The delivery of business courses via the African Virtual University: a case study

In this case study the delivery of business courses as a result of the partnership between the African Virtual University (AVU) and Curtin University in Western Australia is described. From 2004 to 2008, degree and diploma business courses were delivered using WebCT in the four AVU partner locations: Addis Ababa University (Ethiopia), Kigali Institute of Science & Technology (Rwanda), Kenyatta University (Kenya) and University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania). In spite of significant hurdles that made delivery of the business courses challenging, 188 students graduated as a result of this initiative. This case study is significant because it describes the outcomes of an AVU Phase 2 initiative.     

Experimenting in distance education: The African virtual university (AVU) and the paradox of the World Bank in Kenya—A rejoinder

This rejoinder is in response to criticism against the African Virtual University (AVU), an internet-based education modality, by Amutabi and Oketch [2003. Experimenting in distance education: the African Virtual University (AVU) and the Paradox of World Bank in Kenya. International Journal of Educational Development 23, 57–73]. By closely focusing on AVU “foreignness”, its equity effects, as well as questions about its sustainability, this riposte argues that the origins, developments and modus operandi of the new virtual educational system mirrors that of the state universities in Kenya. The paper concludes by arguing in favor of the theory of isomorphism as a more comprehensive analytical framework for assessing complexities of the development and role of internet-based education in developing countries.     

The Virtual University of the Monterrey Technical Institute

The creation and the achievements of the Virtual University of Monterrey Tech (Instituto Tecnolo´gico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey) in Mexico are briefly described. Monterrey Tech itself, which was founded in 1943, has had a vocation going back a number of years to offer distance education on a number of satellite campuses. The Virtual University was founded in 1996 to carry on the distance education vocation of the institution as a whole in Mexico and in other Latin American countries with the use of the new information and communications technologies (ICTs). The Virtual University is particularly active in the domain of community education, teacher retraining, in-company training programmes, and in the offer of training for Mexican state and local officials. Although a private entity, the Virtual University and its parent organization, Monterrey Tech, are firmly committed to the public development of Mexico.     

The Virtual University as a Conceptual Model for Faculty Change and Innovation

Virtual universities and virtual learning environments are becoming increasingly accessible to faculty wishing to develop Web-based courses. They can provide a convenient cognitive framework to assist educators in moving towards new technology-based teaching methods. The University of Strathclyde has developed a series of faculty development workshops based around the conceptual model of Clyde Virtual University (http://cvu.strath.ac.uk) in an attempt to promote cultural change within the institution. The virtual university, whilst providing examples of good practice in the use of the new technologies, is also used as a delivery medium for the courses themselves, and as a place where participants can communicate with each other and archive their own materials. This paper explains the necessity for such a conceptual framework to overcome barriers faculty face in developing Web-based materials. It describes the Clyde Virtual University and the way in which innovative approac hes to teaching, learning, and assessment in a virtual setting can aid the development of a fully professionalized teaching force in higher education.     

African Higher Education and Training: Opportunities and Challenges

Although African countries have been continuously expanding their tertiary education systems since independence, these systems remain inadequate for fulfilling the demands being placed on them. Indeed, in many cases, the progress made has been set back by war, disease, and natural catastrophe. Various forms of non-traditional delivery are required, and several examples of distance networking are detailed, including the African Virtual University. A strategic approach to the expansion of access to and opportunities in tertiary education is required making use of assistance from the international partners of African universities.     

河北省高校图书馆虚拟参考咨询服务现状与对策研究

虚拟参考咨询服务是一种高效率的交互式数字咨询服务方式。调查显示．河北省大约有60％的高校图书馆开展了此项服务。但目前河北省高校图书馆的虚拟参考咨询服务还处于起步阶段,存在服务模式和服务内容单一、服务时间短和服务深度不够等方面的问题。建议通过微博、微信等多种媒介多渠道开展实时参考咨询服务,并开展联合咨询、数据挖掘等深层次服务。以提高河北省高校图书馆参考咨询服务水平。     

Virtual and Classical Universities between Complementarity and Contrast

This essay reflects upon the themes that emerged from the seminar "Teaching and Organization of Studies in the Virtual and Classical University: Conflict and/or Mutual Reinforcement", for which the articles appearing in this issue of Higher Education in Europe were originally prepared. The reflections are organized around four major themes: (i) the acceleration of change in higher education owing mostly to the ICTs; (ii) complementarity and contrast between virtual and classical universities; (iii) institutional responses to change; and (iv) quality issues. Various agendas for further attention are proposed.     

