E learning offered in Malaysian universities: pros and cons from student perspective

Electronic learning (or E-Learning ) is a term for all types of technology-enhanced learning (TEL), where technology is used to support the learning process. Often the medium of instruction is through computer technology, particularly involving digital technologies. In some instances, no face- to- face interaction takes place. E-learning is used interchangeably in a wide variety of contexts. Lately, in most Universities, e-learning is used to define a specific mode to attend a course or programs of study where the students rarely, if ever, attend face-to-face for on-campus access to educational facilities, because they study online.

E-Learning lessons are generally designed to guide students through information or to help students perform in specific tasks. Information based e-Learning content communicates information to the student.
E-Learning can provide for major benefits for the organizations and individuals involved.

E-learning strategies that have been introduced into Malaysian public universities since 1996. Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) are the two Malaysian public universities planned to introduce e-learning strategies into their undergraduate programs. This analysis uses some 25 interviews with the teaching and administrative staff at UKM and UTM. A critical view of the problems that these universities face in implementing their vision statements is also presented. However, testing the vision statements against the experience and opinions of teaching staff is a significant task, because ultimately it is the teachers who will drive the e-learning strategies. If teachers are not supportive of these programs, e-learning will struggle to become established.

Pros and Cons of E-Learning
E-learning has shown its great advantages through its accessibility to all students irrespective of their residence. E-classes help students to communicate with their tutors, get clarifications regarding their subjects and study and access teaching materials through e-libraries. Universities and colleges which provide online degrees involve more and more electronic facilities to give their online students fast and qualified assistance. Students’ interactions have become much easier than face-to-face communication!

Another advantage of e-learning is its time flexibility. One can get online resources, communicate with his tutor or class mates, send his query and write term paper at any time he can get access to the Internet.

E-learning or networked learning has been becoming more and more popular among students living in developing and undeveloped countries. They can afford getting higher education degrees at respectable universities and colleges by saving extra expenses for traveling, accommodation, food and high fees for tutors. E-learning can offer such students much easier and affordable way to get a good education and a prestige higher degree.

However, there are still a few disadvantages in e-learning which are enough obvious to be omitted in this article. Lack of face-to-face communication with teachers contributes lack of understanding between a student and a teacher. While a teacher cannot easily feel a student’s demands, interests and motivations, a student can simply be lazy being non-motivated enough and having free time schedule for his e-learning. This may result a low scope of the student’s knowledge and the teacher’s accusation in lack of proficiency. Next, online classes, conferences and discussions are limited in time and totally exclude emotional interactivity. Though some universities and colleges which provide online courses and give online degrees evolve voice communication through networking technologies there is still lack of gestures, vivid dialogue and feeling of your interlocutor’s presence.

E-learning as it looks today leaves so many questions and demands regarding its improvement as it gets benefits. However, its fast growing shows a great future for online degrees. One of the most influential things which stimulate e-learning development is globalization through the Internet. The globalized world of computer technologies accepts people of different cultures irrespective of their origin, boundaries, genders, races, ages and sexes. E-learning has become an integral part of this e-world and welcomes everybody who has willingness to learn and get higher education.

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E-Government in Malaysia : Its implementation so far & citizen's adoption strategies

The Electronic Government initiative in Malaysia was launched in 1990-an by introduce Malaysian Government Portal (http://www.malaysia.gov.my/) to lead the country into the Information Age. It has improved both how the government operates internally as well as how it delivers services to the people of Malaysia. It seeks to improve the convenience, accessibility and quality of interactions with citizens and businesses; simultaneously, it will improve information flows and processes within government to improve the speed and quality of policy development, coordination and enforcement.

The vision of Electronic Government is a vision for government, businesses and citizenry working together for the benefit of Malaysia and all of its citizens. The vision focuses on effectively and efficiently delivering services from the government to the people of Malaysia, enabling the government to become more responsive to the needs of its citizens.

Government to Citizen

Electronic Services (E-Services)

E-Services is one of the pilot projects under the Electronic Government Flagship within the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) initiative. With E-Services, one can now conduct transactions with Government agencies, such as the Road Transport Department (RTD) and private utility companies such as Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) and Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM)
through various convenient channels such as the eServices kiosks and internet. No more
queuing, traffic jams or bureaucratic hassles and one can now conduct transaction at one’s own convenience.

The 7 pilot projects of the Electronic Government Flagship Application are as follows:
(1) Project Monitoring System (SPP II)
(2) Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS)
(3) Generic Office Environment (GOE)
(4) Electronic Procurement (EP)
(5) Electronic Services (E-Services)
(6) Electronic Labour Exchange (ELX)
(7) E-Syariah

Example: Inland Revenue Board (IRB) of Malaysia’s provided e-Filling services that allow the submission of Tax Return Forms electronically via internet. It is a totally free service. Until 30 June 2009 record, IRB report that 1518378 malaysian are use e-filling to submit their tax report. Compare to 30 June 2009, only 216527 malaysian report their tax through e-Filling. It shows that increase 31% of malaysian are using e-Filling.

