Effect of cloud based educational applications in elearning: Evidence from Jordan

Abstract

Cloud computing is a new paradigm in E-learning environment. It offers a wide range of facilities to students and teachers, especially in the universities to ease out their problem in terms of documents sharing, course material distribution and handling, desktop sharing by the teachers to teach their students, and in terms of Voice Over IP (VOIP) and video conferencing for the smooth communication with each other. In this modern world, e-learning can be improved by utilizing these and similar to these cloud based applications. The objective of this paper is to find out how e-learning can be more effective by utilizing the cloud based educational applications and what is the role of these applications in increasing the efficiency of electronic learning in the universities of Jordan. The study is evidence from Jordan and data was collected from teachers and students of five major universities of Jordan through an online survey tool. Results shows that there is a positive highly significant relation between clouds based educational applications such as Google App Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, Google Drive, Team viewer, Skype, Net meeting, WebEx with the electronic learning in Jordan Universities. Findings are beneficial for those universities and educational institute which are not using or offering these cloud based educational applications, so they will come to know how these applications can play a vital role in e-learning educations.