It's undeniable that most universities around the world have engaged new technology in their education systems; either providing entirely online learning systems or blending learning systems where the benefit of online and traditional form learning can be achieved (Paechter, 2010). This essay argues that online learning can replace traditional learning but not in all aspect of higher education. Some aspects need dependent education, but e-learning can support it. This essay will evaluate aspects of online and traditional education in terms of four criteria: accessibility, interaction and communication, learning space and practice in some educational pathways. In the first place, e-learning has a lot of benefits on campus-based learning. Online learning accessibility is easy and straightforward in higher education while campus-learning limited by time and place. Online learning offers increased flexibility to the student where they can access the information at their home or work in a convenient time (Rohleder et al., 2008). A study by Rohleder (2008) shows that this approach of learning facilitates information access to many resources not only to class material but also to the electronic data available on the university library websites. Nowadays with fiber optic cables in networking, the communication through Internet is expeditious which saves time. .
Despite the accessibility benefit of web learning, there are some complications. A good illustration observed in technical problem such as the power cut which students recorded it in 2008 between two South African university evaluation study (cited in Rohleder, 2008; p 100-102). As Poul Rohleder (2008) states that only around 5% of the student faced technical difficulties (p; 100). Moreover, students need to wait a long time until they can use a computer because of the high demand on it (Rohleder et al., 2008). But the result was not likely to affect the accessibility.
