Junali Sahoo
Research Scholar,
School of Development Studies,
IIHMR University, Jaipur,
Rajasthan, India
sahoo.junali@gmail.com
Hemanta Kumar Mishra
Assistant Professor,
School of Development Studies,
IIHMR University, Jaipur,
Rajasthan, India
hemant@iihmr.edu.in
Lokesh Vijayvargy
Professor,
Jaipuria Institute of Management,
Jaipur, Rajasthan, India
lokesh.vijayvargy@jaipuria.ac.in
Education has been mostly impacted in recent times due to progressive communication and technological advancement. However, with technology advancement, E-leaning in India has not been researched much and gaps are continued to be a barrier in e-learning. This paper examined what need to be done to improve the e-learning in India. This bibliometric paper examines the e-learning research field in developing countries through PRISMA approach and carried out an analysis from 663 Scopus articles published in-between 1988-2022. It emphasizes publication trends, key research topics and influence of the papers in the market. Findings show that much research was not conducted till 2006 and the rigor increased after the pandemic. Analysis shows emphasis was on system development during these periods; however, the need was on curriculum development. Library Philosophy and Practice (LPP) has published maximum no. of articles post Covid-19, whereas papers published in Indira Gandhi National Open University get maximum citations. Kolekar, S.V., in 2020 is the most influential author and it concludes that more research needs to be done for collaboration on e-learning among different countries which could give a better result to the coming generations on how to inculcate learning through gaming. No such analysis has been made yet on e-learning research in context to India and the findings will assist the researchers to adopt the suggestions for improving e-learning.
Keywords: e-learning, ICT, MOOCs, Performance Analysis, Science Mapping, National Education Policy 2020.
The novel coronavirus (n-Cov) caused a worldwide pandemic in 2019, causing widespread disruption across many industries such as travel (Yadav & Mohsin Qureshi, 2021), manufacturing (Pradhan et al., 2020), agriculture (Cariappa et al., 2022), and education (Chaturvedi et al., 2021). Lack of resources and infrastructure has hampered education, particularly in rural regions. In response to these challenges, e-learning and other forms of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) have emerged as a crucial solution. Hence, students made a smooth transition to digital platforms, hastening the move to online education (Nayak et al., 2022) with access to high-quality instruction whenever and wherever required.
Like other countries, the Indian government launched novel initiatives despite unpreparedness using its e-learning infrastructure to promote online education, including Study Webs of Active-learning for Young Aspiring Minds (SWAYAM) and focus on e-learning resources for school children, particularly in rural regions (Sengupta, 2022), while private sector thrived with Diksha, Byju's, and Unacademy.
Technology's centralization and growth are crucial for modern tutoring and learning. Due to its popularity, educators at all levels are using technology more. However, differentiating difficulties remains a challenge. Differentiating Information Technology (IT) from ICT is difficult (Suleiman et al., 2020), as ICT involves communication and information exchange, supported by smartphones and strong internet connections. This development offers integrated ICT ways to improve teacher training and quality.
The NEP 2020 (National Education Policy) provides comprehensive education to support 'self-reliance campaign' by incorporating UN SDGs 4 (Sustainable Development Goals). NEP 2020's focus on transdisciplinary learning, lifelong education, and curricular improvements promoting quality and employment opportunities (Muralidharan et al., 2022), making India more competent and knowledgeable. However, none of the authors have highlighted the use of e-learning in India with respect to education. By keeping this key gap in view, the current paper addresses two key Research Questions (RQs) through systematic literature review, referring PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) protocol and the article’s structure includes methodology, findings, conclusions and limitations:
RQ1: What is the latest e-learning publication trends within India and the articles that influence the market along with the most influential authors?
RQ2: What are the most explored areas of e-learning?
Data was retrieved on July 18, 2022 conducting the search (combination of article titles, abstracts and keywords in Scopus) with words: (“e-Learning”) OR (“online education”) OR (“online classes”) OR (“virtual education”) OR (“virtual learning”) OR (“learning online”) OR (“web-based learning”) OR (“tele-education”) OR (“distance education”) OR (“distance learning”) OR (“e-education”) leading to 1,38,632 documents, requiring additional filtration in two stages as shown in Figure 1. Out of this, inclusion and exclusion criteria and data extraction uncover 663 relevant research articles for the study. Bibliometric and Social network analysis (Donthu et al., 2021) were conducted to show the overall shape and major themes of the research area which researcher use to draw a map of e-learning research landscape and identify research trends to drive e-learning development.
