The Future of Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) in the Era of eLearning

In the dawn of the 21st century and the coming of age of the ICT powered by the ever increasing access to Internet that blurs the digital divide of yesteryears is quickly manifesting itself in the educational sub-sector. This combined with the experiential society with its high taste for everything digital is driving new way to acquire knowledge. Innovation and creativity are another aspect of education that is driven by the forth coming fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) – first came the steam and water power; then electricity and assembly lines; then computerization or digital era. The Industry 4.0 represents the combination of cyber-physical systems, the Internet of Things (IoT), and the Internet of Systems (IoS). That is now completely disrupting the over the century benign higher education sector, which is now facing severe challenges brought about with the disruptive nature of web-based learning, the e-Learning. Today, there is tremendous clamor to shift from the traditional classroom-based teaching and learning to focus on novel ICT powered digital delivery methods. The e-Learning technologies are used as part of a blended learning approach, in which case the learning takes place in the classroom / laboratory and the learning management system (LMS) is used simply as a means of communication with the students. Alternatively, one can implement a fully e-Learning infrastructure; where the LMS is used to manage both classroom and labs. However, in many cases most users of e-Learning technology use the LMS merely to store their lecture notes in the form of pdf or PPTs, while others use it for discussion forums and assignment drop-in - a task that can be achieved very easily using a standard website; and of late the major disrupter, the MOOCs.