H.E. Dr. Hathal Homoud Alotaibi, President, International Islamic University (IIU) chaired a meeting of the Core Committee of Directorate of Distance Education at Faisal Masjid Campus.
The meeting was also attended by all the Vice Presidents, Deans and DGs in which working and future plan of the offering of online certificate / Diploma courses through the Directorate of Distance Education were discussed.
On the occasion, worthy President shared that the strategic plan of IIUI has been finalized and approved. The Vice Presidents, the Deans, and the DGs / heads of constituent units congratulated on approval of strategic plan.
Prof. Dr. N.B. Jumani shared that during pandemic the university has unmatched success story. He noted that offering online courses like coursera, EdX, udemy is an important feature of universities as knowledge building societies. He further added that the core committee of the Directorate of Distance Education is working hard and processes have been finalized. Dr. Jumani told that a dedicated system for the online distance education has been developed tailoring to the needs of the program in line with the international standards of the quality education.
The President mentioned that it is a challenge as well as a great opportunity for our university. The Worthy President emphasized maximum involvement of the faulty members in course development adding that it is necessary to catch more clientele in competition to other national and international universities.
He said that the courses and clientele would be increasing gradually. He advised to carefully assess the quality and market demands of the courses to be offered. The worthy President also instructed that now onwards every faculty and constituent unit will only be allowed to offer their distance education courses through the Directorate of Distance Education.
Dr. Mehrosh Khalid demonstrated the in-house developed software and the web portal for offering of the certificate/ diploma courses by the DDE. She presented all the features of the software and demonstrated the working of the system, including live chat, live synchronous teaching via ZOOM and interaction features. It is a fully customized web portal in comparison with the competitive online education systems, containing complete repository of courses, control over content, assessment and option of translation into various languages using the RTL support.
Dr. Asma Mansoor shared the procedures and guidelines for certificate, Diploma and Advance Diploma along with various components. A sample module developed by Department of Education was also shown. Dr. Fouzia Ajmal shared the progress of trainings for the focal persons.
The worthy President IIU appreciated the enthusiasm of the distance education team and its efforts. He further advised the DGs/Deans to motivate their relevant Departments for submission of certificate and Diploma courses and then start preparation to launch degree programs from Fall 2021 onwards.