Integrating Business Students’ E-Learning Preferences into Knowledge Management of Universities after the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic forced many universities to close doors and keep students completely online—a phenomenon that raised unprecedented challenges with lessons learned that should be integrated into future educational knowledge management strategies and practices. Special attention should be given to students’ learning habits. This paper presents the results of a semi-systematic literature review on the research problem and a survey of a sample of business students regarding their learning habits and preferences. Learnings of the research can be useful for the transition to an entirely online distance education, integrated in the framework of knowledge management strategies regarding e-learning in universities. The primary quantitative research was conducted before the start of the lockdown, and the results give useful insights that can be translated into mandatory elements for any strategy designed to assure a smooth and effective passage from in-class education to online teaching and learning. Students’ pre-epidemic learning habits, their use of communication tools and their preferences for solutions usable in distance education, with a special focus on gender and education level, have been investigated. Results are correlated in the paper with possible knowledge management strategies in universities as part of an approach with both academic and practical implications.

One Year of Online Education in COVID-19 Age, a Challenge for the Romanian Education System

“…Students appreciated the use of multimedia materials as very useful and beneficial for their training [24].…”

Adoption of Big Data Analytics and Its Impact on Organizational Performance in Higher Education Mediated by Knowledge Management

“…Knowledge is a valuable resource that contributes to better organizational performance, and it must be managed through processes of acquisition, dissemination, and use that require a precise understanding [10,11] in an environment in which a great amount of information is generated in digital channels [12]. Since the start of the new millennium, knowledge management (KM) processes have been affected by the arrival of the fourth industrial revolution, which has brought new forms of learning and knowledge creation, such as big data analytics (BDA) [11,13,14].…”

“…BDA allows them to model individual students' learning behaviors as well as those of the market [18]. In this way, BDA could enable academic and learning analytics to improve the quality of education or optimize the curriculum, or to identify students with a high probability of dropping out of a course before its completion and take personalized counseling actions [19][20][21], among other benefits of data-driven decision making [14][15][16][17]. In addition to BDA, KM processes become paramount when the goal of an organization is to react skillfully and strategically [22], but this requires generating dynamic capabilities.…”

E-Learning in Times Of COVID-19: Insights into Management and Communication Students’ Perspectives Throughout the Global Coronavirus Pandemic

“…While the overall transition to online learning was positive and opened new opportunities, it also caused challenges and difficulties linked to the sudden changes, such as mental health problems or digital inequality (Berghoff et al, 2021, Marczuk et al, 2021, Al-Kumaim et al, 2021, Pokhrel and Chhetri, 2021, Walwyn, 2020, Rashid & Yadav, 2020. Due to the Coronavirus pandemic a major push towards the digitalization of higher education was caused (Hargitai et al, 2021, Al-Kumaim et al, 2021. Although the concept of Online Learning is not new but started almost three decades ago, the transition to 100% Distance Learning was radically accelerated through COVID-19 (Hargitai et al, 2021, Kreulich et al, 2020.…”

“…Due to the Coronavirus pandemic a major push towards the digitalization of higher education was caused (Hargitai et al, 2021, Al-Kumaim et al, 2021. Although the concept of Online Learning is not new but started almost three decades ago, the transition to 100% Distance Learning was radically accelerated through COVID-19 (Hargitai et al, 2021, Kreulich et al, 2020. An overall increased need for digital competences could be observed, even if the implementation of Distance Learning varies greatly (Holzer et al, 2021, Farnell et al, 2021, Berghoff et al, 2021, Kreulich et al, 2020.…”