Further, the study uses “Performance Analysis”, a bibliometric strategy for cataloguing and analyzing scholarly literature to answer RQ1. Data set of 663 articles was exported as ".csv" and ".bib" files for use in VOSviewer and Biblioshiny software. "Science Mapping", (bibliometric method) depicting intellectual structure through RQ2 via thematic evolution mapping, keyword co-occurrence, and clustering which effectively showing research patterns and hidden themes were conducted.
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RQ1
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RQ2
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Research Question Formulation |
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Inclusion First Stage Filtration: · Subject Area: Social Sciences (56,970) · Document Type: Article (28,369) · Publication Stage: Final (27,548) · Source Type: Journal (27,276) · Language: English (25,818)
Second Stage Filtration: · Country: India (663) |
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Exclusion
· Subject areas: Computer Science, Business, Management and Accounting, Medicine, Mathematics, Engineering, Others · Document Type: Conference Papers, Book Chapter, Conference Review, Book, Editorial · Publication stage: Article in Press · Source Type: Conference Proceedings, Book Series, Trade Journals · Language: German, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic, Italian · Country: USA, UK, Spain, Australia, Germany, China, Italy, Ireland, Malaysia, Austria, Greece, Portugal, Others |
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Screening Strategy · Reading Titles, Abstracts, and Results · Articles relevant and focusing on our Research Questions · Studying the literature |
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RQ1: What is the latest e-learning publication trends within India and the articles that influence the market along with the most influential authors? RQ2: What are the most explored areas of e-learning? |
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Final Review Publications N=663 articles |
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Data Extraction |
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Performance Analysis: Annual Publication, Top Contributing Journals, Organizations, Articles & Authors |
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Database:Scopus Software: · Excel (.csv file) · VOSviewer (.csv file) · Biblioshiny (Bibliometrix on R-package (.bib file) |
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RQs |
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BibliometricMethodology |
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Tools |
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Science Mapping: Thematic Map, Keyword Co-occurrence & Keyword Clustering |
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Search Strategy Database: Scopus (1,38,632 Documents) Keywords: (“e-Learning”) OR (“online education”) OR (“online classes”) OR (“virtual education”) OR (“virtual learning”) OR (“learning online”) OR (“web-based learning”) OR (“tele-education”) OR (“distance education”) OR (“distance learning”) OR (“e-education”) |
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Figure 1. PRISMA Flow diagram of the study |
Using 663 articles, the study utilized performance analysis (Donthu et al., 2021) to answer RQ1 and identify how many articles were published in each year in the field of e-learning spotting the most prolific journals, organizations, authors, etc.
Figure 2 illustrates publication trend analysis of articles published in the study period. Research was scarce until 2006 and grown exponentially after 2007. Year 2021 peak in publication coincides with real-world difficulties and concerns after COVID-19. Between 2020 and 2021, topics including “MOOCs (Massive Open Online Course), Open and Distance Learning (ODL), Online tools, Student engagement, barriers, effectiveness of e-learning amongst the students of higher education, education policy, teachers’ mobile learning acceptance” were published. It highlights that researchers conducted more research on only the system development part of e-learning and not the curriculum of the courses given in e-learnings.
Figure 2. Annual distribution of articles between 1988 and 2022
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Year ® |
|
No. of Documents® |
As analyzed, total of 663 articles appear in 614 journals and Table 1 lists the top e-learning journals according to the number of articles published (1988-18 July, 2022). In the year 2020, Journal of Engineering Education Transformations (JEET), published 4 articles post Covid-19 (focusing on learning management systems, students engagement, e-learning tools, learner centered approach), followed by Library Philosophy and Practice (LPP) in 2021 publishing 27 articles (special attention to INFLIBNET, Online resources, teaching technologies, online learning platforms, digital resources, National Digital Library, Open educational resources, Moodle), and 5 articles were published in the year 2022 so far by JEET again (intensifying on active learning techniques for effective online teaching and learning, conducting online examinations and its challenges, and utilization of ICT tools for enhancing teaching learning activity). Moreover, it reflects that the journal TOJDE who published more article on e-learning has stopped publishing in post-pandemic criteria, irrespective of its need.
