E-learning, resilience and change in higher education: Helping a university cope after a natural disaster

Abstract

This paper presents a case study of one College of Business (College of Business and Law from 2013) impacted in 2011 by earthquakes in New Zealand. Analyses from interviews of nine staff and documents were used to describe processes of increasing resilience with e-learning over the worst seismic events. Increasing deployment of the University’s learning management system by staff and students plus audio recordings and video recordings of lectures enabled the College to continue its teaching. The Technology Acceptance Model and the generic model of organisational resilience by Resilient Organisations informed the analysis of the adoption and adaptation of e-learning than continued after the crises in the university.