APC P.14b
2003/2004

UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES
ACADEMIC PROGRAMME COMMITTEE OF THE UWIDEC

DISTANCE EDUCATION CENTRE, MONA
Report to Academic Programme Committee Meeting, April 2, 2004

Introduction

Mona has responsibility for 10 centres in Jamaica and oversight of the Northern Caribbean countries: The Bahamas Islands, Belize, Cayman Islands, and Turks and Caicos Islands. Students from these latter four register (in the main) with the Mona campus.

The report is limited to areas thought pertinent to the Academic Programme Committee, i.e. Programme matters, and related student, staff and space issues. It ends with a brief update on the Caribbean Universities Project (CUPIDE).

Programmes and related issues

Distribution of materials continues to be affected by the unavailability of student numbers per course per site on a timely basis. For the academic year 2003/2004 there were a number of instances where the number of course packages sent were insufficient.

Problem courses are SY32E (dealt with in the report from St Augustine) and EC14C, GT423, ED33A, ED33B, ED33N, which are still without the printed materials prepared by UWI faculty. EC14C to date relies on the purchase of text books. GT423 relies on old course materials and photocopies of articles, while the ED courses rely on photocopied materials.

The distribution of materials for the new foundation course FD11A had to be done electronically, on a unit by unit basis, as the writing of the course was not completed in time for the start of the semester.

The certificates in Public Administration and Business Administration were not advertised for the coming academic and a new intake for 2004/2005 is not anticipated. However, there will be students in the system who will need to complete the programmes, which may involve GT423. The payment of course coordinators in those courses peculiar to the certificates was raised, as the Faculty of Social Sciences at Mona, which historically was responsible for the certificate programmes, had ceased offering them on campus.

Tutorial support especially for level 3 courses in the B.Sc. programme, continues to be a challenge because of

  1. small numbers of students at some sites;
  2. unavailability of qualified persons.
Increasingly, teletutorials on the teleconference system have been used, but the availability of time on the network is a challenge.

In addition to the programme matters which are common to all the countries, there are two programmes that are currently delivered only in Jamaica: the B.Ed. Secondary programme, which is funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture, Jamaica, and the Masters in Family Medicine.

B.Ed. Secondary

The number of applicants and resulting number of accepted students in the B.Ed. Secondary programme is far below the original projection of 600 per cohort estimated by the Ministry of Education. The number of students per site per discipline is given in the Table 1 below.

Table 1: No. of accepted students per site per discipline in the B.Ed. Secondary programme

Subject Hist Math Phy Chem Bio Comp Stud Geo Span Fren Eng Total
Cohort/ Site 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2
B.Town - 1 - - - - - 1 - 1 - 1 - - - - - - 3 1 3 5
Denbigh 1 3 3 4 1 - 2 - 2 1 2 1 2 2 - 2 - - 4 4 17 17
M’ville 7 3 9 6 2 - 1 2 6 6 5 2 2 5 2 1 - - 4 10 38 35
Mona 6 11 4 23 4 1 3 1 3 7 1 11 4 7 1 4 - 1 6 22 32 88
MoBay 1 5 1 1 - - - - 1 1 - 1 3 1 3 - 1 - 3 6 13 15
Morant 3 3 2 1 2 - - 1 4 3 2 1 - - - 1 - - 2 3 15 13
Port Ant 2 1 1 5 - - - - 2 - 1 2 - - - - - - 3 1 10 9
Sav 2 2 1 2 - - 1 - 3 3 2 - 3 1 - 1 - - 5 3 17 12
Ocho R 3 3 - 3 1 - - 2 - - 2 - 2 1 1 2 - - 8 3 17 14
Vere - - - - - - - - - 1 1 - - - - - - - 2 - 3 1
Total 25 32 21 45 10 1 7 7 21 23 16 19 16 17 7 11 1 1 40 53 164 209

Cohort 1=2003-2006
Cohort 2=2004-2007

The number of applicants for the third cohort is reportedly also lower than anticipated.

In addition to the normal delivery modes of teleconferences, print material and tutorials, a number of the courses under this programme have been making use of Campus Pipeline for course delivery. The Web Administrator, Mr Howard Smith, and the Curriculum Development Specialist (Acting), Ms Charmaine McKenzie, have been instrumental in the process. There are also courses offered face-face during the summer period.

The Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Education does allow for use of the materials without permission for the conduct of UWI courses. It is therefore suggested that UWI establish the demand for these programmes in the other countries that support the network. Likewise, should the materials produced for the distance courses be in demand for the same courses taught on campus, the feasibility of reproducing the materials for the campus students could be investigated.

MSc Family Medicine

Registrations for the M.Sc. Family Medicine are as follows:

2001/2002 12
2002/2003 2
2003/2004 3

The Department of Psychiatry and Community Health at Mona have written to the Board for Non-Campus Countries and Distance Education to pursue the possibility of extending the programme to other countries.

Summer School

Overall, the arrangements made for the administration of summer school 2002/2003 worked reasonably well, with fees from students being lodged directly to a centre account. The implication was that UWIDEC was responsible for effecting refunds or transfers to the regular student accounts where necessary.

Discussions have begun with the Faculty of Social Sciences representative for arrangements for this years’ summer school.

Staff

Ms Charmaine McKenzie, Editor, has been acting in the post of Curriculum Development Specialist since October 2000.

The designation of the senior projects officer was changed to senior programme officer.

Ms Christine Marrett, Campus Coordinator and Senior Programme Officer, will be going on three months study leave from April 15, 2004. In her absence, Mr Derrick Thompson will be acting Campus Coordinator and Mr Orville Beckford will be Programme Officer. Ms Marrett has relinquished responsibility as campus coordinator as of the start of her study leave.

