Responding COVID19 Removing Barriers Access Equity and Inclusion
Responding COVID-19 “Removing Barriers: Access, Equity, and Inclusion” Prof. Dr. Zia Ul-Qayyum Vice Chancellor Allama Iqbal Open University Islamabad, Pakistan vc@aiou. edu. pk
ALLAMA IQBAL OPEN UNIVERSITY 2
QUICK FACTS • Established in 1974 under the name of “People’s Open University”. • Renamed as “Allama Iqbal Open University” in 1977 on the eve of Centenary Birth Celebrations of Allama Muhammad Iqbal. • First Open University in Asia and Second in the World. • A Mega University with around 1. 4 Million Students on its academic rolls. • 04 Faculties and over 34 Departments – offering programs from SSC to Ph. D levels. • 54 Regional Campuses/ Model Study Centers across Pakistan. • 80 – 90, 000 Part Time Tutors hired annually.
• 1200+ Study Centers • 900 Examination Centers • 122 Part Time Regional Coordinators • Overseas Students (Middle East, Gulf states and USA) AIOU OUTREACH 4
AIOU ACADEMIC SYSTEM AIOU Academic System ODL (Open Distance Learning) Face-to-Face Mode Online Blended Learning
Academics 1. Faculty of Education 06 Departments 2. Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities 15 Departments 3. Faculty of Arabic and Islamic Studies 05 Departments 4. Faculty of Sciences 10 Departments
Faculty of Sciences • • • Agriculture Sciences Biology and Environmental Sciences Chemistry Computer Sciences Engineering & Technology Home and Health Sciences Mathematics Physics Statistics 7
Faculty of Education • Educational Planning, Policy Studies and Leadership • Early Childhood Education & Elementary Teacher Education • Distance, Non Formal and Continuing Education • Secondary Teacher Education • Science Education • Special Education 8
Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities • • • • Business Administration - COL MBA / MPA Commerce Economics English French Online History Iqbal Studies Library and Information Sciences Mass Communication Pakistani Languages Pakistan Studies Sociology Urdu Gender & Women Studies 9
Faculty of Arabic and Islamic Studies • Islamic Thought, History & Culture • Quran & Tafseer • Seerah Studies • Islamic Law • Hadith • Arabic 10
Gender stats 51 % 400000 7, 04, 447 49 % 6, 90, 288 Male 300000 Bln 0 Punjab KPK AJK 5511 8446 Sindh 33372 56349 100000 28696 11401 200000 51718 25949 124007 60239 Female GB 24405 25821 500000 436738 600000 502083 CURRENT ENROLLMENT Isb
STATS – TOTAL DEGREES / CERTIFICATES AWARDED Ser Name of Programme 1 Al Lisan Ul Arabi / Arabi Bool Chal / Lughat ul Quran / Tech / French Online / Daftari Urdu / ATTC 2 BED Program (all) 3 PTC + PTC OLD / CT + CT OLD 745479 4 HSSC/Dari Nizami /Open Group / Dip in Education (10+3) 449603 5 SSC Group Gen / Darse Nizami 227950 8 BA / BBA / Mass Com / BLIS / B. Com / Dars Nizami / AD / Open Group 873633 9 BCS / BS (CS) / BS (GPA) / BET / BCA 11520 10 Certificate in Librarianship 11470 11 MA / MSC / MBA / MED / MLIS / ALL Program (16 -YEARS Degree), MSC HONS (All), M. COM 12 MBA 2. 5 / MBA 3. 5 / MBA COL / MPA COL 1715 13 PGD ALL 9236 14 M. PHIL / MS. CS/MS. ALL / SHARI’AH 4040 15 PHD Total Pass out Students 56740 1012761 118245 256 3522648
e Governance & Digital Transformation Road Map
e-Governance & Digital Transformation Road Map • “Digital Transformation Policy” prepared in consultation with all stake holders and international partners. • A flagship initiative aimed at digitizing the learning material for improving learning experience. • Involves carrying out an end-to-end automation of all University processes. • Will strengthen discipline. academic, administrative and financial
e. Governance & Digital Transformation Road Map • Campus Management System and Enterprise Resource Planner (CMS & ERP) – AIOU is going to be the first university in public sector to have this integrated automated suite of applications to automate all academic, administrative and financial processes. – Project has been rolled out and ORACLE Corp. is providing state of the art solution through its partners. – The university has been able to save more than Rs. 600 Million against the actual cost by negotiating at the highest level to get an educational discount for AIOU.
e. Governance & Digital Transformation Road Map • Learning Management system (LMS) - Aaghi – Aaghi Portal has been launched to bring all the academic activities on-line. – Aaghi LMS portal aims at connecting students digitally with new standardized and customized Learning Management system (LMS). • e-Tutor Portal – Through this portal an online registration process of registration of tutors was initiated which had been a great success. Around 186, 000 tutor profiles were created with final eligible tutors strength of 96, 000 during first phase.
