Al-Quds Open Univ.

1. Al-Quds Open Univ. E-Learning Experience

2. Projects Started • Multimedia CDs • Production of multimedia content packaged on CD for certain course topics (Since 2002/2003) • Provide additional resources for students particularly selecting difficult chapters/topics. • Avicenna Virtual Campus Project • UNESCO Project to produce online courses using a Pedagogical model and installed on a specific platform ( (2004-2006) • E-Learning Initiative /University Portal • Parallel initiative to approach virtual university status • Started with Student & Tutor information systems and functionality being expanded ( Since 2004)

3. Multimedia Production • Actors : Special committee of tutors, Multimedia developers • Content packaged on CD and distributed to students @ cheap price (1.4 USD) • Tools used : Flash , Director & other HTML authoring tools • Problems : At first it was a pilot project without clear pedagogical & technical standards • Video & audio had to be produced at the university media production center.

4. Avicenna courses • Produce E-learning courses in 3 languages and share experience with other partners • A Pedagogical standard was setup via collaborations between partners to guide the production process. • Production divided across 3 phases with a total of 20 courses for each partner • No compulsory tools to use, however some were recommended such as SMIL • First Phase 6 courses (20-hour Module), second phase 4 courses

5. Problems with the Avicenna production • Most Professors/Authors had limited knowledge of the authoring tools and few of them spent time to learn any of these tools. • At first some thought the online course is copy & paste text into html files and setup navigation. • In the first phase, they were free to use the authoring tools and some used the SMIL tool. • In the second phase we made available some tools such as Elicitus to help speed up the production process particularly the creation of practices/questions.

6. Problems with the Avicenna production (2) • Some technical problems : • Arabic language support • Cross –Platform html support )Unix & Windows) • Video Streaming issues & the load on the server • Avicenna Server (Not Open source & insufficient documentation and support of the Arabic language)

7. University Portal • Started Summer 2003. • The objective is to convert the open & distance institution into a virtual university ! • A large number of students visit the university premises only for exams and any communication with the tutors and fellow students is limited and difficult. • Students now are able to inquire about their records and communicate with tutors more easily and comfortably.

8. University Portal (cont.) • Tutors send their students: documents, assignments, messages etc. • Each user (Tutor & Student) has his own workspace and can communicate with each other • Starting Fall 2005 , Portal integrates SMS Messages . Important announcements and grades are sent via the SMS to the students free of charge .

9. Problems with the Portal • Large number of students require sufficient hardware to cater for the influx of requests particularly during exam periods. Needed hardware is purchased, but good architecture relying on open source Java technologies is comfortably able to handle at least 40,000 students concurrently accessing the portal. • Not all students and tutors have IT background and some are not at ease with technology. Most tutors & students who benefit much from the portal services are in the IT fields. • Most Tutors are part-timers and thus they have less commitment to the open learning philosophy .

10. Some Statistics During the Fall Semester (Unfinished) : • 25827 students used the portal. • 1467 tutors used the portal. • 400 MB of documents sent by tutors to the students • 17818 SMS was sent automatically by the system to the students.

11. Conclusion • Recently a higher committee was formed to take care of the E-learning projects planning and supervision. • Human factor plays an important role in both the success/ failure of these projects. • Any E-learning material needs to be student-centric . • The quality of the production partly depends on the maturity on the right technology used in addition to the efforts made by the author.

12. Conclusion (Cont.) • Any future e-learning project needs to benefit from the experience learned in the previous projects • We need to stick to some production standards including international standards such as SCORM . • Any production must consider future update of the online material and frequency of such updates.

13. Thank you