Purpose This research aims to examine the factors that may hinder or enable the adoption of e-learning systems by university students. Design/methodology/approach A conceptual framework was developed through extending the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (performance expectancy, effort expectancy, hedonic motivation, habit, social influence, price value and facilitating conditions) by incorporating two additional factors, namely, trust and self-efficacy. Data were collected from students at two universities in England using a cross-sectional questionnaire survey between January and March 2015. Findings The results showed that behavioral intention (BI) was significantly influenced by performance expectancy, social influence, habit, hedonic motivation, self-efficacy, effort expectancy and trust, in their order of influencing the strength and explained 70.6 per cent of the variance in behavioral intention. Contrary to expectations, facilitating conditions and price value did not have an influence on behavioral intention. Originality/value The aforementioned factors are considered critical in explaining technology adoption but, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, there has been no study in which all these factors were modeled together. Therefore, this study will contribute to the literature related to social networking adoption by integrating all these variables and the first to be tested in the UK universities.

This study seeks to explore the factors that influence students' usage behaviour of e-learning systems. Based on the strong theoretical foundation of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) and using structural equation modeling (SEM) via AMOS 21.0, this research paper examines the impact of performance expectancy, effort expectancy, hedonic motivation, habit, social influence, and trust on student's behavioural intention, which is later examined along with facilitating conditions on student's usage behaviour of e-learning systems. Data was collected from students at two universities in Beirut (capital of Lebanon) using a cross-sectional questionnaire survey between January and March 2015. The results revealed direct positive effect of performance expectancy, hedonic motivation, habit, and trust on student's behavioural intention to use e-learning explaining around 71% of overall behavioural intention. Meanwhile, behavioural intention and facilitating conditions accounted for 40% with strong positive effects on student's usage behviour of e-learning systems. However, both effort expectancy and social influence did not impact student's behavioural intention.

Computer Based Assessment (CBA) is being a very popular method to evaluate students' performance at the university level. This research aims to examine the constructs that affect students' intention to use the CBA. The proposed model is based on previous technology models such as Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), and Unified Theory of Acceptance and Usage of Technology (TAUT). The proposed CBA model is based on nine variables: Goal Expectancy, Social Influence, Facilitating Conditions, Computer Self Efficacy, Content, Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, Perceived Playfulness, and Behavioral Intention. Data were collected using a survey questionnaire from 546 participants who had used the computer based exam system at the University of Jordan. Results indicate that Perceived Playfulness has a direct effect on CBA use. Perceived Ease of Use, Perceived Usefulness, Computer Self Efficacy, Social Influence, Facilitating Conditions, Content and Goal Expectancy have only indirect effects. The study concludes that a system is more likely to be used by students if it is playful and CBA is more likely to be playful when it is easy to use and useful. Finally, the studied acceptance model for computer based assessment explains approximately only 10% of the variance of behavioral intention to use CBA.

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Software industry is realized as one key opportunity for socio-economic development, especially for developing countries. Human Capital heavily plays a critical role in such knowledge-based sectors as software. This paper describes and analyzes the role of human capital in the development of Jordan software industry between 1980's and 2005. In doing so, different roles in software industry are identified, described and analyzed. The study suggests that the existence of some levels of professional, technical and ICT graduates, will not guarantee the development of the sector. Quality, proper utilization, collaboration and policy coherency of Human Capital is needed for software sector development. Moreover, we argue that challenges such as Diaspora can have a positive impact through technology transfer and entrepreneurship as the Indian case suggests.Keywords: Human capital, Economic development, Software industry IntroductionSoftware industry is seen as an opportunity for economic growth especially for developing countries (Nicholson and Sahay, 2008). The successful case of India and Ireland provide sufficient evidence of software industry role as a major economic growth engine (Baraya et.al 2008). The huge advancement in telecommunication technologies and internationalization of business process where key factors that leads to the globalization of software industry. Countries with low-cost qualified human capital, fine telecommunication infrastructure, and supporting national polices became the ones who benefited most of this globalization and thus had the impressive payback on exports and economic development (Jones 1994, Heeks 1999, Arora et.al 2001. Software industry is not a "solo industry", but rather a vehicle for industrial development. In fact, software industry is more than just "another industry-it is a central intermediate good in the new digital economy" and its function became not less important than the role played by any other production factors (Athreye 2003). As economies are turning to more knowledge-based industries, many products require embedded software and more competitive e-businesses will require more effective software (Hoch et al. 1999).However, software industry is based intensively on Human Capital (HR) "more than any other high-tech Industry" (Arora and Bagde 2010). In fact, the existence of skilled and professional human capital in software industry is widely acknowledged as the most important element in the success of the software industry (Lakha 1994). Yet, the presence of human capital does not guarantee the quality and many other factors are needed to trigger software industry development.For a country with limited resources (expect for human capital), Jordan had allocated notable effort to join the software industry exporters club. Although Jordan has realized a notable advancement in key factors supporting software industry development such as education, intellectual property rights (IPR) and telecommunication infrastructure, software industry outputs as are still re...