Table 1. Top Publishing Journals (Yearly Basis)
|
Code |
Journal |
Publishers |
No. of Articles |
Frequency Distribution of Publications |
|||||||
|
<2016 |
2016 |
2017 |
2018 |
2019 |
2020 |
2021 |
2022 |
||||
|
TOJDE |
Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education |
Anadolu Universities |
53 |
47 |
1 |
1 |
3 |
1 |
- |
- |
- |
|
LPP |
Library Philosophy and Practice |
University of Idaho Library |
49 |
3 |
- |
- |
2 |
15 |
2 |
27 |
- |
|
JEET |
Journal of Engineering Education Transformations |
Rajarambapu Institute of Technology |
34 |
- |
- |
- |
5 |
2 |
4 |
18 |
5 |
|
EAT |
Education and Information Technologies |
Kluwer Academic Publishers |
31 |
1 |
4 |
3 |
3 |
6 |
3 |
9 |
2 |
|
IJETL |
International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning |
Kassel University Press |
25 |
5 |
1 |
5 |
- |
- |
1 |
10 |
3 |
Table 2 outlines the top 10 organizations based on descending total citations and yearly distribution for 591 articles by a total of 60 organizations. Indira Gandhi National Open University leads with 49 citations in 2020, addressing retention, administrative support, open educational resources, teacher readiness, and more, followed by Jawaharlal Nehru University (156 citations) in 2021, focusing on digitization challenges and mental health. In 2022, it amassed 111 citations on UTAUT model, distance education barriers, anxiety effects, and parental support, revealing a need for K-12 e-learning research's comprehensive accessibility, curriculum, and effectiveness for Rurban students.
Table 2. Top Organizations Contributing towards e-Learning (Yearly Basis)
|
Organization |
Total Publications |
H-index |
Total Citations |
Citation Distribution of Organizations |
|||||
|
<2018 |
2018 |
2019 |
2020 |
2021 |
2022 |
||||
|
Indira Gandhi National Open University (New Delhi) |
66 |
10 |
455 |
215 |
48 |
34 |
49 |
67 |
42 |
|
Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi) |
5 |
4 |
350 |
16 |
8 |
18 |
41 |
156 |
111 |
|
Anna University (Chennai) |
13 |
7 |
217 |
106 |
18 |
24 |
22 |
34 |
13 |
|
Amrita University, Amritapuri Campus (Kerala) |
7 |
6 |
177 |
48 |
21 |
15 |
31 |
37 |
25 |
|
University of Delhi (New Delhi) |
13 |
4 |
125 |
3 |
- |
5 |
13 |
41 |
63 |
|
Chitkara University (Punjab) |
8 |
4 |
123 |
- |
- |
1 |
3 |
41 |
78 |
|
Manipal Academy of Higher Education (Manipal) |
13 |
5 |
120 |
- |
8 |
5 |
26 |
45 |
36 |
|
Vellore Institute of Technology (Vellore) |
15 |
4 |
103 |
9 |
4 |
2 |
19 |
29 |
40 |
|
Amity University (Noida, Uttar Pradesh, Kolkata) |
10 |
5 |
94 |
16 |
10 |
10 |
13 |
24 |
21 |
|
Jamia Millia Islamia (New Delhi) |
6 |
3 |
87 |
- |
- |
- |
2 |
45 |
40 |
Table 3 presents top 10 globally cited articles on e-learning. Post Covid-19, researchers focused on how students felt about the transition to online education, how they performed academically, how much they liked the programme, how emotionally intelligent and depressed they were. Webinars, online team building, remote work, and skill training modules all gained popularity as methods for engaging employees.
