eLearning @ HBP.usm.my:
A Success Story of a QA Best Practice in Teaching & Learning
at Universiti Sains Malaysia
by
Lee Lik Meng & Zuraidah Mohd Zain
Universiti Sains Malaysia
/
Asian University Network Conference, Yangon, March 2002
(1) Introduction
The use of computers to facilitate teaching and learning is very aggressively pursued by many institutions of higher learning. In Universiti Sains Malaysia, the use of computers for teaching and learning has been around for more than two decades but several of its schools are at the forefront of web-based learning. In this paper, the development of eLearning at the School of Housing, Building & Planning (HBP), USM is discussed. eLearning falls mostly under the Kuala Lumpur AUN QA Criteria no. 6 (Learning Resources) as well as no. 4 (Learning Process). Under 'Learning Resources', the university is expected to provide adequate learning/instruction resources. It should also develop a mechanism whereby access of the learning and instructional resources be possible to other AUN-member universities. Under Learning Process, for level 1, the university is expected to show the effectiveness of the learning process. Both criteria are fulfilled by HBP's eLearning initiative.
The School of HBP is selected based on the fact that it has shown tremendous progress in eLearning, and has become one of the role models to be emulated by other Schools in the University. The School has 56 full-time lecturers, more than 40 support staff and with an enrolment of more than 500 students for various degree programmes from undergraduate to Ph.D. The School produces graduates for the development industry such as project managers, architects, town planners, quantity surveyors, building technologists, housing experts and various other types of specialists. Some of the degrees are given full recognition by their respective professional bodies while others enjoy partial exemptions from professional examinations.
(2) A Brief History
During the 1970's, the primitive punchcard was used in some computer programming courses offered to undergraduates. By the mid 1980's, some schools (in USM schools are almost analogous to faculties) had initiated remote access to the University mainframe computers. For instance, HBP purchased a Tektroniks Graphics Terminal which was connected by phone line from the school to the University Computer Centre but the technology was primitive. In the late 1980's, PC's began to revolutionise computing on campus with greater flexibility and power to the end users. But it took several rounds of leadership changes - both at university as well as at the schools' levels, before the use of computers in teaching & learning become close to what it looks like today.
The major milestone and turning point was 1998 when a grass root effort was initiated to propel the School into the information age. The Web-based Learning project was initiated with the primary aim of encouraging all lecturers to embrace information technology for teaching and learning. The web technology was adopted because of its universal appeal as well as its ease of use even for the technologically-challenged.
(3) Indicators and Assessment
The following conventional indicators are used as the instruments upon which the effectiveness of eLearning can be gauged :
(i) amount of traffic as reflected in disk usage, number of visitors or files served by the web server
(ii) the number of lecturers who run their own websites;
(iii) the average percentage of course materials available from lecturers' websites per semester;
(iv) the percentage of tests conducted via the websites per semester;
(v) the number of assignments delivered electronically per semester;
(vi) students'/users' feedback analysis;
(vii) students' examination results, as reflected by the average 'Cumulative Grade Point Average' score
Traffic to the HBP website is not limited to students accessing teaching resources. In fact, a significant portion of the traffic comes from general visitors (non-HBP student) indicating the high popularity of the website. On a typical high volume day (based on web log for 5 Feb 2002), some 11,500 files (comprising images and text) are served by the HBP web server. Of this, 7% of the requests come from within the HBP IT Lab local area network (based on local IP), 37% from within USM campus (excluding HBP IT Lab) and 56% of traffic from outside the campus. An informal poll of students indicate that a large number of them access teaching resources from outside the campus through dial-up Internet. Hence, there is no doubt that the web technology has tremendously increased accessibility to teaching and learning resources for our students anytime and from anywhere.
The official HBP web server where most of the lecturers publish their materials have accummulated more than 2 gigabytes of lecture notes, papers, courseware, multimedia presentations, etc. Seminar papers and reports which would otherwise be gathering dust in the lecturers’ room are now available on the web. Out of the 56 lecturers, 20 of them (or 35%) are actively and continuously updating and uploading new materials to websites which are managed personally by them. Some lecturers maintain several websites for different courses or topics. Our aim is to eventually have all the lecturers actively publish materials on the web but this can only be achieved in collaboration with the University Administration to provide more incentives especially in terms of career promotions. HBP will be working to further strengthen the structure for lecturers’ publications on the web to be reviewed by an independent panel and accorded various levels of recognition.
