Security issues concern for E-Learning by Saudi universities

Abstract

Emergence of the information age and the growth of Internet and communication technologies in Saudi Arabia have changed the way of teaching and learning process. The education community in Saudi Arabia believes that the legacy methods of teaching are not able to create a good impact on the E-Learning capability of Saudi learners while compared with that of E-Learning. The emergent of E-Learning has created a buzzword of virtual university worldwide. E-Learning is available to anyone, anywhere in the world; all that a learner needs is the access to internet with Web browser. Increase in the number of Saudi universities and a large number of internet users in Saudi Arabia have provided a number of benefits to students at the university level. Due to the close relation between E-Learning and WWW many of the security problems in E-Learning are similar to ones of the general WWW. A lot of work has been done in the development of infrastructure for universities and e-contents but security issues are also to be taken seriously, issues like ethical learning practices plagiarism, violation of privacy, vandalism, theft, and spying into the cyberspace, personal integrity and accountability. This paper will discuss some of the issues in an E-Learning environment particularly in Saudi Arabia. It will also attempt to provide suggestions and possible solutions to some of these problems.