Table 3. Top Contributing Articles as per number of citations
|
Article |
Authors |
Total Citations |
|
“Online teaching-learning in higher education during lockdown period of COVID-19 pandemic” |
Mishra et al., 2020 |
394 |
|
“Impact of lockdown on learning status of undergraduate and postgraduate students during COVID-19 pandemic in West Bengal, India” |
Kapasia et al., 2020 |
214 |
|
“e-Learning in a Mega Open University: Faculty attitude, barriers and motivators” |
Panda & Mishra, 2007 |
113 |
|
“COVID-19 and its impact on education, social life and mental health of students: A Survey” |
Chaturvedi et al., 2021 |
103 |
|
“Prioritization of online instructor roles: Implications for competency-based teacher education programs” |
Bhawane & Spector, 2009 |
100 |
|
“Structural equation model (SEM)- neural network (NN) model for predicting quality determinants of e-learning management systems” |
Sharma et al., 2017 |
73 |
|
“A new approach to personalization: Integrating e-learning and m-learning” |
Nedungadi & Raman, 2012 |
73 |
|
“Performance analysis of mobile agent failure recovery in e-service applications” |
Venkatesan et al., 2010 |
66 |
|
“Opinion of students on online education during the COVID-19 pandemic” |
Chakraborty et al., 2021 |
62 |
|
“Quality assurance in distance education: the challenges to be addressed” |
Stella & Gnanam, 2004 |
62 |
|
“Emerging themes in e-learning: A review from the stakeholders' perspective” |
Choudhury & Pattnaik, 2020 |
61 |
|
“Review of ontology-based recommender systems in e-learning” |
George & Lal, 2019 |
59 |
Table 4 shows the most influential authors who assist the growth of e-learning research in India, with their dominance as first authors. Scopus revealed 159 authors publishing 380 articles and the top three authors as per number of documents published were Kolekar, S.V., in 2020, planned to implement an innovative, indigenous, and in-built browser extension to collect the usage characteristics of the learner and evaluate the learning behavior in order to determine the students’ preferred learning style by interacting with the MOOCs. In 2021, since the e-learning systems are becoming popular amongst students and educators due to its portability in terms of location, time and other resources, and since educational institutions are constantly revising their policies in an effort to boost their students’ academic performance, the author in his study explains how a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) approach can help to reduce the cost and time to develop the e-learning systems. Furthermore, authenticating and assessing students’ emotional behavior using the bioinformatics to be a challenging task for researchers and academicians has been identified by both the authors i.e., Khamparia, A. and Pandey, B. in the year 2020, as some of the problems like developing educational games for teaching with involvement of robotics seems to be challenging in the e-learning.
Table 4. Top Publishing Authors Contributing to e-Learning
|
Author |
No. of Documents |
First Author |
Dominance Index* |
Total Citations |
TC/ND |
Publication Information (Year/Journal) |
|||||
|
Kolekar, S. V |
6 |
4 |
0.67 |
77 |
12.83 |
2016/IJKL |
2017/ASL |
2017/IJETL |
2019/EIT |
2020/IJETL |
2021/IJETL |
|
Panda, S. |
6 |
2 |
0.33 |
156 |
26.00 |
2007/EMI |
2012/TOJDE |
2013/IJI |
2013/EMI |
2014/BJET |
2017/IRRODL |
|
Khamparia, A. |
5 |
5 |
1.00 |
82 |
16.40 |
2015/IJTEL |
2017/EIT |
2017/IJTEL |
2018/IJWLTT |
2020/EIT |
|
|
Pandey, B. |
5 |
0 |
0.00 |
83 |
16.60 |
2015/IJTEL |
2017/EIT |
2017/ IJTEL |
