications and new
collaboration technologies, the question of the relative efficacy of online and face-to-face
instruction deserves to be revisited (Means et al, 2009).

Virtual Classrooms
Online synchronous learning or virtual classrooms are used to apply the multimodality principle to
distance learners (Schullo et al, 2007) who need to have support and guidance, to feel social
presence, to share responsibility, and to be motivated by instructors. Virtual classrooms are online
environments that enable students and instructors to communicate synchronously, by means of
audio, video, text chat, interactive whiteboard, application sharing, instant polling, and other such
features, as though they were standing face to face in a classroom (Parker & Martin, 2010).
A virtual classroom is similar to a physical classroom in that both allow for immediate
feedback, support consensus and decision-making in group activities with ‘just-in-time clarification
and information,’ provide guided pacing and discipline in learning, and foster the development of
group cohesion and a sense of community (Schullo et al, 2007).
According to Wrubel et al (2009), an example of the ways virtual classroom environments can
promote multimodality might be the following:
• Read it: a recording or transcript of the instructor’s presentation using the archiving feature of
the virtual classroom.
• Hear it: an audio of the instructor map to the video of the presentation, which may be live or
recorded.
• See it: presentation materials, screenshots, and diagrams appear on-screen, synchronised with
the instructor’s transcripts that offer interactive media to support the material.
Virtual classrooms are becoming increasingly popular, as participants can talk and view each other
through a webcam, use emoticons, and work together in break-out rooms (Parker & Martin, 2010),
all of which allow them to feel more connected to one another. Among the virtual classroom
software options on the market today are Elluminate, Adobe Connect, Webex, Centra, and
Horizon Wimba. Freeware virtual classrooms include DimDim and Wiziq. The interactive nature
of the virtual classroom addresses the main challenge of distance education, namely student
involvement, and can be used in online and blended instructional settings (Parker & Martin, 2010).
Within a learning environment, the following features are supported by the virtual classroom
(Parker & Martin, 2010):
• Interactivity: students can interact with each other, with instructors, and with online resources.
• Synchrony: users are connected at the same time, enabling users to exchange electronic
messages with one another, as though they were exchanging words in a face-to-face setting.
Students in online courses are accustomed to asynchronous technologies, such as e-mail,
websites, and forums, which require greater independence and may be more demanding.
• Usefulness and ease of use: usefulness refers to the functionality of the technology itself, whereas
ease of use refers to the ease with which a user becomes skilful at using the technology to satisfy
his or her natural curiosity to explore the unknown, thereby greatly reducing students’ levels of
frustration and facilitating a user-friendly learning environment.
• Sense of community: the development of virtual learning environments is based on the belief
that learning should happen within communities that focus on the students’ experiences and
their relationship with one another in the virtual classroom. Four elements are essential for
developing a sense of community: membership, influence, integration, and shared emotional
connections. Focusing on meeting these needs would lead to further adjustments likely to
increase the effective use of the virtual classroom and improved learning outcomes.

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E-learning at King Abdulaziz University