Government to Business

E-procurement

An electronic procurement system, which enables suppliers to sell goods and services to the Government through the Internet. Suppliers “open shop” on the World Wide Web, advertise their goods, present their pricing, process orders and deliveries.
Objectives:
Enables accountability and transparency
• Creates more skilled and knowledgeable workforce
• Equips the workforce with the latest technology at minimum cost

Government to Government
Project Monitoring System (SPP II)
Online system that monitors the entire lifecycle of national programs.Example: project application to approval to implementation, mid-term review and completion.

Example:

Iskandar malaysia ; Iskandar Development Region (IDR)/South Johore Economic Region(SJER)

• establish in southern of johore on 30 July 2006


• The project is administered by Iskandar Regional Development Authority (IRDA) and is named after the Sultan of Johor, Sultan Iskandar.


• The development region encompasses an area about twice the size of Singapore, including the city of Johor Bahru and towns of Pontian, Senai, Pasir Gudang and the construction of a new administrative capital in Nusajaya.


• 14 target projects


• until 2 July 2009, launched 14 project (100% launched) & attract 41 billion investment


• website : http://www.irda.com.my

(sources:http://www.chinapress.com.my/,www.malaysia.gov.my,http://www.irda.com.my/)

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Corporate Blogging: A new marketing communication tool for companies.

Corporate blogging is publishing blogs to reach its organizational goals. "Blog" is another name for post. Blogs in the corporate level has 2 different category. Internal and external blogs. The name speaks for itself, right? Internal blogs are blogs meant for the corporation's internal use only. Internal blogs are like intranet of the corporation. But since intranet is available, why do an organization need an internal blog?

A blog comes easy with commentaries as well as graphical depicts such as photos and videos. When using a blog, employees can view the weblog and allows anyone to post on it. It informally increases employee's participation in giving feedback, voicing complaints and well as giving suggestions to matters they do not dare to comment on when face to face with authority. There's also a sense of community.

An external blog is a blog that is open to public. The term public means that everyone and anyone can view the weblog. The point of "anyone and everyone" actually refers to customers. As blogging is becoming more popular, it can help spread attention very quickly. As long as you have interesting stuff updated to your blog, you can attract traffic faster than the work hour. Besides that, a blog I suppose is rather less messy and easier to read than a website or some flyer.

A blog doesn't need to be sold hard like other promotional efforts do. The point I want to make is that blogging does not need to be sold only as a way to have a conversation with your readers, customers and clients. As if an interaction of the business with it clients, on its newest promotion like a friend telling his friends what are the new fashion or trends available.

The primary purpose of a business is sales. And every marketing tool should support that purpose. I now have proof that blogging does, when done correctly and when our posts serve our reader's wants and needs, the basic foundation of all marketing and branding efforts. Furthermore, it is easy to manage, maintain and update your blog compared to a website.

A successful example of corporate blogging: Tenji Japanese Buffet Restaurant

(Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_blog
http://www.mpdailyfix.com/)

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Review on a post on Legal from My E-Commerce Blog

Copyright infridgement! Does this word sound familiar to you? The majority of our people here, (can't deny) loves musics and movies to name a few and buying the original copy of it ain't cheap. It cost around RM 50-RM80 in average for a single original piece of DVD. Instead of forking out money to purchase, it can be downloaded from several sources in the internet.

The unlawful downloading of copyrighted material and sharing of recorded music over the Internet in the form of MP3 files is more prominent now than since before the advent of the Internet or the invention of MP3 files. The truth is out there, promotional screener DVDs distributed by movie studios (often for consideration for awards) are a common source of unauthorized copying when movies are still in theatrical release. It is so cliche.

Not to mention, the evolving of technology has create a massive impact towards society. Have u been hearing of fraud commited through the website 15 to 20 years ago? It all increasingly happen since the beginning of the 21st century and it's getting worst.

Issues about legal rights also arises. Take Starbucks for example. In 1990, Starbucks has entered into the Chinese market but encountered a major problem there- an imitator by the name of Shanghai Xing Ba Ke coffee shops (loosely translated as Shanghai Starbucks). Due to the legal lawsuit filed by Starbucks, a Chinese court ordered the imitator to pay Starbucks RMB 500,000 (approximately RM 250,000) for copying Starbucks name and logo.

Now, it is our responsibilities to curb this silent crime and countries such as The Solviet Union, the USA, China and also Eastern Europe has collaborated to fight this activity.