From the point of view of the students, written responses at the end of the semester have shown that eLearning has tremendously enhanced their learning experience (Lee and Badaruddin, 2001). In terms of performance, one studio which was conducted for a whole semester with emphasis on the integration of various information technologies into all aspects of their life projects showed very encouraging results. Out of the 28 students, 4 received perfect scores (4.0 CGPA or A) while another 8 students received distinction (A-). Of the rest, most received high Bs. The intensive use of IT was initially a burden to the students because of lack of precious exposure, but later it proved to be both a stimulant and incentive to develop their intellectual capacity.
Even though the achievement at HBP has been remarkable, the road ahead is still long and expected to be riddled with many obstacles. Nevertheless, HBP will be embarking on its next phase to further embrace the eLearning paradigm.
(4) Roadmap for the Future
It is the School's as well as the University's aspiration to integrate IT into teaching and learning. For example, in HBP, students are encouraged to produce their studio reports entirely in electronic format. In line with the goals of active learning, students scour the web for references and must take an independent approach in the pursuit of knowledge. The flow of information is now tri-directional: from professor to students; from students to professors, and from students to students.
Apart from the indicators used above to gauge the success of this initiative, there are numerous innovative ways eLearning has been exploited, that can be used as yet another forms of indicator. For example, some students use electronic spreadsheets and multimedia presentations while others routinely produce and publish reports in web format for studio projects. A post-graduate student has used the web extensively to source for references and has published his entire thesis through the web. Along the same lines, lecturers have now become competent web-authors and publishers. Electronic discussion forums, feedback sites, and the use of electronic groups are now common media for instruction at HBP. Many graduates and even current students have joined the e-economy as entrepreneurs or hold positions in multinational companies because of their skills as knowledge workers.
The success of HBP is the envy and pride of many Schools in USM. Now that a track record has been set, there is no reason why such a success cannot be repeated and replicated at other Schools. After all, other Schools have the same basic structure as HBP. They are also subjected to the same system of governance by the central functions of the University.
Schools have so much to learn from the journey undertaken by HBP. If financial resource was a glitch in the beginning (which indeed it was), there is no reason why Schools should not adopt the path taken by HBP - that of utilizing consultancy-derived funds to acquire hardware, software, and technical know-how. In actual fact, for the next five years or so, financial contraint belongs to the bottom of the list, as the University has been awarded a budget of at least RM 100 million for use in computer-related projects and development in the entire campus. At the present moment, each and every lecturer is given a Pentium PC connected to a high speed Gigabits network which runs at throughout the campus. Many students in the hostels have access to the campus network through wireless technology. Hence, the basic infrastructure is already in place. What need to be upgraded are the IT labs with greater number of PC's on the network and relevant software. This would be the most difficult to accomplish because of the constantly improving and evolving technology.
(5) Recognition
HBP's climb from one success point to another caught the attention of the University. The school was given the honour of having its eLearning website launched by the Deputy Prime Minister in conjunction with USM's 30th Anniversary Celebration in mid-1999. The then Deputy Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Professor Baharudin Salleh backed this effort by monitoring the website everyday, and proposed HBP to be a candidate for the prestigious USM Quality Award - an internally-administered award ran by the University Quality Bureau. After several rounds of discussions, HBP came out as a finalist, and soon after, was named Winner of the award in November, 1999. During the award ceremony, the Professor Baharudin asked all Schools to emulate HBP's lead.
Riding on this success, HBP was then invited to participate at the 'eLearning 2000 Exhibition' in Kuala Lumpur. The HBP WebTeams conducted mini-eLectures through online access to lecture materials published on the HBP website.
(6) Sharing & Contribution for AUN Member Universities
AUN member universities can learn from this proactive grass root effort in which a small group of lecturers initiated the web-based learning project as a means to push colleagues to embrace IT in teaching and learning. The University Administration must actively encourage and recognise such a bottom-up approach where innovative approaches are sowed and nurtured to generate best practices for teaching and learning at universities.
If any AUN-member university is interested, USM is always open to possibilities of collaboration work, whereby USM can play the role of advisor/facilitator of the initiative proposed by the AUN-member university. Indeed, the spirit of sharing and contributing is an important facet of our culture in USM.
(7) References / Resources
1. Lee Lik Meng and Badaruddin Mohamed, 2001. “Integrating Information Technology into the Teaching and Learning of City and Regional Planning”, Online Planning Journal, University College London, (http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/planning/)
2. Lee, L.M., 2000, “eLearning @ HBP - A Success Story”, Buletin PBP, May.
3. USM Website http://www.usm.my/
4. USM Library website http://www.lib.usm.my/
5. HBP website http://www.hbp.usm.my/
6. eLearning 2000 website http://www.hbp.usm.my/memories/eLearn2k/
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