CAN MOBILE LEARNING MATURITY BE MEASURED? A PRELIMINARY WORK

Abstract

New mobile platforms, connected seamlessly to the Internet via wireless access have become increasingly more powerful and have found usage in a diverse set of application areas. On such area that has seen exponential growth in the use of mobile devices is the educational sector. Learning facilitated by mobile phones mobile Learning (m-Learning) is increasingly being adopted as an alternative way of imparting education by several institutions. The educational institutions are becoming more open to embracing new learning platforms, which in turn has sparked the interest in developing new assessment frameworks. The increasing popularity of m-Learning in universities necessitates the development of a process maturity evaluation methodology that would help in successful adoption of the new learning platform within universities. Accordingly, this paper presents a maturity model for evaluating the maturity of universities while adopting the m-Learning platform. This is a preliminary framework based on the current understanding of the issue. Later versions are expected to be more detailed and robust with the availability of empirical data from users. Additionally, there is also is a lack of comprehensive assessment and evaluation methodology for m-Learning platform, which is considered to be one of the major roadblocks in implementing the technology. The present paper addresses an important question: Can m-Learning maturity be measured? One viable solution for the question is adapting the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) framework to design and propose a capability maturity model suitable for m-Learning within educational institutions.