E-learning is a continuum from basic use of technology in or around the conventional physical classroom
(e.g., use of a course management system to distribute materials and track grades) to wholly online
delivery. New technologies associated with e-learning have created opportunities and threats to the
institutional structure of higher education, the learning patterns of individuals, and learning certification
systems. E-learning, in offering the potential for more accessible, flexible and cost-efficient (and even
pedagogically superior) higher education, is viewed by some as central to fashioning higher education
systems that are fit-for-purpose in the 21st century. A more negative view (e-learning as threat) is that
e-learning is pedagogically unproven, disrupts legitimate public control of higher education
(e.g., enabling students in one country to take provision from another, and undermining national quality
assurance) and is incapable of replicating the disciplinary breadth and socialization of “traditional” higher
education.