2018/IJWLTT |
2020/EIT |
|
|
Sabitha, A.S. |
5 |
4 |
0.80 |
39 |
7.80 |
2015/EJEL |
2016/ IJTEL |
2016/EIT |
2017/EIT |
2019/EIT |
|
|
Bansal, A. |
4 |
0 |
0.00 |
27 |
6.75 |
2015/EJEL |
2016/IJETL |
2016/EIT |
2017/EIT |
|
|
|
Geetha, T.V. |
4 |
0 |
0.00 |
92 |
23.00 |
2012/IJMSO |
2012/IJDET |
2015/AIR |
2016/ILE |
|
|
|
Ghosh, C.K. |
4 |
0 |
0.00 |
4 |
1.00 |
2013/TOJDE |
2013/TOJDE |
2013/TOJDE |
2014/JHV |
|
|
|
Jeevan, V.K.J. |
4 |
1 |
0.25 |
10 |
2.50 |
2002/STL |
2008/SR |
2008/SR |
2012/JERL |
|
|
|
Kant, N. |
4 |
3 |
0.75 |
11 |
2.75 |
2019/TOJDE |
2020/AAOUJ |
2020/AAOUJ |
2021/AAOUJ |
|
|
|
Khanna, P. |
4 |
4 |
1.00 |
22 |
5.50 |
2011/TOJDE |
2013/IRRODL |
2017/OL |
2019/EIT |
|
|
|
Mehrotra, D. |
4 |
0 |
0.00 |
27 |
6.75 |
2015/EJEL |
2016/IJETL |
2016/EIT |
2017/EIT |
|
|
|
Pai, R.M. |
4 |
0 |
0.00 |
71 |
17.75 |
2016/IJKL |
2017/ASL |
2017/IJETL |
2019/EIT |
|
|
|
Sharma, R.C. |
4 |
1 |
0.25 |
13 |
3.25 |
2005/OL |
2021/S(S) |
2022/S(S) |
2022/S(S) |
|
|
|
Zachariah, A. |
4 |
0 |
0.00 |
30 |
7.50 |
2010/DE |
2011/MT |
2012/EHCLP |
2017/EHCLP |
|
|
*Author’s Dominance Index calculated as: No. of Research Articles as First Author/No. of Multi-Authored Research Articles and TC/ND=Total Citations/No. of Documents.
IJKL=International Journal of Knowledge and Learning, ASL=Advanced Science Letters, IJETL=International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning, EIT=Education and Information Technologies,EMI=Educational Media International, TOJDE=Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education, IJI=International Journal of Instruction, BJET=British Journal of Educational Technology, IRRODL=International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, IJTEL=International Journal of Technology Enhanced Learning, IJWLTT=International Journal of Web-Based Learning and Teaching Technologies, EJEL=Electronic Journal of E Learning,IJMSO=International Journal of Metadata, Semantics and Ontologies, AIR=Artificial Intelligence Review, ILE=Interactive Learning Environments, JHV=Journal of Human Values, STL=Science and Technology Libraries, SR=Serials Review, JERL=Journal of Electronic Resources Librarianship, AAOUJ=Asian Association of Open Universities Journal, OL=Open Learning, S(S)=Sustainability (Switzerland), DE=Distance Education, MT=Medical Teacher, EHCLP=Education for Health: Change in Learning and Practice.
Science Mapping
This section is dedicated to mapping of available research articles on e-learning in an effort to understand the intellectual and structural connections within research components such as journals, institutions, authors, countries, authors’ keywords and, articles, (Baker et al., 2021).The keyword co-occurrence and keyword clustering when amalgamated with network analysis facilitate to reveal bibliometric and scholarly composition of the topic to answer RQ 2.
Biblioshiny (a Bibliometrix software) is used to conduct a network-based thematic map analysis of RQ2 to determine current state and sustainability. In this approach, Leading Eigenvalues clustering algorithm, thematic analysis is conducted by considering authors’ keywords as a cluster and its interconnections. Thematically these are characterized by features named Density (represented in vertical axis) and Centrality (represented in horizontal axis) (Esfahani et al., 2019). The greater the number of relations received on a node with other thematic areas, higher is the importance and centrality. Similarly, cohesiveness, a similar kind of property of density if found on a node, delineates the capacity to develop and sustain itself.
