OE4BW Hub South America

PROJECT

Open Education Resources (OER) for Higher Education Knowledge and Skills Required in the Pacific

The project aims to establish a dynamic and interactive automated SCORM package to support the education stakeholders (sponsors, potential students, parents and the teachers) to provide information on higher education. One big barrier that they face is the access of information about institutions, not able to locate and navigate the university websites, handbook for information such as programmes, majors, course offering and job prospects. Computer subject is optional in secondary schools thus many students lack basic ICT skills. Research also shows many students in the pacific lack numeracy and literacy skills. This project may also integrate relevant ICT, literacy and numeracy learning OERs, in preparing for senior secondary students for higher education. The project will allow students to understand the dynamic environment, be informed about the academic and social issues and also have the ownership of the University. Having information available in digital formats not only removes the barriers to sustainability but also benefits many working students at the flexibility of being able to integrate education with the demands of work and family. In addition, it helps to generate technology-driven and home-grown innovation that are essential for the sustainable development of regional countries in addressing student readiness and anxiety for academic journey. This project further allows early engagement and presents information which is more palatable (one-stop-shop) to potential students well in advance.

Benefits to prospective students and parents:
• will have access to career education and guidance
• will develop sense of self-awareness
• awareness of opportunities
• ability to make decisions and take actions

The main goal of this project is to develop a fully functional Higher education guide OER for the Pacific secondary students, teachers and parents. The OER is targeted to help Pacific Islanders to broaden their knowledge of higher education. The main goal of this project is to develop Higher Education guide OER, expand the accessibility to the high quality education opportunities and broaden the knowledge and required skills. The learning objective will be obtained using a standalone software which will also include Mobile App. The main components of this proposed OER are notes (consist of topic and sub topic notes), examples (sets of topics and sub topics examples), interactive videos for the topics, exercises for student to test their knowledge and gamification for user engagement. This projects provides a tremendous opportunity to access and convey information to the potential entire student body. In the case of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) becomes important drivers for innovation in the education system.

Author

Bijeta Kumar, OE4BW mentee

Bijeta Kumar

Bijeta Kumar is an accomplished, results oriented First Year Experience Coordinator with analytical experience leading high performance teams and successfully increasing efficiency, retention and success rates of new students. Experienced in implementing and managing retention programs for the first year students at Faculty of Science, Technology and Environment. Collaborate with variety of staff across the university in an effort to increase first year student success. Introduced new innovations when it comes to support systems. Strategically plan and coordinate the In-country Science Programs and implementation of support services in collaboration with academic and support staff across the University and the Regional Governments to improve student performance.

Mentor

Bibhya Sharma

Bibhya Sharma (PhD) is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at the University of The South Pacific (USP). He has also been the Associate Dean for Learning and Teaching within the Faculty of Science, Technology and Environment at USP since 2010. He is a member of a number of professional mathematics societies and unions and has published more than 70 articles and book chapters in the fields of mathematics education, robotics, biologically inspired processes and the TLPs of higher education.

Mentor

Nurbiha A. Shukor

Nurbiha A. Shukor (PhD) is an Open Education Resources Manager at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia and also an experienced Senior Lecturer with a demonstrated history of working in the higher education industry. She received post doctoral training from Radboud University, The Netherlands for the project Students’ Learning Regulation in Online Mathematics Learning. Skilled in E-Learning, Educational Technology, educational data mining and recently involved in projects related to STEM Education in Schools with Ministry of Education Malaysia as a Project Manager for STEMazing Project UTM.