An Assessment of the Readiness of King Fahad Medical City, Saudi Arabia, in Adopting Effective Online Staff Development Programs.
AN ASSESSMENT OF THE READINESS OF KING FAHAD MEDICAL CIT Y, SAUDI ARABIA, IN ADOPTING EFFECTIVE ONLINE STAFF DEVELOPMENT PRO GRAMS by ADNAN D. ALWADIE May 2011 Advisor: Dr. James L. Moseley Major: Instructional Technology Degree: Doctor of Philosophy Internet access has grown in Saudi Arabia between 2000 and 2005 by more than 1000% and many governmental organizations are starting to provide part of t heir services using the internet. In addition, the Ministry of Higher Education has provided funding to all governmental universities to start developing strategies and guidelines for online educati on. Healthcare services in Saudi Arabia are funded by the government and are provided to all c itizens free of charge. In addition, the majority of healthcare workers are expatriates. King Fah ad Medical City (KFMC) is a tertiary healthcare organization that provides specialized medi cal care. To assure quality of medical services at KFMC, medical and administrative employee s are provided with continuous staff development programs using traditional methods of education. Howeve r, online education is proven to be efficient and provides comparable outcomes to these methods. The purpose of this research was to investigate the readiness of King Fahad Medical City (KFMC) to adopt online staff development programs. Employees access to technology, technical skills, motivation to e learn and attitudes towards online education wa s assessed using The Online Learner Readiness Self assessment Survey (Appendix D) I n addition, instructors' and