Information Resources as a Supporting System in Electronic Education: Electronic Students of Shiraz University as a Case Study

This research attempts to ascertain the extent use of electronic resources by virtual students in their related educational courses. To determine the difficulties that students encounter in their access to the required information, and also, to offer virtual students the mechanism for information provision are considered as partial aims of the present research. The methodology chosen is a survey one, and the instrument used for data gathering is the researcher's self made questionnaire. The researcher ran a SPSS Software to analyze the collected information. The research population consisted of electronic students of Shiraz University, in the academic year of 2005-6.The results of the study indicate that the majority of virtual students use the information materials at the average level. With regard to the extent use of resources, the analysis of the research outcomes shows that there is a significant difference among various aging groups. Regarding the amount of use of electronic resources among the different levels of the academic studies, a significant difference is also observed. The most important difficulty encountered by the virtual students in obtaining the needed materials is the inadequacy of proper libraries, having relevant and useful resources. The outcome of the research reveals also that the most important reason for not having used information materials is the lack of time for additional readings.