Managing the change during e-learning integration in higher education: a case study from Saudi Arabia

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) that are already familiar components in business environments are fi nding their way into education at all levels in many parts of the world. Such technologies, however, disrupt education (Christensen, Horn and Johnson, 2008; Bonk, Lee, Kim and Lin, 2010) as they require changes in the teaching approaches and structure of institutions (McPherson and Nunes, 2008). People, on the other hand, can resist change because it challenges them and drives them out of their comfort zone (Latchem and Jung, 2010). Therefore, managing the change during the transition phase is crucial (Kotter, 1996) and a challenging task for any leader (Tibi and McLeod, 2010). Universities experience such challenges during the transition from a traditional way of teaching to more e-learning-based teaching and learning, and this chapter has taken one Saudi Arabian university as a case study.