Abstract
There is a trend in Saudi universities to benefit from Internet penetration and online technologies that offer off-campus-based education. This includes creating online access to course resources and communication media. As a contribution to this movement, this thesis draws on case-study data of an online education programme offered at the King Faisal University (KFU) in the eastern region of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The overarching purpose of this study is to determine the performance of this programme against the stated objectives of online education from students' and faculty members’ perspectives. A mixed method approach was applied with two types of questionnaires and 16 semi-structured interviews. Ultimately 551 students and 32 faculty members involved in this programme participated in the study. The study concludes that the KFU succeeds in offering accessible and flexible education, but some issues need to be addressed in order to improve the effectiveness of the online learning environment. The thesis concludes with a variety of solutions and recommendations that will result in better adoption and quality of online education in the KSA.