e. Governance & Digital Transformation Road Map • Online Admission Processing – As part of the digital transformation roadmap, a portal is in operation since last one semester to enable candidates apply through this online portal, thus saving huge financial cost and time. – To facilitate candidate living in remote areas, manual admission process is also in vogue. • Upgrading IT Infrastructure – Establishment of Tier 3 Data Centre with a cost of Rs. 207 Mn is being operationalized for efficient data processing and ensuring 99. 9 % up-time of IT services. – During the FY 2019/20 a total of Rs. 647 Mn has been allocated for upgradtion of IT infrastructure.
Evaluation & Assessment During COVID-19 Outbreak
Evaluation and Assessment at AIOU • During the COVID 19 pandemic, AIOU has taken a paradigm shift from traditional face to face evaluation and assessment to Online/ e. Assessment to ensure: – – – Safety Validity Reliability Acceptability ……
Guidelines for Tutors and Faculty: • Evaluate prerequisites for developing and implementing online assessment • Ensure alignment of assessment activities with stated learning objectives of the course and topics • Address the diversity of students’ situations • Maintain a good balance of formative and summative assessments (30% formative and 70% summative evaluation) • Consider format, scheduling and timing of tests • Stimulate student learning with online assessment • Establish clear communication to students regarding assessment matters. (AIOU developed separate guidelines for the students and tutors) • Ensure highquality feedback • Address assessment validity threats
METHODS/STRATEGIES/TOOLS Asynchronously (Mostly at AIOU) • Not done in realtime • To assess knowledge and skills • Assignments to assess higher order thinking which includes critical thinking and problem-solving ability of the student. • Uniform rubrics were developed to check assignments and detailed qualitative feedback is given to the students to improve their learning. • Assessment Portfolios. We used it for practical, hands on practice and internship courses e. g. teaching, computer sciences, topics related to synthesis etc. • Also as an evidence of a task performed by the student along with reflection on it. • It was used to assess the skills of the students through online submission of recorded videos of the tasks performed by them, on which the teachers provided the feedback.
Synchronous Methods of Assessment • Online, real-time assessments to reproduce the traditional methods of assessment. • Multiple Choice Questions at the end of online tutorials and lectures to assess level of learner’s understanding and comprehension. • End Term Assessment Open Book Exams. In replacement of final or terminal examination. To assess the ability to analyze and solve a problem, assess critical thinking and creativity skill of our students. Real time exam stretched from 8 am to 8 pm. Questions were developed with care to minimize the issues of cheating. Tutors or teachers developed the questions to assess the creativity, application of knowledge, skill of synthetization, and development of models etc. Let me share views of our students on ETA what they were saying ‘Better the university conduct real exams; this is not an easy as we were thinking’
Safe Exam Browser (SEB) • AIOU also tried SEB for Mid Term Exams (MPhil and Ph. D Programs). • Reliable for Evaluation and Assessment. • Web browser environment to carry out e-assessments safely. • The software turns any computer temporarily into a secure workstation. • Controls access to resources like system functions, other websites and applications and prevents unauthorized resources being used during an exam. • For Evaluation and Assessment, the same platforms can be used with basic tweaking like the use online Quiz assessment via Safe Exam Browser etc.
Safe Exam Browser (SEB)
Objectively Structured Practical/Lab Examination. (OSPE) OR Objectively Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) • OSCE/OSPE assesses a wide range of skills and assesses a large number of students in a short period of time. • OSPE is a more objective, reliable, and valid tool of assessment to assess the practical aspects of the curriculum • AIOU used these for Applied Sciences like Microbiology, Botany, Biology, Chemistry and Physics It was to test the clinical skill performance and competence in a range of skills. • A practical, real-world approach to learning and assessment. • The OSCE content and scoring procedures are standardized. • Learning management systems (LMS) provides the examiner to insert a picture or a video, on which questions can be asked from the candidate. • Items can be embedded in videos on clinical methods or procedures to assess the clinical competency of the student.
Viva or Oral Online Exam • Oral Exams were also conducted by using online video calls for defense of research work/dissertations and also to assess the students decision making, critical thinking and clinical reasoning skills. • AIOU is using AAGHI Portal (LMS based on MOODLE) for Viva and Oral Exams
CONCLUSION • With the experience of COVID-19 World is now on the away for online teaching, learning and assessment. • The educationally advanced countries had embraced these techniques easily and faced less difficulty in imparting education online in COVID-19 pandemic as compared to developing countries where we have lack of resources, infrastructure, training and acceptability. • In my point of view sometime such pandemics are blessings for us to move forward in the right direction by adapting technology enhanced learning and assessment for our educational system.
THANK YOU
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