Sunday, July 12, 2009

A discussion on E-learning offered in Malaysian universities: Pros and Cons from the students perspective

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What is E-Learning?


E-learning is the online delivery of information for the purposes of education, training, or knowledge management. From the education perspective, it allows student to acquire new knowledge through the internet without personally being present at school or campus.

Malaysian Universities Offering E-Leaning

In our country, E-learning has become more and more popular nowadays. Some of the Malaysian Universities have in fact started to offer E-learning since it is another way of learning. Among the universities providing such service are Universiti Teknology Malaysia (UTM), Universiti Tun Abdul Razak (UNITAR), Open University Malaysia (OUM), and Multimedia University (MMU).

However, nothing in this world is perfect; everything comes with its advantages as well as disadvantages. So let us look into what are the pros and cons of E-learning from a student’s perspective.

Pros

Save Time and Costs

Since E-learning allows students to learn through the internet anywhere, it helps save up lots of time for students especially for those who actually have to travel to the campus from their house. Besides, it also helps save up expenses such as the cost of rental, petrol and so on.

Flexibility

E-learning provides more flexible learning time for students, so that they can adjust their time of learning based on their own personal schedule. Apart from that, it benefits for those students who have financial difficulties and are taking up part-time jobs in order to cover the tuition fees.

Learning with self-paced

In the traditional teaching method, lecturers and tutors would not change their ways of teaching or teaching pace just because you cannot understand or follow-up. This might affect the students’ result. However, through E-learning, students can learn at the speed which they can afford, therefore, results in a better way of study for them.

Cons

Lack of Face-to-Face Communication

E-learning is an online learning without face-to-face communication. The lack of face-to-face communication might cause the students to be not able to solve some problems they might face during the study process. There might be a solution to their problems whereby the lecturers or tutors reply through the e-mail, however sometimes what written in words does not help much. A realistic assistance from the lecturers or tutors will give a better understanding for students to solve their problems on the study.

Low Motivation

Motivation is an important tool to engage someone to perform better. As we know, E-learning works on the basis of self-learning, thus students might feel demotivated when they are learning alone. Lack of motivation might cause the student to not put in 100% of effort in achieving good results.

In conclusion, there are advantages as well as disadvantages for E-learning. Therefore, students who are choosing E-learning as the way of their learning must overcome the disadvantages in order to achieve success in E-learning.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

E-Government in Malaysia: Its Implementation so far and Citizen’s Adoption Strategies

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E-government
It is an e-commerce model which a government efficiently and effectively provides goods, services and information to citizens and businesses. It brings together all the three parties (goods, services and information) together in a network of information, knowledge and commerce.

Implementation of E-government in Malaysia
E-government was implemented in Malaysia since the introduction of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) in 1996. It aims at improving government’s responsiveness to the needs of citizens and businesses through upgrading the convenience, accessibility and quality of interactions with citizens and businesses.

E-government is among the flagship applications launched by MSC. It consists of seven main projects which are currently under implementation. They are:

Government to Government
1. Project Monitoring System (SPP II) – an online system that supervises the complete lifecycle of national projects.
2. Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS) – an information system enabling the government to successfully deal with its knowledge resources.
3. Generic Office Environment (GOE) – document and office management solution that helps users deal with their office environment effectively and efficiently.

Government to Business
1. Electronic Procurement (EP) – a system where suppliers sells goods and services online to the Government.

Government to Citizen
1. Electronic Services (E-Services) – it enables an individual Malaysian to conduct transactions with Government agencies.
2. Electronic Labour Exchange (ELX) – it provides information on labour markets
3. E-Syariah – a system that manages cases for the Syariah Courts.

Citizen’s Adoption Strategies
It is undeniable that e-Government does bring lots of benefits as it is convenient and time-saving. However, a lot of Malaysian citizens still prefer interacting with the Government through the traditional method. It could be due to the lack of awareness and confidence in citizens, lack of guidance from Government, language barriers, outdated information, and so on.

Therefore, the Government should constantly find ways that are able to lead the citizens into the Information Age. The followings are some strategies that could be implemented by the Government:

Educating and informing the public about the various services offered by government agencies.
Increasing citizens’ confidence by improving the security of doing transactions online and keeping their personal information confidential.
Improving the quality of services provided. For example, the information provided on the websites and speed of responding citizens enquiries.
• Paying attention to the feedback of the users and improve constantly.
• Providing websites in multiple languages.

