Can you think of a classroom where there is no blackboard or desks? Do you believe that you can be a student without a printed book or a writing pad or even pen/ pencil? Are you not thrilled to imagine that you have asked a question and your tutor is answering it while flying in a Boeing from Dubai to Dhaka? These are all possible in a 'virtual campus' in the system of e-learning. No kidding! For quite a long time, educationists have been utilizing the advantages of computer technology. The social networking services have a huge potential to help educationists in this sector. They have access to millions of people worldwide. Educationists have noticed that a large number of social network users come from young generation who especially belong to student community. So side by side with computer assisted teaching-learning software, online education programmes are evolving fairly rapidly to assist conventional education system. Is that e-learning?

We may confuse distant education or computer-based learning or computer-assisted training or even online education programmes with e-learning. But we should be cautious about the mix-up. What happens in an online education programme? Maybe you get some materials online from your tutor. Maybe you submit your assignment through e-mail. Or even you may take your test online. But there must be some conventional campus, a department/institute from where your certificate will come. But in e-learning, as said by global e-learning guru Dr Badrul H Khan*, every step, such as, registration, admission, classroom entry and exit, class wo, attendance, discussion with course mates, feedback, exams and finally certification must take place electronically through computer and the Internet technology in a virtual campus.
Everything is digitized and conducted by a system called Learning Management System (LMS). So online education programmes blend various components of e-learning.

The revolutionary concept of e-learning is already in its practice phase in many parts of the world. Professor Khan has developed a framework and important literatures on e-learning which have been praised by pundits worldwide. Professor Khan is especially enthusiastic about the prospect of e-learning in Bangladesh.

How would you feel if Bangladesh contemplates establishing South Asia's first virtual university? Won't it be a pioneering step for us in the world of e-learning? Let's keep our fingers crossed.