825-830
Abstract—Higher education institutions have opted for
online teaching due to COVID-19 Pandemic as delivering
classes online was the only available option to continue their
teaching and learning activities. Higher education institutions
were found to be more dynamic during their utilization of
electronic platforms in delivering their activities and due to the
unclarity of COVID, it seems that online teaching and learning
will remain a crucial part of higher education due to its
flexibility, accessibility, and convenience. However, to
determine whether online teaching is the best choice for higher
education institutions, it’s imperative to shed some light on the
challenges and limitations of teaching online to enable
institutions in Oman to decide on the future of their teaching
and learning activities. Therefore, this study intends to examine
the limitations and challenges of online teaching in Oman. The
study data was collected by employing a questionnaire survey
and distributed to all higher education institutions in Oman. We
have received responses from a total of 25 higher education
institutions that have participated in the study of which 12 are
private universities representing 48%, 9 are public private
colleges accounting for 36%, and 4 are university colleges
accounting for 16%. The study revealed that the challenges
faced by HEIs were student participation and active
involvement, evaluation of performance, absenteeism, and
insufficient knowledge of the use of online tools, and
technologies both by instructors and students. Some of the
limitations identified in using technological tools for teaching
and learning were the efficiency of internet connectivity which
disrupts the teaching engagement, restricted access to some of
the technological tools, ineffective ways to gauge academic
integrity, and inability to exhibit the capabilities and skills of
learners.
Index Terms—Higher education, online teaching, Oman,
pandemic
The authors are with Modern College of Business and Economics, Muscat,
Oman.
*Correspondence: Hesham.magd@mcbs.edu.om (H.M.)
Cite: Hesham Magd* and Henry Jonathan, "Limitations and Challenges of Online Teaching at Higher Education Institutions in Oman," International Journal of Information and Education Technology vol. 13, no. 5, pp. 831-837, 2023.
Copyright © 2023 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).