虚拟现实应用于职业技术教育的研究与实践

虚拟现实是当前国际上多媒体技术的热点。虚拟技术进入高等职业教育有助于挖掘学校潜能,扩大承载能力,促进数字化校园的建设。亦有助于实现教学现代化,提高教学效益和质量,提高学生素质。虚拟实验把虚拟训练和实际操作结合,把现代教育理念与现代教育技术相结合,推动课程教学与评估观念的改变。虚拟现实技术进入职业教育,充分发挥虚拟现实技术的集成性、控制性和交互性的特点,这种方式还可向网络学校、虚拟教育延伸。     

Curriculum Transformation in a Post-Apartheid South African University: The Arts Faculty,Tshwane University of Technology

During the apartheid rule in South Africa, established universities and other tertiary institutions were forcibly segregated to serve particular racial groups. Some critics have stated that the apartheid regime in South Africa supported an exclusively Western model of education, and that university education was based on a mono-cultural approach with bias towards Western values and expectations. With the demise of apartheid in 1994, the Government of National Unity (GNU) merged the fragmented hodgepodge of segregated tertiary institutions into 23 (now 26) public universities (26 since in 2004), Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) being one. There has been a paradigm shift to accommodate a new form of education which is not only supposed to address the imbalances of the past but be of relevance to the twenty-first-century knowledge economy. The transformation of the education sector is supposed to boost the Africanisation (African-oriented content) of the syllabus, foregrounding the cultural practices and values of the African people. In TUT the arts faculty faced challenges of rationalisation, and the faculty management is poised to effect the paradigm shift. The aim of this paper is to investigate the extent to which the African-oriented content concept has been realised in the arts curriculum of Tshwane University of Technology TUT.     

虚拟大学的构建与教育改革

虚拟组织，作为适应知识经济时代的柔性开放组织新模式，在政治、经济、化领域逐步取代传统的刚性职能型组织。目前的封闭孤立式大学组织不能适应新时代人类对于教育科研多样化需求，必将被体现合作竞争的虚拟大学所取代。章分析了组织软化的动因，探讨了虚拟大学的内涵、优势以及它对中国教育改革的现实意义。     

虚拟现实技术在大学生道德教化中的应用分析

虚拟现实技术是一种综合性的技术门类,在三维图形技术、模拟传感技术、显示伺服技术等的工作作用下,该技术能够生成一个逼真的三维视觉、触觉和嗅觉等感觉世界,用户可以在这一虚拟世界中进行浏览与交互式考察。本文以此为基础,对建构主义视角下虚拟现实技术对大学生的道德教化问题进行了系统研究,首先,本文对虚拟现实和建构主义进行了阐述,其次以此为基础,对虚拟现实技术在大学生道德教化中的应用和障碍进行了统计分析,再次,从多个不同的侧面,给出了基于虚拟现实技术的大学生道德教化的实现途径。旨在通过本文的工作,为大学生的道德教化寻找一个新的途径,以更好地促进高校人才培养质量的提升。     

浅谈虚拟实验在高校教学中的应用

随着计算机信息的不断发展，越来越多的虚拟设计软件平台的不断问世，虚拟实验将在高校教学中得到推广应用，本文论述了虚拟实验在高校教学中的应用所存在的优势及带来的一些的负面影响。     

Enhancing Anatomical Instruction: Impact of a Virtual Canine Anatomy Program on Student Outcomes

Innovative reforms in medical education will require instructional tools to support these changes and to give students more flexibility in where and how they learn. At Colorado State University, the software program Virtual Canine Anatomy (VCA) was developed to assist student learning both inside and outside the anatomical laboratory. The program includes interactive anatomical photographs of dissected canine cadavers, dissection instructions with accompanying videos and diagrams, radiographs, and three-dimensional models. There is a need to evaluate the effectiveness of instructional tools like VCA so that decisions on pedagogical delivery can be evidence-based. To measure the impact of VCA on student outcomes in a dissection laboratory, this study compared student attitudes, quiz scores, dissection quality and accuracy, and instructor reliance between students with and without access to VCA. Students with VCA needed less time with teaching assistants (P < 0.01), asked teaching assistants fewer questions (P = 0.04), felt that the dissection was easier (P = 0.02), and were in stronger agreement that they had access to adequate resources (P = 0.02). No differences were found in the dissection quality or accuracy, quiz scores, or attitudes regarding overall enjoyment of the activity between the two groups. This study shows that VCA increases student independence and can be used to enhance anatomical instruction.     

Launching the Virtual Academic Center: Issues and Challenges in Innovation

In October 2010, the University of Southern California School of Social Work entered the online education environment with the launch of the first national web-based MSW program. After an initial enrollment of 80 students, in just 3 years this state-of-the-art MSW, offered in a technology-advanced synchronous and asynchronous format, has generated an enrollment of 2,000 students residing in 38 states. The development and rapid growth of the Virtual Academic Center has not been without significant challenges, the most substantial of which has been the creation of a national field education program. This paper describes the MSW courses taught in the online environment, and pedagogical hurdles faced in order to maintain the educational quality that is the hallmark of the School's campus-based MSW program.     

