EXAMINATION OF THE SCOPE OF ACADEMIC USE ON SMART DEVICE IN THE ISRAELI ACADEMIC ENVIRONMENT

In recent years the phenomenon of using smart devices for studying anytime, anywhere, has grown rapidly. The objective of this study is to examine the scope of the academic use of smart devices in the Israeli academic environment. A Smart device refers to a portable device that is capable of connecti ng to the internet such as: Smartphones, Tablets, E - Readers and PDA. The current study addressed two research questions: RQ1: How do students use smart devices for academic purposes? RQ 2: What are the barriers to using mobile smart devices and are smart d evices easy to use for academic purposes? The first objective is to explore the way students use smart devices for academic purposes. The second objective is to find barriers and ease of use of smart device academic. The findings indicate that students use smart devices for academic purposes, however academic use is not particularly high. The most common academic uses of smart devices are accessing the campus website, reading pdf files, using courses catalog, finding academic material by internet search and by online databases, finding new research tools and new services by internet search and by fellow students. According to the students the main barriers to using mobile devices with internet were: poor site format, small screen size and slow downloading ti me.