Information Technology Reference
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able during the last decade did not appear to support
the engineering education sector perfectly. They
have been rare, limited and relatively expensive
for engineering educational purposes. Multimedia
presentation is a well-presented (and well tested)
form of learning that requires a large bandwidth for
the transmission of the contents to all destination
users, certainly pushing the broadband diffusion too.
It is important not to forget the localization as Thai
students do not love studying non-Thai contents and
this is why almost well known foreign (English)
contents did not succeed in Thailand market. The
majority of existing e-Learning Contents avail-
able are in English. Thus, e-Learning Contents in
non-English are highly in demand (Sirinaruemitr,
2004; Vate-U-Lan, 2007; Witsawakiti et al, 2006).
The first traces of e-Learning for engineers
in Thailand returns to 1993. When after several
years of usage of internet in 1-2 academic centers
in Thailand, i.e. Asian Institute of Technology and
Chulalongkorn University, they felt that Internet
should be made available to the whole Assumption
University (AU). The outcome was implementing
a project, called AuNet. Purposing (Chorpothong
& Charmonman, 2004):
tunity to continue their studies conveniently,
no matter from where or when.
2. To promote Life-Long Learning by using
the Internet.
3. To expand Assumption University from tra-
ditional classroom-based engineering educa-
tion to Internet-based distance education.
4. To increase the number of students at
Assumption University from about 18,000
persons in 2002 to 100,000 persons later.
Establishment of the College of Internet Dis-
tance Education on April 25, 2002, with over 2000
Internet terminal and 1000 phone lines, and mirror
sites for degree programs from other countries has
been the first step of this project which looks for
degree-level e-Learning in Thailand. The College
of Internet Distance Education of Assumption
University has entered into cooperation with
many universities such as UKeU, Middlesex and
UNITAR, hoping that by the year 2010, the target
of 100,000 students, will be reached. Now the at-
tempts on developing e-Learning seem to be more
on e-Learning designing and overcoming infra-
structure problems. Local case studies are more
emphasizing on the role of design of hypertext
or hyperlink and the flexibility of presentation
(Morse & Suktrisul, 2006; Siritongthaworn &
Krairit, 2004; Vate-U-Lan, 2007; Witsawakiti et
al, 2006).
Furthermore, Thailand is quite slow in de-
ploying the services including the necessary
(broadband) infrastructure and transforming the
ways of learning and the (digital) contents are
very rare too. In some open universities such
as Rhamkhamhaeng University, and Sukhothai
Thammatirat University, it's true that they are
working on e-Learning projects but they are still
familiar with one way broadcasting or two-way
video conferencing through the satellite and Fiber
Optics. This is because the digital contents avail-
able may not deliver to the learners or students
by means of using effective broadband ADSL for
lack of availability. As a step ahead, ICT ministry
1. To educate the engineering students, faculty
and staff members on the concepts of local
and international networking.
2. To prepare the engineering students to enter
into information society where networking
will be the norm rather than the exception.
3. To provide full Internet access to all engi-
neering students, faculty and staff members
for their personal and educational usage.
Concerning to the rapid expansion of knowl-
edge and widespread demand of engineering
education, in 2002 this program proposed a project
on e-Learning with the aim of (Chorpothong &
Charmonman, 2004):
1. To serve the country by allowing those in-
terested in engineering education the oppor-
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