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Electronic Currency

How convenient would it be if we could click on bank notes. As e-commerce is being practiced more widely, more transactions will be made. From payments of buying clothes from an online boutique to subscription fees to an online news provider. The stores could be made virtual from bricks to clicks. However, conventional payments still require physical substance like gold and banknotes. Of the development of currency, from cowrie shells to cattle, to banknotes and cheques, and now to credit cards.


Because e-commerce is relatively new, consumers choose payment methods of credit card rather than other electronic payments systems made to them. The reason is simply the familiarity of the method. Besides that, credit card provides consumer with advantages such as a credit purchase that exceeds the amount of salary the person makes, provided he pays off his account every month. On the other side of the coin, credit cards are also vulnerable to theft and fraud. Internet sellers especially dislike credit card payments because it is subjected to percentage fees which erodes profit margin.

Soon, Internet sellers who do not like the cost or risk associated with credit cards will demand money from buyers, just as sellers in real space often do. When that happens, the market will need electronic currencies that can circulate from computer to computer, around the world. Electronic money, e-money, electronic cash, electronic currency, digital money, digital cash or digital currency refers to money and scrip which is exchanged only electronically.

Based on the book: A History of Money from Ancient Times to the Present Day by Glyn Davies, beginning of 1995, over 90% of all transactions in United States are made electronically. In the same year, trials of the Mondex smart card which is intended as a replacement for cash was introduced in Swindon in Britain while cryptographer Dr. David Chaum developed anonymous form of digital money. And in 1999, Euro becomes the currency of 11 of the member states of the European Union (Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal and Finland). Therefore Europe enters the 3rd millennium with a new currency.

The link between them?

The main idea of electronic currency is to create a single currency only transferable electronically which is not affected by currency exchange rate like real cash do.
Global electronic currencies will benefit Internet commerce in two ways. First, the currencies can serve as universal media of exchange. Once a user acquires a global electronic currency, he can enter into transactions around the world without having to pay exchange fees. Second, the currencies will provide global units of account, enabling buyers and sellers all over the world to understand what goods and services are worth without calculation.


Now how is E-currency made possible?

Public-key cryptography and digital signatures (both blind and non-blind signatures) make e-money possible. The basic gist is that banks and customers would have public-key encryption keys. Public-key encryption keys come in pairs. A private key known only to the owner, and a public key, made available to everyone. Whatever the private key encrypts, the public key can decrypt, and vice verse.

Banks and customers use their keys to encrypt (for security) and sign (for identification) blocks of digital data that represent money orders. A bank "signs" money orders using its private key and customers and merchants verify the signed money orders using the bank's widely published public key. Customers sign deposits and withdraws using their private key and the bank uses the customer's public key to verify the signed withdraws and deposits.

The 2 types of E-currency.

In general, there are two distinct types of e-money: identified e-money and anonymous e-money (also known as digital cash). Identified e-money contains information revealing the identity of the person who originally withdrew the money from the bank. Also, in much the same manner as credit cards, identified e-money enables the bank to track the money as it moves through the economy. Anonymous e-money works just like real paper cash. Once anonymous e-money is withdrawn from an account, it can be spent or given away without leaving a transaction trail. You create anonymous e-money by using blind signatures rather than non-blind signatures.

(Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_money
http://projects.exeter.ac.uk/
http://www.law.berkeley.edu)

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The application of pre-paid cash card for consumers

A prepaid cash card allows consumers to purchase something even when they don’t have the cash to pay for it. It benefits consumers in their everyday life.

Though it works almost the same like a credit card, a prepaid cash card is different because it allows consumers to have a better control over their finance. Prepaid cash cards offer advantages both in terms of limiting spending and fraud. The user of prepaid cash can load the amount of money they want onto their card but will be have spending limit.

For any purchases transaction, the sum will be subtracted from the card balance. You can always pump in more money when the balance runs low by transferring money from your regular checking or savings account.

The advantages of holding a Debit Card for a consumer are as follow:

1. Easy Payment
Debit Card is the simplest and most convenient way of making payment of goods and/or services purchased.

2. Convenience
The major advantage is that you need not require carrying bulky cash, as the small plastic is convenient to place in your wallet.

3. Replacement
In case your card is lost/stolen, you can immediately block the usage by informing the bank and get a replacement one.
4. Emergency Use
It is useful during emergency situations like shortage of cash, late night etc

5. Easy For Travelers
You can benefit from our International card if you are frequent traveler as it prevents hassles of foreign exchange.

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Mobile payment systems in Malaysia : Its potential & consumers' adoption strategies

Mobile Money is a PIN-based Mobile Payment Solution designed by Mobile Money International Sdn Bhd to address the limitations and bottlenecks created by cash, cheques and credit cards. It unlocks the power of the mobile phone to make payments, allowing registered users to pay for goods and services at anytime, anywhere using only a mobile phone coupled with a 6-digit security PIN (Personal Identification Number) via SMS (Short Messaging Service). This gives the freedom to shoppers to buy products online and pay the merchant using his/her mobile phone without being physically present at the store.