Figure 3, illustrates the thematic map in e-learning, categorizing into four quadrants along with their rank centrality and density (calculated by the software): Q1 (Motor Theme)- represent well conceptualized and important for arranging an investigated theme such as “e-learning, moocs, swayam, internet, mobile learning, classification, decision tree, e-resources, online courses, social media, distance education, online education, online learning, distance learning, and online teaching” labelled as e-learning in Cluster 1, Q2 (Niche Theme)- represents the specialized themes includes “artificial intelligence” (cluster 8), and “collaborative learning” (cluster 9), Q3 (Emerging/Declining Theme)- represents the evolving or deteriorating themes, as seen in figure 2 the “open and distance learning” along with “curriculum” are the well-developed and need more efforts to be researched, and Q4 (Basic Theme)- represents the basic and important themes for development in the research field includes the cluster 2, 4 and 5 “covid-19, India, higher education, students, online classes, pandemic, pedagogy, blended learning, medical education, lockdown, assessment, covid-19 pandemic, ignou, perception, effectiveness, ict, virtual learning, engineering education and data mining”. Specifically, “covid-19, India, and higher education” remains the leading themes within the field followed by “e-learning, moocs, and swayam”. This implies India’s higher education department prioritizes MOOCs and SWAYAM and not in primary and secondary e-
|
Figure 3. Thematic Map of e-learning research |
learning education.
To deconstruct the conceptual framework of e-learning topic, this study uses VOSviewer’s co-occurrence analysis of keywords to create a visual depiction of network between the keywords or topics that occurred at least 5 times in the articles. In figure 4, every single keyword represented a node, with (1) size of the node illustrating frequency of that topic/keyword, i.e. greater its occurrences, the larger its node is, (2) thickness of the link between two nodes shows how often two keywords appear together in that link, (3) colors of the keywords indicate the clusters i.e. sharing a common theme (Donthu et al., 2021). The incidences and total established strength between keywords has been listed in the Table 5, indicating “e-learning”, “covid-19”, “online education”, “online learning” and “India” to be the frequently occurring keywords with strongest link strength, thus highlighting their importance in the e-learning research associated to Indian context, along with Table 5(a) representing the triangulation of clusters obtained from keyword co-occurrences.
Cluster 1 (red) comprises keywords “online learning” (n=36), “India” (n=35), “higher education” (n=30), “distance learning” (n=29), “open and distance learning” (n=16), “engineering education” (n=10) and “ignou” (n=8). In this regard, the theme of this cluster can be broadly assigned as “Promoting higher education with IGNOU in India via open and distance learning systems”.
Cluster 2 (green) involve keywords “e-learning” (n=168), “ontology” (n=15), “pedagogy” (n=13), “blended learning” (n=12), “assessment” (n=9), “moodle” (n=9) and “learning styles” (n=8). Thus, the theme for this cluster can be “Creating an effective e-learning pedagogy through blended learning strategy using moodle”.
Cluster 3 (blue) is made up of “covid-19” (n=68), “online education” (n=38), “online teaching” (n=19), “pandemic” (n=13), “medical education” (n=12), “lockdown” (n=10) and “perception” (n=8). Thus, in this regard the theme for this cluster stands to be “Perception about online education and teaching of medical education during Covid-19 and lockdown”.
In the similar fashion Cluster 4 (yellow) incorporates “ict” (n=20), “students” (n=15), “moocs” (n=15), “mobile learning” (n=10), “machine learning” (n=8). Hence, theme for this cluster can be “Potential of e-learning to the students utilizing ict and machine learning by adopting moocs".
Cluster 5 (purple) includes “online classes” (n=13), “internet” (n=10), and “COVID-19” (n=9), depicting “Leveraging online classes during Covid-19 pandemic utilizing the internet”.
And lastly, Cluster 6 (light blue) involves “distance education” (n=42), “education” (n=28), and “learning” (n=14), forming the theme “Distance education: a guide to learning”.
