the barriers of e-learning implementation in medical sciences domain and provided the necessary solutions

the barriers of e-learning implementation in medical sciences domain and provided the necessary solutions     rahimi b [1] , jebraeily m [2] , mehdi oghli r [3] , rashidi a [4] , masomi r [5]     received: 14 apr , 2013 accepted: 20 jun , 2013   abstract   background & aims : in today's world , e-learning as a knowledge acquisition tool have been developed and changed in a rapidly expanded ways . in recent years , the use of online technologies in education , provided opportunities for new ways of learning as well as effective methods of training. due to the potentialities of e-learning, its utilization in medical education was taken into serious consideration. but the implementation of e-learning associated with the barriers. the objective of this research is to identify these barriers and to provide appropriate solutions.   materials & methods : this study has two parts . in the first step, through the literature reviewing, barriers and their related solution s of previous studies with regard to the e-learning have been extracted. in the second phase, through cross-sectional descriptive study with randomized cluster sampling, we gathered data from administrators, faculty members, and students of urmia university of medical sciences through semi-structured interview .   results: the main barriers of implementing e-learning according to the priorities of the respondents included: lack of technical infrastructure, the lack of appropriate attitude and knowledge, the lack of management roadmap. the proposed solutions includes: determining e-learning project’s goals, providing technical tools, reengineering of its related process, cooperation of it and education professionals .   conclusion: according to the results , it seems necessary to provide infrastructure hardware , software and network devices. in addition, educational administrators , teachers and students should have the right attitude toward this knowledge according to the its characteristics , objectives , and benefits.   key words: e-learning, barriers to implementation, solutions, urmia university of medical sciences     address: urmia university of medical sciences, urmia, iran   tel: (+98) 4412234897   email: [email protected]   [1] associated professor, medical faculty, urmia university of medical sciences (corresponding author)   [2] phd student of health information management, paramedical faculty, tehran university of medical sciences   [3] general practice, medical faculty, urmia university of medical sciences   [4] associated professor, medical faculty, urmia university of medical sciences   [5] phd student of medical education, medical faculty, tehran university of medical sciences