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This article promotes the use of Moodle as a suitable platform to support the postgraduate open and distance learning (ODL) courses offered by Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM). Many USIM postgraduate students who take obligatory courses (e.g., research methodology and data analysis) are taught at different venues to facilitate students' access to high education and enhance quality of lifelong learning. Managing this complex teaching network has called for the adaptation of Moodle platform. This approach meets two relevant requirements, (a) to ensure consistency, compliance, and quality of teaching, (b) to reduce educational costs, which largely depend on the number of peripheral venues for teaching activities. This article analyses the functionalities of Moodle platform and its use among USIM postgraduate students. The data was collected based on content analysis, one non-structured interview with the responsible of the Moodle from USIM and a questionnaire applied to 18 students. The results show that despite Moodle has a great potential, mainly used as a repository of materials. Moreover, students recognize the importance of the use of other functionalities of this platform in order to promote the success of the teaching and learning process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IRAQ once led all the Arab and Middle East countries in the use of the educational technologies as they started using the computers as CAL in 1986 and the closed circuit TV in universities in 1982. Nowadays, the higher education (HE) sector of Iraq has suffered severe disruption and mass destruction due to the war and in general only 10% of its remaining operational sectors are in the acceptable conditions. Apart from the infrastructure, the capability and capacity of human resource has become a serious challenge in the rebuilding of the country. This research is an attempt to plan a proposed strategy (PS) for the Iraqi higher education sector that can be executed easily in Iraq as part of the rebuilding of the country and critical sectors, especially education. Before designing the PS, a specially formulated questionnaire using Six-point Likert scale was distributed to 350 of Iraqi professors and universities academic staff; the results that was obtained showed that the problems faced in establishing such an eLearning network in the higher education sector included missing infrastructure, well trained staff, outside world help and the relevant budgets. A comprehensive eLearning strategy has been designed with models that were found through discovering the using of eLearning in one of the pioneers of distance education universities in Asia; the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) which have a complete eLearning system with a state of the art videoconferencing delivery system and an electronic portal. This was complemented by the Badrul Huda Khan octagonal eight dimensions eLearning model. The educational activities were taken as a yardstick in the design of eLearning systems and educational activities for Iraq. The PS plays a major role in fixing an eLearning policy to the government and the ministry of higher education in Iraq. The core of this PS is to delete all boundaries against ICT increase in the education management and academic affairs with a complete building capacity plan to the human resources in the HE sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the proceedings of the11th International Conference on electronic-learning (ICEL) from June 2-3, 2016 hosted by the hosted the Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia. It also mentions that the conference features various professors including Philip Leon Balcaen, Luis Borges Gouveia and Delaine Cochran.