King Abdulaziz University (KAU), located in the port city of Jeddah, was established in 1967 and
currently has a unique position in the Middle East due to its high number of students (more than
150,000); additionally, the number of male and female students is nearly equal.
In addition to its regular academic graduate and undergraduate degrees, the university offers
a number of other programmes to compensate for limited classrooms, and an exponential increase
in the number of high-school graduates. One such programme was the first fully online e-learning
programme for undergraduate degrees in five specialties. But from the very beginning, it was
obvious that the programme would face barriers and obstacles, many of which are common to
those faced by international academic institutions while others are unique to Saudi culture, such as:
• A general lack of parent and student buy-in and confidence in the effectiveness of, and an overall
distrust in, the quality of e-learning’s educational outcomes.
• Those expected to enrol in e-learning courses are high-school graduates from Saudi Arabia’s
current K-12 educational system, who are slowly guided through the material and instruction in
a manner that does not encourage independent thought and discovery. Such a teaching style
does not prepare students to become independent learners, capable of uncovering and
constructing their own knowledge.
• The low integrity of examination and homework results submitted by students who are assessed
from a distance, as no proof of their identity or whether they actually did their work themselves
exists.
• The large digital divide between faculty and students who are technically savvy. Students
enrolled in e-learning courses are part of the PlayStation, iPhone and Blackberry generation and
are intimately familiar with communicating in chat rooms and by means of mobile phone
services. Their demand for information is high, and their patience levels are low.
• The low Internet penetration in Saudi Arabia, amounting to 38.1 % in 2010 (Internet World
Stats, 2010), which makes it difficult to estimate the increase in network traffic that e-learning
systems may impose upon KAU’s already burdened campus network.
• The government educational system is fully segregated, and culturally that would be expected in
an e-learning environment as well.
To address such barriers to the success of the programme, and to cope with such challenges, the
university created the Deanship for Distance Learning (DDL) as an administrative and academic
authoritative umbrella responsible for tackling these challenges and fostering the university’s
academic culture in embracing the new culture of e-learning. The deanship took on the challenges
one by one. Regarding parent and student buy-in, the issue solved itself, as the university has
limited seats for traditional full-time students, so students not admitted to the full-time programs
had only limited options, one of which was the e-learning programme. The university greatly
improved the digital infrastructure of the university, adding high-powered servers in addition to the
automation of all registration- and administration-related procedures. Competition among mobile
service providers helped lower subscription costs and allowed wireless and high-speed broadband
Internet access in homes.
To narrow the digital gap between instructors and potential students, DDL began an
intensive training programme open to all faculty as well as specific training to e-learning course
instructors two weeks prior to each semester. This was designed to teach them how to transfer
their teaching style, changing from face-to-face instructors to online facilitators.
The university accepted its first group of e-learning students in the fall semester of 2007 and
was determined to offer them an educational experience equal to that of the face-to-face full-time
students.

Research Objective
Due the lack of e-readiness of students and instructors for an e-learning culture, the university was
determined to create a programme as similar as possible to the traditional face-to-face programmes.
The e-learning programme had to transfer all requirements online including daily lectures. One of
the university’s major concerns was how to keep instructors connected and engaged with their

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students who may suffer from being out of sight and therefore out of mind; and how to transform
students from dependent, guided students into independent learners who can interact with their
instructors and peers. One issue was that this needed to be done without allowing too much
freedom, which may make assessing performance of the material difficult, yet without too much
intrusion and guidance, as this may limit students’ creativity and independence in constructing
their own knowledge. To address both issues, scheduled mandatory virtual classrooms integrated
within the e-learning management system were used as an integral part of the e-learning
programme to help consistently, actively engage instructors and learners in a way that can also be
carefully monitored for progress or for the lack thereof.
Therefore, when offering virtual classrooms for e-learning students for the same courses
offered to the face-to-face students, it was the objective of this research to evaluate e-learning
students’ performance compared to that of the face-to-face traditional students enrolled in the same
courses taught by the same instructor.

KAU’s Unique Approach to E-learning

Worldwide, virtual classrooms are used to provide lectures and training. Most courses use them as
a supplement or blend them with the course’s traditional methods. KAU, however, recognises that
its e-learning students need much more than to access material on a learning management system
and attend a few virtual classes. The country’s K-12 educational system graduates need structure
and guidance, such as is provided in traditional classrooms. Therefore, e-learning students register
for classes and receive a schedule (Figure 1) as any other full-time student does. The top part of the
schedule shows typical student biographical data and status, while the lower part of the schedule
lists the courses registered and the time for each class; however, no building or rooms are assigned
and are displayed as TBA because each class is held as a virtual one, in which the instructor teaches
the class live using Centra’s virtual classrooms. The only indication that this schedule belongs to an
e-learning student comes from looking at the ‘type of student’ field in the student biographical data
table. Otherwise, the schedule is identical to that of a face-to-face student.

Figure 1. A typical schedule of virtual classes for e-learning students.

When students access the system, they move from class to class online, according to the course’s
time slot, by logging in and out of classes as if walking from lecture hall to lecture hall within or
between buildings on campus. During that 10- or 15-minute break between classes, students
prepare for the next virtual class rather than running to the next class on campus. Additionally,
with regard to being absent from class, student do not miss the lecture, as the virtual lectures are

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recorded and archived; even the students’ interaction with the class is recorded and available for
the instructor to review later on. Due to cultural restrictions requiring gender segregation on
campus in Saudi Arabia, female instructors currently teach only female students; however, if a
female faculty member is unavailable to teach a class, a male instructor can teach female students.
Instructors check student attendance during the virtual class as they would in any other class.
Although scheduling virtual classes during the daytime makes it difficult for full-time employees to
attend some of the classes live, archived lectures provide an alternative for them, and their
interactions during the lectures are recorded and available for faculty to assess. It is important to
note, however, that although one of the advantages of e-learning is the ‘anytime and anywhere’
self-paced type of e-learning, an attractive option for employees and stay-at-home mothers, the e-
learning population in KAU consists primarily of high-school graduates who, as mentioned earlier,
were not accepted full time.

