Discussion and analysis

According to the latest industry statistics, "the e-learning market in the Malaysia is growing approximately 43 percent a year and is expected to reach well beyond $27 billion within the next several years" [42]. Higher educational institutions have invested heavily to constantly update their e-learning management systems. The findings from the current study have significant implications for the distance educators, students, and administrators. We have focused on the effect of e-learning management systems on user satisfaction, and the relationship between user satisfaction and e-learning outcome. E-learner satisfaction is an important predictor of e-learning outcome. On the other hand, system quality, information quality, and self-regulated learning behavior have significant direct impacts on the perceived satisfaction of e-learners. Self-efficacy does not show a direct effect on user satisfaction, but it shows indirect effect on user-satisfaction via self-regulated learning behavior. It is conceivable that, through this type of research, online learning will be enhanced when there is a better understanding of critical success factors for e-learning management systems.

Learning is a complex process of acquiring knowledge or skills involving a learner's biological characteristics/senses (physiological dimension); personality characteristics such as attention, emotion, motivation, and curiosity (affective dimension); information processing styles such as logical analysis or gut feelings (cognitive dimension); and psychological/individual differences (psychological dimension) [43]. Moreover, e-learning outcomes are the results of dynamic interactions among e-learners, instructors, and e-learning systems. This study may be useful as a pedagogical tool for all entities involved in the dynamic learning process. First, university administrators must continuously invest to upgrade the systems so that e-learning systems exhibit faster response time, better systems accessibility, higher system reliability and flexibility, and ease of learning. By doing so, e-learning systems can provide e-learners with the information that are accurate, precise, current, reliable, dependable, and useful. This study provided a basis for justifying technological expenditures at the administrative level.

Second, e-learners must be able to self-manage the entire learning process including self-regulation of behavior, motivation, and cognition, proactively and deliberately. The core of self-regulated learning is self-motivation.

Students' motivation is a major factor that affects the completion rates in the Web-based course and a lack of motivation is also linked to high dropout rates [44]. The instructor in e-learning courses should facilitate, stimulate, guide, and challenge his/her students via empowering them with freedom and responsibility. Instructor feedback to students can improve learner affective responses, increase cognitive skills and knowledge, and activate meta-cognition, which refers to the awareness and control of cognition through planning, monitoring, and regulating cognitive activities [12].

Third, In order for the e-learning system to be successful, it should provide e-learners with the information and knowledge they need. As this study indicates,

Information quality has positive effects on user satisfaction. Information quality has also positive effects on system use, which in turn positively contributes user satisfaction. However, the information quality in e-learning is not dependent on only e-learning management systems' software and hardware. It is the instructor who creates the contents of e-learning material that are useful and essential for gaining necessary knowledge for the future success of students. In information systems, the roles of instructors as a contents creator are even more critical when assembling daily/weekly reading assignments for each semester by selecting chapters, topics within a chapter, project assignments, and creating power point files and supplementary files, due to the fact that the nature of information systems are constantly changing with a fast speed. Information systems educators are continuously witnessing the emergence of a host of disruptive technologies such as virtualization and cloud computing. According to the ranking of technologies Chief Information Officers (CIOs) selected as their top priories in 2010, virtualization and cloud computing were the number one and number two priorities. Cloud computing was not on the radar in 2007 and 2008. It was a distant 14 in 2009. Cloud can help firms do more with less. Moreover, the technologies that CIOs are prioritizing in 2010 are technologies that could be implemented quickly and without significant upfront expense [28]. However, some introductory information systems textbooks even did not mention these topics at all. For this reason, the instructor must play a pivotal role to create and enhance the quality of information for e-learners.