Flash, who? On the Obsolescence of Digital Technology and Its Impact on E-learning Applications: A Case Study.

Technology Enhanced Learning has seen a number of technologies during its history, from instructional video cassettes to smartphones and virtual reality environments. Inevitably, with technologies getting obsolete due to replacement or lack of support, TEL solutions face the issue of becoming non-functional. In addition, limited resources may force faculties to abandon certain solutions instead of recreating them with newer technologies. In this paper, we present a case study of an animal neurophysiology virtual lab that has recently suffered from the technology obsolescence phenomenon, both at software and hardware levels. Most importantly, the end of life of Flash was threatening the continuity of an e-learning course. We analyze the issues they were facing, establish a list of requirements for a possible solution and present the implemented changes. We finally perform a risk analysis of obsolescence for the technologies used in the new version of the virtual lab.