The E-Learning Management Electronic System (EMES)

The most important feature of any e-learning programme is its Learning Management System
(LMS). The E-Learning Management Electronic System (EMES) (Figure 2) is an in-house
programmed LMS that is integrated with KAU’s On Demand Registration System (ODUS).

Figure 2. The Arabic interface of the home page of EMES.

Such integration offers only registered students access to the course, as is the case with any
traditional course, while it offers other students in the different programmes limited access for
blended learning. EMES supports the educational process by facilitating asynchronous interactions
between students and faculty. Courses uploaded to the system go through a rigorous process of
instructional design, quality control, and peer evaluation for departmental approval of the content.

The Virtual Classroom System

In addition to providing course material and interaction between e-learning students and
instructors, and in an effort to actively engage e-learning students, KAU delivers synchronous
interactive learning to students. Each class is held within a virtual classroom, in which an instructor

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can immediately gain a sense of the students’ level of comprehension. Based on this assessment,
faculty members can adapt the course to meet students’ needs to provide them with guidance and
structure in their learning, replicating the experience of a typical class.
Saba’s Centra possesses built-in workflow and event management capabilities that help
facilitate recording and event playbacks and assist in tracking performance by means of detailed
reports of enrolment, attendance, and test results. Across the top of the screen on the main screen
interface, a series of icons indicate the following (Figures 3-4):
• Raise hand: used to ask a question or make a comment.
• Agree: used to express agreement with a question asked by the instructor.
• Disagree: used to express disagreement with a question asked by the instructor.
• Laughter: used to indicate laughter or amusement.
• Applause: used to indicate applause and support for the course.
• Text chat: used to send or receive a text message to the instructor or to all students.
• Feedback: used to send feedback about the course (Keegan et al, 2005).
The instructor has access to a more complex provision of icons, including those used in application
sharing, surveys, Web safari, whiteboard, break-out sessions (in which students can be divided into
smaller groups), video, starting and stopping sessions, and recording facilities. Also offered are
features for real-time interactivity, yes/no polling, instant surveys, Rich Multimedia Content,
integrated Flash, Shockwave, JavaScript, animated GIFs, and streaming audio and video (Keegan et
al, 2005). The virtual classrooms are integrated with KAU’s LMS to provide a single interface for
both systems (Figure 5).

Figure 3. The most important control buttons in the Centra system.

Figure 4. Whiteboard tools in Centra.

Student and Faculty Monitoring

With such commitment required by both student and instructor in the programme, DDL had no
choice but to closely monitor instructor and student performances as a means of quality control for
all educational activities. DDL provides faculties with a list of quantitative criteria that specify the
minimum acceptable performance requirements for online instructors. The requirements include
the number of homework assignments and quizzes given to students, the manner in which
teachers attend chat rooms, the questions posed to students, the speed and manner of replies to
emails, and the number of virtual classes given according to the schedule. Instructors’ periodic
performance reports (Figure 6) are sent to department chairs because these individuals are
ultimately responsible for recommending online instructors, and to the instructors themselves to
make them aware of their strengths and shortcomings. The report includes a table that lists all
activities required by an instructor, the quantity required for each activity, the quantity
accomplished thus far, the percentage of work required, and the percentage of work accomplished
in total. If performance reports indicate limited activity on the part of the instructor, various
penalties could be imposed by the department.
At the end of each semester, instructors are given a questionnaire to assess the pros and cons
of their experience; in addition, they are included as part of a focus group session, which allows
them to discuss their overall experience. Results are used to improve assessment methods, DDL
services, and e-learning administrative procedures. But instructors continuously praise the high
level of engagement of e-learning students compared to that of face-to-face students of the same
course. In fact, some female instructors have commented that their relationship with the e-learning

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students becomes so strong that they try to guess their identity during supervision of the final
exam, as they have not seen each other online via webcams, and this creates an atmosphere of very
warm introductions.

