Bangladesh Open University (BOU) seeks to collaborate with WOU in the area of academic exchanges and the sharing of resources, especially in the delivery of education by using IT.
A three-member delegation consisting of Vice Chancellor Prof Dr M A Mannan along with Prof Mostafa Azad Kamal and Associate Prof Zahir Raihan from BOU’s School of Business visited WOU today.
The delegation was briefed about WOU and its technology-mediated learning support services, including the learning management system (LMS), digital library and the OER Repository. Vice Chancellor Prof Dato’ Dr Ho Sinn Chye described WOU’s academic support and its course development process. The visitors enquired about various issues, particularly relating to course delivery and learning support.
TAN HONG LEONG OF ITS BRIEFS ON STUDENT PORTAL
Prof Mannan suggested WOU might possibly provide training to selected BOU staff in setting up an OER Repository using the WEKO open source software. He also expressed interest in sending the BOU’s video production team to WOU to shoot tutorials for uploading onto LMS, as free reference material for the students of both universities.
THE BOU DELEGATION IN DISCUSSION WITH WOU TOP MANAGEMENT
“We can develop, for example, fifteen videos of 20-25 minutes length for a course. We will do the post-production edits at our cost as BOU is strong at in-house video production. We have only a few teachers who can give lectures in front of the camera for CeMBA. I know you have some good teachers. You can use our production resources without cost. We should help each other,” added Prof Mannan.
He said that BOU has more than 500 courses and wants to develop video lectures for every one of them. He hoped to have a Memorandum of Understanding in the next few months between both universities to cement their collaboration.
PROR MANNAN (IN WHITE SHIRT) SHARES HIS VIEWS
Prof Mannan remarked, “Since WOU is good in using IT and online education, BOU has many things to learn from it. We can explore how we can mutually benefit each other, because we want to provide education globally but we want to act locally. We can share our resources, free of cost, in many areas. And we can also exchange manpower between different fields.”
The BOU, established in 1992, has a total student population of about 600,000.
