The Obstacles Facing Taiwan's Universities with regard to Internet Courses

The purpose of this paper is to identify the obstacles to Internet education in Taiwan's private technological universities which are introducing e-learning and to analyze statutes from national educational policy concerning Internet courses in higher education. The desires of students and faculty members should be considered as formative for future institutional strategies. The research design combines a literature review with a survey. Survey participants include 567 students whose majors are related to business fields and fifteen leading faculty members who are on the committee for academic strategies in the studied university. The literature review provides an understanding of national higher educational policy and the circumstances that private technological universities are facing. Data from the surveys offer opinions of students and faculty. The results show that Taiwan's society has adequate and convenient configurations to develop e-learning via the Internet. However, language is a big barrier to the development of Internet courses and of interdisciplinary cooperation globally with either higher education institutions or industries. Internet education is prevalent around the world. However, it may be not appropriate for some of Taiwan's higher education institutions.