Internationalising a learning environment instrument for evaluating transnational online university courses

This article describes the adaptation and validation of the Constructivist OnLine Learning Environment Survey (COLLES) for use in the transnational higher education context. As higher education becomes a more global phenomenon, ‘borderless’ education, either online or by distance education, is becoming a reality and there is a need for remote evaluation of course delivery and student learning. Curtin University of Technology is managing supported online delivery of Business Studies Degree and Diploma courses to four partner institutions of the African Virtual University, an initiative based in Nairobi, Kenya. Evaluation of students’ learning has included an online survey about the provision of resources and the quality of the learning environment in the various computer-based classrooms. Embedded in this instrument has been the adapted COLLES, providing a concomitant opportunity to test the properties and usefulness of the learning environment instrument. Problematic issues surrounding adaptation of the instrument have included the consequences of modifying the wording and establishing or confirming the meaning of the latent constructs in partially online courses and for transnational students. The process of establishing the validity and reliability of the scales is discussed.     

Planning for Equity at the University of South Australia

This paper details the approachtaken by one of Australia's newer universitiesto ensure institution-wide commitment to theUniversity's mission to provide educationalopportunities ... to meet the needs of groupswithin the community ... [who] have suffereddisadvantages in education ...'The paper places the University's approachwithin the context of a national policyframework for equity and access in highereducation which aims `to change the balance ofthe student body to reflect more closely thestructure and composition of the society as awhole' (DEET 1990, p. 2). This framework hasrequired all federal government-fundeduniversities to prepare annual equity plans. The allocation of federal equity funding hasbeen tied to these plans.The University of South Australia's approachhas embedded planning for equity and accesswithin the University's comprehensive annualplanning and review processes, to the extentthat each academic school and administrativeunit is required to address equityconsiderations in its annual and medium-termplan.     

浙江大学远程教育和中国人民大学网络教育发展模式比较研究

我国现代远程(网络)教育说到底是一种"数字化素质教育",是一种具有哲学基础和实践基础的"数字化素质教育".我国高等院校远程(网络)教育试点要"试"的就是:"学会数字化生存"的理念,"学会数字化学习"的目标,"学会数字化协作"的模式,即"数字化素质教育"的三大要务.本文通过对浙江大学远程教育和中国人民大学网络教育开展试点所作的比较分析,从理论和实践两个方面对现代远程(网络)教育的"数字化发展模式"进行比较研究,展望我国现代远程(网络)教育的数字化发展前景.     

虚拟社区中大学生的认同与归属——以丽水学院瓯帆思政网为例

虚拟社区的形成有助于超越空间的局限以加强社会成员之间的团结与归属,但如果在虚拟空间中个体行为没有规范的约束,也可能造成对共同体成员的情感与利益伤害。虚拟社区更多地从社会情感方面增强社会凝聚力,这为加强大学生思想政治教育提供了重要启示。在网络思想政治教育中,应遵循内容引导、媒介推动和以学生为本的思想政治教育原则,提高大学生群体对共产主义理想信念、高尚道德情操的认同与归属感,从而提高思想政治教育的有效性。     

基因工程虚拟实验室的设计与实现

基因工程是一门非常注重实践的课程,但其实验具有价格贵,周期长的特点,因而虚拟实验室的创建有助于缓解实验资源与教学需求之间存在的矛盾。本文依托广东省高校现代教育技术“151工程”项目“基因工程虚拟实验室”的工作,对基因工程虚拟实验室的设计与实现进行了探讨,以期为同类虚拟实验室或相关学习资源的开发和应用提供思路和借鉴。     

Strengthening Community Schools Through University Partnerships

Given the mounting call for academic achievement gains in America's public schools—particularly urban schools labeled “failing”—the need for community engagement to tackle a host of underlying social challenges warrants the resources of the nation's colleges and universities (Harkavy & Hartley, 2009). Because colleges and universities are often underutilized anchors of resources in communities, coordinated alignment of K-12 and higher education goals can create a seamless pipeline of educational attainment for communities challenged to produce high academic achievement. Higher education's engagement with community schools further helps to address the whole child and their families in K-12 education by expanding the opportunities for the students and community to access necessary support services. Drawing upon experiences of Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) and collaboration with its adjacent neighborhoods, this article illustrates the transformative and relevant impact of university and community engagement, as well as new pedagogical approaches to teaching, learning, and training. This article reflects upon the experiences of IUPUI and nearby George Washington Community High School as it can uniquely serve as a roadmap for other school community/university partnerships that are interested in embarking upon a similar education reform path.