Impact, Successes, Challenges and Recommendations: A Multinational
e-Learning Partnership and Initiative
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted education systems worldwide, requiring
many higher education institutions (HEIs) to make immediate shifts
towards online course and program delivery. While leaders simultaneously
sought innovative solutions, many lacked the infrastructure to make such
time-sensitive and resource-intensive changes. With substantive
foundation funding, one private university in Africa partnered with one
public university in the United States of America (USA) and co-designed
and co-implemented an e-Learning initiative to deliver high-quality,
inclusive e-Learning. Using a participatory evaluation approach and an
evaluation framework that accounts for structural and institutional
inequities in education, researchers representing both universities also
co-examined this e-Learning initiative’s impacts, including its
successes and challenges, using survey instruments, interviews, and
focus groups. In this research paper, the authors provide some
background to contextualize the research project, present details on the
methodology used to conduct the research project and present the results
via four key themes: participants’ experiences, successes, challenges,
and implications and recommendations. The paper concludes with a
discussion on the key findings of the research project and how they
impact theory and practice in e-Learning.