The Effective Adoption of ICT-Enabled Services in Educational Institutions – Key Issues and Policy Implications

Educational institutions are becoming increasingly aware of the need to fully integrate the ICT enabled modern educational services in order to supplement the traditional paradigm of teaching and learning with more efficient and effective practices. However in achieving their urge for technology adoption at a quicker pace, they often get overwhelmingly obsessed with the supply-side dynamics of technology diffusion; thus running a risk of ignoring the demand-driven dimensions of technology adoption. Due to the poor understanding of the user-context and not paying enough attention to the inherent challenges faced by the users in the adoption of new technological services, these institutions may not achieve the intended results in terms of the desired educational improvements. Such a linear or “technology-push” approach may lead to a waste of organizational resources, as well as causing an increasing frustration both among teachers and students. This paper investigates the patterns of adoption for two ICT-enabled educational services: Learning Management System and e-books. Mixed method research has been employed to study the adoption experiences of newly enrolled university students in the UAE. The research findings and discussions are deemed to be highly relevant and beneficial for students, teachers, parents, researchers, policy makers, and administrators of academic institutions alike