**7. Conclusion and future direction**

This chapter outlines some indicators related to the higher educational systems in the MENA region, such as the support given by instructional technologies to academics working in this region. The research instrument consisted of a series of questions for collecting data from the respondents by using three techniques: questionnaires, online meetings, and interviews.

Overall, the major goals of this chapter are:


A community of practice can be task and goal oriented to satisfy the need for cooperative achievements of goals and provide support for online learning [47].

This research provides a feasible idea for more achievements in higher educational sectors in the MENA region by including instructional technologies that facilitate the students' skills acquisition and assist higher educational systems.

It is also hoped that by setting the online labs indicator, this chapter may be useful to guide the development of higher educational systems in other regions. Similarly, it may find other indicators or activities related to learning that can develop and assist the higher educational systems in the MENA region and increase collaborative and cooperative work among their researchers.

Hopefully, for the middle/long term, involving other universities, in Iraq and other MENA countries in general, to become a part of this online labs community, either using the VISIR system or through the REXNet project, for sharing resources and knowledge among them and increasing collaborative and cooperative work among their researchers.