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Figure 4. Network Visualization of e-learning research |
Table 5. Major keywords from keyword co-occurrence of e-learning research
|
Keywords |
Occurrences |
Total Link Strength |
Cluster No. |
Keywords |
Occurrences |
Total Link Strength |
Cluster No. |
|
e-learning |
168 |
140 |
2 |
lockdown |
10 |
20 |
3 |
|
covid-19 |
68 |
106 |
3 |
internet |
10 |
17 |
5 |
|
online education |
38 |
63 |
3 |
assessment |
9 |
15 |
2 |
|
online learning |
36 |
63 |
1 |
learning |
14 |
12 |
6 |
|
India |
35 |
55 |
1 |
perception |
8 |
12 |
3 |
|
distance education |
42 |
45 |
6 |
mobile learning |
10 |
11 |
4 |
|
higher education |
30 |
43 |
1 |
ontology |
15 |
10 |
2 |
|
education |
28 |
40 |
6 |
blended learning |
12 |
10 |
2 |
|
pandemic |
13 |
28 |
3 |
online classes |
13 |
9 |
5 |
|
distance learning |
29 |
27 |
1 |
moodle |
9 |
9 |
2 |
|
online teaching |
19 |
27 |
3 |
ignou |
8 |
9 |
1 |
|
students |
15 |
26 |
4 |
covid-19 pandemic |
9 |
8 |
5 |
|
Ict |
20 |
24 |
4 |
open and distance learning |
16 |
7 |
1 |
|
Moocs |
15 |
21 |
4 |
learning styles |
8 |
6 |
2 |
|
pedagogy |
13 |
21 |
2 |
engineering education |
10 |
5 |
1 |
|
medical education |
12 |
21 |
3 |
machine learning |
8 |
4 |
4 |
Table 5 (a). Triangulation of clusters from keyword co-occurrences
|
Cluster |
Keywords |
Themes |
|
1. |
distance learning, engineering education, higher education, ignou, India, online learning, open and distance learning |
Promoting higher education with ignou in India via open and distance learning systems |
|
2. |
assessment, blended learning, e-learning, learning styles, moodle, ontology, pedagogy |
Creating an effective e-learning pedagogy through blended learning strategy using moodle |
|
3. |
covid-19, lockdown, medical education, online education, online teaching, pandemic, perception |
Perception on online education/online teaching of medical education during Covid-19 and lockdown |
|
4. |
ict, machine learning, mobile learning, moocs, students |
Potential of e-learning to the students utilizing ict and machine learning by adopting moocs |
|
5. |
covid-19 pandemic, online classes, internet |
Leveraging online classes during Covid-19 pandemic utilizing the internet |
|
6. |
distance education, education, learning |
Distance education: A guide to learning |
Keyword clustering is used to examine inter-relationships between cited works, therefore illuminating temporal or current evolution of topics in the research field through Biblioshiny. This method is based on the idea that articles having common references are likely to have same subject area and based on the thematic cluster formed from citation analysis (Donthu et al., 2020). With “impact” on x-axis and “centrality” on y-axis, a four-quadrant map as shown in Figure 5, generated information on various clusters along with articles within each cluster. The analysis demonstrated a total of 6 clusters emerging from a combination of highest cited articles post covid as listed in Table 6. The left quadrant on upper side indicates low centrality and high impact comprising 27 articles with their respective number of citations from Cluster 4. The left quadrant on bottom, reflects low centrality and low impact, containing 15 articles from Cluster 5 and 5 articles from Cluster 6, the right quadrant on bottom advocates high centrality and low impact/influence comprising Cluster 2 with 37 articles. Lastly, the right quadrant on upper represents high centrality and high impact as could be seen in Cluster 1 (n=105) and Cluster 3 (n=128). This means academicians advocates to explore the cluster 4 more as compared to cluster 6 which shows less work is done on distance learning or self-instruction, or multimedia or internet-based learning.
