Oman Ministry of Higher Education and Edutech tie up to provide e-learning tools in six colleges

The initiative has provided a centralised learning platform that is now facilitating information sharing and dissemination among 10,000 students enrolled across the geographically-spread colleges in the regions of Sur, Ibra, Sohar, Rustaq, Nizwa and Salalah. The deployment of the state-of the-art online learning environment also provides a consolidated knowledge repository that enables administrators to evaluate learning and teaching methodologies and assess the curriculum fit.

The implementation has involved the 'Blackboard Learning System' and the 'Blackboard Community System' - two products by Blackboard Inc., a leading provider of educational technology. MoHE's initiative to integrate technologically advanced teaching tools into the learning process has resulted in one of the very few Wide Area Network (WAN) installations for Blackboard in the Middle East. The 'Blackboard Learning System' enables the colleges to post their courses online and provide information to students about the various courses and programmes offered across colleges, while the 'Blackboard Community System' allows administrators to build vibrant online communities and improve the flow of information to let students connect and learn outside the classroom.

"The Oman Ministry of Higher Education is committed to introducing innovative education techniques to create a whole new learning experience for students," said Mohammed Al Maamry, Assistant DG, Oman Ministry of Higher Education. "We have selected Edutech to implement the new system for their extensive experience in the industry coupled with the impressive high technology learning tools, which best suited our requirements. As Oman progresses towards adopting eLearning in all our major educational endeavours, our partnership with Edutech will aid us in helping students acclimatise to the fast-changing technologies of the world. We believe that we have taken the first step towards our goal, and we are looking forward to bringing in more colleges under the wings of this technology."

Through the world-class student-teacher eLearning platform, the colleges can accommodate students who wish to take all their courses online by providing powerful learning content and facilitating student collaboration, small group activities and peer knowledge sharing. In addition, the system can further help students with regard to transfer of courses, and assessment and reporting after the completion of the course. Further, faculty members also benefit from this deployment as it enables them to share resources with their peers as well as students across colleges, thus providing the best of both teaching worlds - in class and online.

"Our partnership with the Oman Ministry of Higher Education is in line with our commitment to promote excellence in the academic sector through technology-enabled eLearning solutions, and we believe that the Oman Government's openness to the adoption of Blackboard's teaching and learning platform is driving the development of its education sector into the forefront in the region. We are proud to have addressed the requirements set by the Ministry in terms of making online courses easily available to students, facilitating sharing of knowledge and resources by students and faculty across colleges, and increasing teacher-student interactivity. In line with our aims to create a standard of excellence for eLearning, we have also delivered workshops and customised training sessions to ensure that the colleges will get the best out of this implementation,"

concluded ASF Karim, CEO, Edutech Middle East.

Incorporating robust assessment systems, performance dashboard and early warning capabilities, the eLearning solution allows accurate tracking and monitoring of a student's progress, while empowering instructors to create custom learning paths for students to improve their engagement and retention. In addition to the actual implementation, Edutech has also provided training and consultation on the entire project through its Professional Service Group (PSG), with pre-implementation workshops conducted for the stakeholders to map out the technical and IT infrastructure requirements to build the eLearning platform. Customised training was also provided to almost 100 faculty members to ensure increased adoption and usage of the solutions.