TUESDAY, 24 JUNE – Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) is actively building and developing skills related to e-learning in response to the goals and initiatives outlined in the National e-Learning Action Plan Policy (DePAN).
 

Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Datuk Dr. Mohd. Harun Abdullah said the Ministry of Education had embarked on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) in a large scale since January this year, which among others were aimed at promoting internationalisaton and publicising Malaysian universities courses to the whole world.
 

“UMS is proud to be among the universities involved in the production of MOOC courses to be uploaded and used by UMS students next semester. For a start, 20 courses had been selected for this MOOC initiative.
 

“UMS’ involvement in this project would improve its presence in the global arena as well as improving the ranking of the university in terms of internationalisation,” he said. He was speaking at the official closing ceremony of the 20 MOOC Courses e-Content Development Retreat at the Berjaya Palace Hotel, Kota Kinabalu recently.
 

He added, MoE would be implementing the e-learning method in the form of blended courses with 50% of the courses offered by all Public Higher Learning Institutions (IPTA) be in blended mode by 2015.
 

“For that, the university has created UMS E-Learning Unit in May this year to achieve the aspirations set by the MoE.
 

In future, more courses in UMS would use this e-Learning method and would be made compulsory to all lecturers. If this programme proved successful, UMS will introduce open long distance learning mode (Open Distance Learning) for Masters and Doctorate programmes soon,” he said.
 

A total of 20 lecturers from various UMS faculties, centres and institutes had been involved in the three-day retreat to complete the contents of UMS MOOC. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Education I, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin were expected to launch MOOC in a big scale this coming September. – MA (fl)