|
Figure 5. Bibliographic Coupling for e-learning research |
Table 6. Major themes from keywords clustering of e-learning research
|
Cluster |
Theme |
Prominent keywords (% of occurrences) |
Centrality |
Impact |
Article(s) |
Citations (Top 5 articles as per highest citations post Covid-19) |
|
1. |
Insights from COVID-19: Today’s lessons and tomorrow’s principles |
covid-19 (100%) online education (70.3%) online teaching (94.7%) |
0.1993 |
5.4150 |
105 |
Mishra et al., 2020 (443); Kapasia et al., 2020 (237); Chaturvedi et al., 2021 (121); Chakraborty et al., 2021 (73); Gopal et al., 2021 (66). |
|
2. |
India’s distance education: Learning anytime-anywhere |
distance education (95.2%) India (80%) distance learning (93.1%) |
0.1273 |
2.2861 |
37 |
Khan et al., 2021 (58); Singh et al., 2021 (23); Selvaraj et al., 2021 (22); Mohan et al., 2021 (19); Khan, Kamal et al., 2021 (13). |
|
3. |
Moodle: An e-learning system for education |
e-learning (83.1%) education (25%) moodle (66.7%) |
0.2819 |
3.0674 |
128 |
Kapasia et al., 2020 (235); Choudhury & Pattnaik, 2020 (65); Khan et al., 2021 (29); Pal & Patra, 2021 (29); Singh et al., 2021 (28); H.K. Singh et al., 2021 (22) |
|
4. |
Covid-19 pandemic: Ontology and Online classes |
online classes (66.7%) ontology (57.1%) covid-19 pandemic (66.7%) |
0.0794 |
2.6114 |
27 |
Singh et al., 2021 (22); Jeevamol & Renumol, 2021 (9); Stracke et al., 2022 (5); Kalita & Deka, 2020 (4); Nayak et al., 2022 (2); D.S.Mishra et al., 2021 (2); Kukreja et al., 2021 (2). |
|
5. |
Machine learning vs. Deep learning: Classification |
machine learning (75%) deep learning (100%) classification (57.1%) |
0.0667 |
1.8164 |
15 |
Ashwin & Guddeti, 2020 (11); Sathe & Adamuthe, 2021 (9); Indi et al., 2021 (6); Ramesh & Sanampudi, 2022 (5); Rajasoundraran et al., 2021 (5); Sahoo et al., 2021 (5). |
|
6. |
Digital learning: self-instruction/ web-based/ multimedia-based mode |
distance learning/ self-instruction (100%) internet/ web-based learning (100%) multimedia-based learning (100%) |
0.1197 |
1.2657 |
5 |
Tigaa & Sonawane, 2020 (15); Giri & Dutta, 2021 (9); Seshadri et al., 2020 (4); Jennifer & Lipin, 2020 (2) |
Covid-19 emphasizes need of widespread e-learning as a prerequisite for development. E-learning aims to be flexible, interactive and immersive in time, location, pace, participation, and access. Post pandemic challenges included poor internet quality, lack of ICT knowledge, low parental income, less educated mothers, and a limited number of rooms for online classes. The Government of India has taken steps to overcome the situation and reduce the digital divide to provide compulsory education to all. As students regularly use MOOCs platform, every MOOCs (SWAYAM and Coursera) designer must analysis and evaluate users’ sentiments, ratings and feedback to improve users’ requirement and bringing better understanding on the issues by removing bugs and introducing some additional features such as study games to develop clarity.
Research demonstrates that MOOCs help both students and teachers at State Universities, but female students are less likely to enroll and complete MOOCs courses due to unawareness and inadequate infrastructure. ICT usage inability is the main reason students don’t utilize MOOCs. Lack of physical interaction with instructor is also viewed as a constraint in understanding topic/course via MOOCs.
The third NEP, agreed by the Union Cabinet on July 29, 2020, recognizes and strives for universal access and equality from prior educational programmes after 34 years. The policy ensures quality, honesty and equity in education to reduce inequalities. Special education zones should be created in places with large number of socioeconomically and educationally disadvantaged students. Enhanced teamwork and e-learning may assist these zones execute all initiatives and policies. As revealed from the study, curriculum development for both rural as well as urban students, fee structure, easy accessibility to the resource at village level, partnership with corporates need to be considered. It further recommends research on international collaboration on e-learning to better guide future researchers on how to use gamification and robotics.
The study used Scopus data and included publications by Indian authors and findings could only be used to design e-learning solutions in developing countries. Additional research is required to compare solutions from developed countries to overcome policy gaps and contribute to system’s strengthening.
This paper aimed to highlight future research work required to be done in e-learning in developing countries and is a noble research work conducted by the authors. The authors did not receive any funding for the study and anticipate policymakers and educators to utilize the results to develop new e-learning policies. The dataset used for this paper is available with the paper.
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