UTech, Jamaica 2015-16 Annual Report

Dr. Jeanette Bartley-Bryan Associate Vice President In pursuit of i t s mandate t o p r ov i de flexible learning opportunities to diverse learners, the Office of Distance Learning (ODL) focused on enhancing e x i s t i n g processes and procedures. Academic Collaboration & Online Course Development • The College of Health Sciences (COHS) graduated its first cohort of fifteen online students in November 2015. The online Post Diploma in Pharmacy programme continued to attract students from across the Caribbean, with a third cohort of eleven (11) students enrolled in the programme as of September 2015. To date, the programme has been delivered to over thirty students from eight Caribbean countries. • COHS also appointed a new Online Course Design Coordinator to oversee the design and development of seven additional courses targeted for online-blended delivery. • The Faculty of Science and Sport established the dedicated role of Online Course Development Officer with the responsibility of designing and developing three additional general education and service modules targeted by the Faculty for online- blended delivery. The first of these target modules, Calculus for Social Sciences, was pilot tested in Semester II of academic year 2015-16. Faculty and Student Support Over fifty (50) faculty members received technical support from the ODL during the review period. Over the past ten years a total of three hundred and twenty- three (323) lecturers have been trained to develop and produce resources and learning materials for online modules. On average, the ODL supports over two hundred and fifty modules per semester delivered to approximately six thousand on-campus students. Policy Standards & Quality Monitoring Framework In collaboration with the Learning Technology Support Unit the ODL is establishing a governance and quality monitoring framework for distance learning. In December 2015, one core aspect of the framework instituted for the UTechOnline LMS was the assignment of auditing roles for Distance Learning Liaison Officers. Liaison Officers have access to all online modules offered by their respective School, Faculty or College which enables greater monitoring and regulation of quality standards. The ODL has also initiated the development of a Lecturers and members of the COHS first cohort of graduates of the Online Post-Diploma in Pharmacy. Page 14 University of Technology, Jamaica ANNUAL REPORT 2015-2016 OFFICE OF DISTANCE LEARNING