Figure 5. A snapshot of Centra integrated with EMES on its whiteboard.

Figure 6. Sample faculty report of online activities with students.

Student Assessment
For each course, students are assessed based on their homework, projects, quizzes, and level of
interaction with the instructor and fellow students, all of which are conducted online, and on the
final exam, which must be taken on campus or in proctored exam centres around the country. The
grade of the final exam and the collective grade of all other course requirements are compared
periodically by DDL staff to alert instructors if a student continuously performs well in all course

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requirements yet performs poorly on the final exam, as that may indicate that the student may not
be doing his or her own work. In such a case, instructors pay extra attention to that particular
student and request other forms of verification.
In the context of assessing e-learning’s educational outcomes, it is difficult to make exact
comparisons between face-to-face and e-learning models of learning due to their distinct methods
of delivery. In this research grades for online and face-to-face courses were used to compare
student performance. Five of those courses had female instructors and female students, while the
other five had male instructors and male students. It was important to compare the performance of
the female and male students due to one major difference in instruction delivery within the virtual
classroom. For cultural reasons, most of the female students and instructors did not use the
webcam for visual interaction, which made the social connection a little different from that
experienced by the males; in addition, it created an atmosphere of instructor uneasiness for the
females, not knowing who was actually attending the virtual class.
Another limitation for comparison is the small sample size of the online classes, which may
hinder attempts to generalise the results. But in the absence of larger numbers of students in the
online classes, comparisons between student performances needed to be made in order to assess
the efficiency and effectiveness of the approach used to offer e-learning students an educational
experience that closely resembles that of their face-to-face counterpart.
An independent-samples t-test was conducted to evaluate whether the online and face-to-face
methods have a different effect on the performance of students on the same course taught by the
same instructor. These two teaching methods were applied in 10 different classes, in which each
class was taught by the same female or male instructor. The results of the test analysis for each
class are shown in Table I and Table II (five classes in the female section and five classes in the male
section).

Class Delivery No. of AVG. out t-test p-value

method students of 5 value significant
ACCT 102 Online 7 3.9650 -0.291 0.772
Regular 57 4.0662
BUS 211 Online 9 2.6664 -0.949 0.346
Regular 63 2.9918
PAD 101 Online 19 208421 -2.876 0.007*
Regular 15 3.6007
PS 101 Online 12 2.3331 -3.295 0.001*
Regular 76 3.4668
PSY 231 Online 2 4.3750 0.029 0.977
Regular 66 4.3563

Table I. Comparison of female student performance for the same class and the same instructor.

An independent-samples t-test was conducted to compare performance of online and face-to-face

students for the same course and the same female instructor. The results obtained in Table I
demonstrate the following:
1. There were no significant differences in the performance of online and face-to-face students for
ACCT 102, BUS 211,and PSY 231 courses; p > .05. That is, both methods have same effect on
the students’ performance in these courses.
2. There was a significant difference in the performance of online (mean = 2.8, SD = 0.83) and
face-to-face students (mean = 3.4, SD = 0.66) for the PAD 101 course; t = -2.876, p = .007. The
results suggest that the performance of face-to-face students in the PAD 101 course was better
than the performance of online students.
3. There was also a significant difference in the performance of online (mean = 2.33, SD = 1.19)
and face-to-face students (mean = 3.47, SD = 1.09) for PS 101 course; t = -3.295, p = .001. These
results suggest that face-to-face students in PS 101 receive higher scores than the online
students.

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An independent-samples t-test was conducted to compare the performance of online and face-to-
face students for the same course and the same male instructor. The results obtained in Table II
show the following:
1. There was no significant difference in the performance of online and face-to-face students for
COMM 101, ECON 204, and LANE 215 courses; p > .05. That is, both methods have same
effect on the students’ performance in these courses.
2. There was a significant difference in the performance of online (mean = 2.85, SD = 1.33) and
face-to-face students (mean = 3.56, SD = 1.20) for the IS 101 course; t = -2.29, p = .025.
3. There was also a significant difference in the performance of online (mean = 4.43, SD = 0.31)
and face-to-face students (mean = 3.11, SD = 1.11) in the ISLS 401 course; t = 6.95, p = .000.
These results suggest that online students have higher scores in the ISLS 401 course than the
face-to-face students.