The mobile payment have high rate and potential to grow as consumption pattern for Malaysian with a population of 27 million and 25 million mobile phone subscribers(88% of the Malaysian). Bank Negara Malaysia Governor, Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz said there were immense opportunities to leverage on mobile phones to accelerate the migration to electronic payments, to widen the reach and appeal of electronic payment services, and to deliver innovative mobile payment products that offer speed and convenience at minimal cost for the public. To date, there are only 460,000 subscribers for mobile banking and payment services. This represents only 1.8 percent of the 25 million mobile phone subscribers in the country.

Mobile Phone Can Become Important Electronic Payment Channel, Says BNM. (2008, June). Retrieve June 3, 2008, from: http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsindex.php?id=337023


Maxis Launches Contactless Mobile Payment Service

Maxis Communications Bhd, in collaboration with Nokia, Visa, Maybank and Touch 'n Go, has launched Maxis FastTap, an integrated mobile payment service that utilises Near Field Communication (NFC) technology.

• Use Nokia 6216 Classic phones to purchase goods and services at more than 1,800 Visa payWave merchant locations as well as pay for toll, transit, parking and theme park charges at over 3,000 Touch 'n Go points nationwide
• Nokia 6216 Classic phone that is embedded with an NFC chip to enable secure, contactless payments and transactions, as well as to able to read and download information
• Mobile payments using NFC, a shot-range wireless technology that allows communications between devices at close range.
• 1st global commercial service using Visa payWave and on a Nokia mobile phone
• 1st commercial use in the world that features over-the-air personalisation of credit card information over a mobile service operator's network using the Trusted Service Manager interface

Maxis Launches Contactless Mobile Payment Service.(2009, April). Retrieve April 9, 2009 from

http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v5/news_lite.php?id=402896

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Credit Card Debts: Causes and Prevention

In Malaysia, the current credit card debt stood at RM24.4 billion on March 2009 itself which was relatively low compared with other regions while countries such as England is facing a credit card debt going into trillions of pounds.(Source:Mmail.com)

The question is what are the major causes of credit card debts? How can we prevent it from falling upon us? The answer to it will be explained next.

Top 5 causes of debt

1) Less income/Same expenses

For instants, the main breadwinner of the household loses his job but monthly expenses are not on par with the reduction in income. This obviously leads to a rise in debt. The family is forced to use their credit cards for groceries, utilities.

2) Poor money management

Not having a monthly spending plan and not keeping track of monthly bills makes you unaware of where your money is going. You might be spending hundreds of dollars every month towards items that are useless and yet you do not realize it.

3) Under-employment

If you are underemployed meaning you are not getting enough working hours at your job, you should also cut down on your lifestyle to match your current income. Live within your means.

4) Hoping to win the lottery

Most people hope to win the lottery but the chances of that happening are 0%. Do not spend tomorrow's saved money today just because you expect a promotion in your job or are expecting an inheritance from a deceased grandfather. We all know things can go wrong more easily than going right.

5) Huge medical expenses

The cost of obtaining cures and medicine is increasing every year. Almost all doctors accept credit cards here in Malaysia. While you need treatment now, you do not have the cash. So what do you do? You use your credit card because you do not have enough savings in the bank.(#point 2)


Credit cards are not evil and in many cases having a credit card is very necessary. Some people just need solid credit card debt management advice in order to keep everything under control. Hence, here are the guidelines.


1) Stop accruing more debt

The more you continue to spend, the longer it will take for you to pay it off. Reduce your spending. If you have high interest credit cards, transfer the balance to ones with a lower APR. That way your debt won’t increase while as you’re paying it off.

2) Increase your income

If your current salary isn’t enough to cover the payments on your debt, get a second job. Even a few hours a week can make a huge difference. Look for flexible freelance work that will fit around the rest of your life.

3) Change your spending philosophy

Are you only buying the things you really need? Those impulse purchases may feel good at the moment, but in the long run, they will only get you further into debt. If you’re going to get out of debt, you will need to change your whole attitude to spending.

4) Make a budget and stick to it

It easy to overspend when you don’t have a budget. Calculate how much you have to spend and stick to that limit. Write down all of your expenses so you know where your money is going.


Video: How to create a Do-able budget



5) Set up an emergency fund

When you’re in debt, it’s hard to think about putting something aside for a rainy day. Every day feels like a downpour. But it’s crucial to have even a small emergency fund. Just make sure you don’t tap into it unless it’s truly an emergency.


Video: How to get out from Under Your Credit Card Debt


(Sources:
www.3debtconsolidation.com
www.ezinearticles.com
www.linkroll.com
www.bankrate.com
www.youtube.com)

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