Other staffing matters

Part time computer/lab technician posts which came on budget for 2002/2003 were not yet filled as the posts were still to be advertised.

Space

Challenges of space and staffing of the non-campus sites is a continuing issue. Additional classroom space at Ocho Rios was provided with the use of four refurbished trailers.

Following on notice to quit the temporary housing at the Ministry of Education located on the grounds of the Brown’s Town Community College, arrangements to site two 40’ converted trailers at the College were made.

The space provided at Titchfield High School was in need of refurbishing but given the limitations for expansion, unsuccessful attempts to relocate the site were made. We are to proceed with refurbishing of the existing space. Denbigh has also indicated the need for additional accommodation.

Projects

On the request of the Ministry of Education in St Vincent and the Grenadines, the Head of the Department of Educational Studies had prepared a project proposal to offer the Certificate in Adult Education to St Vincent and the Grenadines. However, no response was forthcoming.

A project proposal for a course in curriculum development for four eastern Caribbean countries, also prepared by the Head of the Department of Educational Studies in response to a request was not supported by the funding agency that had been approached (DFID).

CUPIDE

The Caribbean Universities Project for Integrated Distance Education (CUPIDE) is an alternate name for the UNESCO-UWI project for the Enhancement of Human Resource Development in Distance Teaching, Administration and Materials Distribution, funded through the Japanese Funds in Trust for Capacity Building. The project agreement was signed on January 17, 2003.

Activities of the project considered pertinent to the Academic Programme Committee are:

  1. Reports of consultancies
  2. Pilot Course
  3. Establishment of the Caribbean Association for Distance and Open Learning.

(i) Reports of consultancies

Two consultants were hired by the project:

  1. Mr Kenneth Sylvester, Managing Director of Systems Alliance (Jamaica) Ltd. was selected to carry out the of the Information Technology Consultancy, July 22-November 22, 2003; and
  2. Mr Ronald Nicholas, Senior Consultant with HGM Management and Technologies, Inc. a firm based in Washington D.C, was engaged to provide base-line information and recommendations on programme needs, similar initiatives, learning styles, and human resource requirements, August 25, 2003 – February 16, 2004.

In general, Mr Sylvester recommended further investigation of the use of E-Links Americas to provide V-Sat communication for the five participating institutions. He suggested that the institutions examine the development of an educational portal. Based on projected costs, he recommended that the option of on-line distribution of materials for reproduction at distance education centres not be pursued.

The E-Links Americas is an organization born out of a World Bank supported project, Caribbean Knowledge and Learning Network (CKLN). However, at a meeting of the CKLN project held in February 2004, it was stated that E-Links Americas would not be ready to provide service before another 8-12 months.

Mr Nicholas’ report provided a wealth of information on distance education at each of the participating institutions, with a significant portion of the report dedicated to the UWI, as the most advanced of the five, relative to the provision of distance education. The first draft of the report can be accessed at: http://www.cupide.org.jm/reports/CUPIDE_ProjectReport_Draft02_Submit022704.doc.

Some pertinent observations on UWIDEC include:

The implications of these perceptions are that

Recommendations for the five universities include:

Recommendations related to initiatives and collaboration:

Based on the response of the institutions to both reports, the project budget and activities are to be rescheduled for submission to UNESCO, within the first week of April.

(ii) Pilot Course

At the Project Advisory Committee meeting held on August 5, 2004, it had been recommended that UTech and UWI work together on adapting existing courses to form the pilot course on developing distance education. Two meetings had been held between UWI and UTech involving Mr Carlton Samuels and Mr Craig Perue of the UWI Mona Information Technology Services (MITS) and Mrs Grace Turner of UTech, and the Project Manager. A project plan to be applied to the pilot course was drafted by the Project Manager.

The process was stalled when it was revealed that the course presented by Mrs Turner for adaptation was not in fact considered a UTech course but one developed by Mrs Turner.

In a subsequent meeting of the new representative of UTech to the PAC, Ms Cheryll Messam, MITS and the Project Manager, UTech was invited to review the course documentation on the UWI course e-Learning 101, and indicate whether there was agreement with the philosophy of the course and if so, to contribute to the assessment aspects of the course.

A written response was received from UTech and is awaiting the UWI response.

(iii) Establishment of the Caribbean Association for Distance and Open Learning (CARADOL)

Established with seed funding provided by the CUPIDE project for the steering committee, the inaugural meeting of CARADOL was held on the UWIDEC teleconference network, March 2, 2004. At that meeting the constitution was ratified and officers of the Association were elected. The officers are:

President: Dr. Dennis Irvine (Jamaica)
Vice President: Mr Wesley Barrett (Jamaica)
Secretary: Mrs. Lystra Sampson-Ovid (Trinidad & Tobago)
Assistant Secretary/Treasurer: Ms Jerome Miller-Perkins (Jamaica)
Member 1: Convenor Training Committee: Dr. John Gedeon (Trinidad & Tobago)
Member 2: Convenor Public Relations Committee: Mr Eduardo Ali (Trinidad & Tobago)
Member 3: Convenor Membership Committee: Mr Fitzroy Marcus (Guyana)
Member 4. Convenor Policy and Standards Committee: Ms Hazel Moses (Guyana)
Member 5: Convenor Finance and Fund Raising Committee, Ms Jennifer Sampson (Trinidad & Tobago)

Convenors of the Publication Committee and the Research and Development Committee would be appointed by the Executive.

Following the meeting, a reception hosted by the Jamaican Association for Distance and Open Learning was held, at which the Japanese Ambassador gave remarks.

The official launch of the Association was scheduled to take place during the COHSOD meeting to be held in Guyana, April 15, 2004.

Prepared by Christine Marrett, Campus Coordinator and Senior Programme Officer
March 29th, 2004