Class Delivery No. of AVG. out t-test p-value

method students of 5 value significant
COMM 101 Online 17 3.3526 -0.62 0.539
Regular 23 3.663
ECON 204 Online 17 3.2055 0.025 0.98
Regular 18 3.1949
IS 101 Online 36 2.8539 -2.29 0.025*
Regular 33 3.5603
ISLS 401 Online 4 4.4375 6.95 0.000*
Regular 108 3.11
LANE 215 Online 5 3.3000 0.372 0.713
Regular 19 3.0922

Table II. Comparison of male student performance for the same class and the same male instructor.

The overall results show that in most courses there was no significant difference in the
performance of online and face-to-face students. Certain courses (PAD 101, PS 101, and IS 101)
recorded significant differences, in which the performance of face-to-face students was better than
that of the online students. Only one course (ISLS 401) shows online students’ performance as
better than that of the face-to-face students. This may be the result of the low number of students
enrolled in the online class, making it difficult to compare this class with the face-to-face class (i.e. 4
online students as opposed to 108 face-to-face students). It seems that the higher the number of
online students (compared to that of the face-to-face students registered for the same class and with
the same instructor), the worse the performance.
Due to the sample size of the online students, it may be difficult to generalise or extend the
results beyond the sample surveyed, but the population size (online students at KAU) is inherently
small.
Questionnaires were distributed among students and instructors after the final exam to solicit
their feedback on features of the e-learning system, interaction methods, and students’ overall
experience. Results revealed that technical problems were the biggest challenge; deadlines were
missed due to the incorrect assumption by many students that work had been correctly submitted
when, in fact, it had not been. The students overwhelmingly preferred, and actually relied on, the
virtual classrooms and the textbook rather than the actual content on the LMS. Qualitative
methods of investigation were used to determine whether other factors contributed to the
experience of instructors and students in the e-learning programme. During focus group sessions,
the faculty members polled indicated that they were amazed at the level of engagement and
enthusiasm of students in the online environment, which was occasionally absent in the face-to-
face classroom, especially during afternoon classes. At this time of the day, face-to-face students
were physically exhausted from a full-day schedule, while the online students were going to their
classrooms from the comfort of their home or office.

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Conclusion
KAU’s approach to e-learning involves creating courses on a learning management system, with
virtual classes for every corresponding face-to-face lecture. The virtual classes are mandatory for
faculty. They have the purpose of helping students, who were once dependent on teachers in their
learning process, to gain independence and assume responsibility for their own knowledge, while
still connecting with the instructor and other students from a distance. The performance of both
groups of students was compared with the same instructor. The overall results showed that for
most courses there were no significant differences in the performance of online and face-to-face
students. Results from questionnaires and interviews given to students revealed that they relied
heavily on the lectures given in virtual classrooms and rarely consulted the course material on the
LMS, with the exception of the slides uploaded onto the whiteboard of the virtual classroom
interface by the instructor.
Despite all of the expected technical and cultural obstacles, virtual classes have succeeded
overall due to the university’s commitment to transferring the culture of teaching and learning for
face-to-face students to an online environment, providing e-learning students with a comparable
educational experience. Although the average performance was comparable between these two
modes of delivery when the number of online students was low, it is unclear how the performance
of the students or instructors will change when the number of e-learning students increases.
The limitation of the online sample size calls for more studies to reveal a significant difference
in performance, if any exists. A repeat of the experiment with larger sample sizes should be
conducted on a yearly basis.
Since the completion of this research, KAU had its first 12 graduates from the programme,
four of whom graduated with honours. In an attempt to demonstrate its compliance with strict
distance learning accreditation standards, the Deanship of Distance Learning at KAU has been
awarded accreditation by UNIQUe, which is part of the European Foundation for Quality in E-
learning (EFQUEL), a leading European network in the field of quality in technology-enhanced and
innovative learning.

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HANA ABDULLAH AL-NUAIM is an associate professor in Computer Science and the Dean of
King Abdulaziz University (Women’s Campuses), Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. She received her Ms, DSc
in Computer Science from George Washington University, USA, and her Bachelors in CS from the
University of Texas at Austin. She was a former CS Department head and as Vice Dean of Distance
Learning launched the first e-learning program in the kingdom for women. She has extensive
faculty training background and referred papers for publications in HCI, usability, multimedia, e-
learning, e-government and knowledge cities and has been involved in many web-based research
projects. Correspondence: hnuaim@kau.edu.sa

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