FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO SUCCESS IN E-LEARNING

The new technological environment has led to a proliferation of e-learning courses. Virtually all the world's universities offer postgraduate distance leaning courses, and the high number of students who enrol in these courses is striking. Unfortunately, however, the high number of students abandoning e-learning courses is equally striking, as shown by several recent studies. Although the causes for abandonment are multiple, we can highlight the limited attention given to the human factor in courses taught on-line, which leads to, instead of reducing the distance and individual nature of these courses, this becoming more apparent. Based on our experience as lecturers on a postgraduate e-learning course, this paper proposes a set of procedures and alternative resources to mitigate the very coldness of distance learning, with the aim of involving the students in the course, avoiding abandonment and, more importantly, gaining their satisfaction.