Please visit www.malaysia.gov.com for further information on e-Government in Malaysia.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Review On a Local, Transactional Site: AirAsia

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AirAsia is one of the very popular low-cost airlines that have been expanding rapidly during the years. It operates for domestic and international flights and is Asia’s leading low fare, hassle free and no frills airlines. In fact, they operate with the world’s lowest unit cost with promotional fares as low as RM1. Also, AirAsia has abolished fuel surcharges on 2008 and in doing so, they are claimed to be the first airline in the world to abolish fuel surcharges.

AirAsia’s Ticketless System

AirAsia is the first airline in the region to introduce the implementation of fully ticketless travel. Through this ticketless feature, customers can purchase flight tickets through reservations made through telephone services, online booking and also GPRS, which is the latest made available.

With the ticketless system, customers do not need a ticket to board on a plane. All they need to do is to just remember their booking number and show their identification card or passport for identification and check-in purposes upon arrival at the airport. No tickets, just make your reservations and you’ll be on your way to board on the plane! Besides, your flight itinerary with your travel details will be emailed or handed to you after payment has been made.

Booking & Payments

There are basically 5 ways to book your flight:
Online
Mobile
AirAsia Call Centre
Sales Office
Airport Sales Station
• Authorized Travel Agents



Following are the steps in booking your flight online:
1. Go to www.airasia.com
2. Select your trip type to be either a return trip or one way.
3. Select the departing and arriving cities of your trip from the scroll box.
4. Select the departure and return date of your trip from the scroll box.
5. Select the number of guest and any infants from the scroll box. (max 9 adults & 4 infants)
6. Then click “Search”.
7. Select your departing flight and returning flight displayed on the screen with the fares & travel time.
8. Accept the Terms & Conditions of Carriage & Fares Rules if the selected flight, fare rules & pricing information are acceptable.
9. Enter guest’s information and fill in the contact person form.
10. Click “Pick My Seat” to choose your seat and your guest’s seat.
11. Verify the total price of your flight and then select your payment method. Your payment can be made via credit card, direct debit and e-gift voucher.
12. Once your payment has been processed, your Flight Itinerary will be displayed on the screen and sent to your email.

For more information regarding booking and payment, please click
http://www.airasia.com/site/my/en/page.jsp?name=How+To+Book&id=4ebb40b0-c0a8c85d-1410a850-53721771&nav=0-0

The ticketless system makes travelling much easier and more convenient. More importantly, it helps us save time and money through their super-low fares.

With this new and improved system implemented, now everybody can fly!!

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Corporate Blogging

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Corporate blogging is a form of advertising for companies. It has become a new marketing communication tool for them. Corporate blogging helps organization to reach their goal. With the easy access to the internet, customers seek corporate information from corporate blogs from time to time. Thus this leads to the increase in corporate blogging since it serves as a new marketing communication tool for companies.

Among the reasons to start a corporate blog would include; Branding, Product Launch, Public Relations, Marketing Campaigns, and many others.

Benefits to have a Corporate Blog:

Adds Value to Business
The business blog can provide additional value by adding a level of credibility that is often unobtainable from a standard corporate site. The informality and increased timeliness of information posted to blogs assist with increasing transparency and accessibility in the corporate image.

Instant Feedback for New Products or Ideas
Asking customers for feedback on exclusive previews, product testing, marketing plans and customer services can help improve the marketing strategies of the company and improve the market share of the company for a certain product and improve innovations as well. Finally, the corporate blogging can serve as a success communication tool because companies will be able to obtain feedback from customers and make certain amendments on the products and thus, increase customer satisfaction.

Lower Cost to Reach Customers
The advantage of blogs is that posts and comments are easy to reach and follow due to the centralized hosting and generally structured conversation threads. Blogging has become a new, less time consuming and less expensive way to reach potential and current customers.

Amplify Marketing
Blogs can be used to amplify marketing messages compared to traditional channels. They allow companies to present accurate information without the filter of the media or advertising. The use of a blog allows a company to provide a destination of information for consumers, from commercials to promotional coupons, to directions on how to use products. Therefore, a successful marketing through blog creates a reader’s area of interest about the products or services known to them.

10 Most Popular Corporate Blogs
1. Google
2. Twitter
3. Adobe
4. Zillow
5. Yahoo! Search
6. Facebook
7. Dell
8. Yahoo!
9. LinkedIn
 

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