Leading UAE university brings lectures into the digital age

This week BUiD - the Middle East's first research-based, postgraduate university - used a satellite video link to screen a live interactive lecture from one of its UK partners, the University of Birmingham. The technology enabled effective dialogue without any delay between the students in Dubai and the lecturer in Birmingham.

Plans are in place for the technology to be used as a two-way communication and research tool, to exchange new ideas and findings with other universities around the world.

"With the use of modern technology and interactive lectures, BUiD is once again demonstrating that students at the university receive the best of British education delivered in different and innovative formats,"

said David Lock, BUiD's Registrar and Acting CEO.

The lecture entitled 'Inclusion: Place, Process, Practice or Principle' was given to an audience taking the Masters in Education (M Ed.) programme at BUiD's Institute of Education, at its Knowledge Village campus in Dubai, by Dr. John Visser from Birmingham, England.

"It is a privilege for me to have delivered this ground-breaking lecture via satellite video to the students at the British University in Dubai. The lecture examined the subject of inclusion, which affects everyone single one of us. I wanted to draw upon the social, emotional and behavioural difficulties that both inclusion and exclusion bring," said Dr. John Visser, Senior Lecturer in Special Education, University of Birmingham.

BUiD uses 6 high speed ISDN lines which lead into a Polycom FX video station. The state-of-the-art technology ensures all users are visually and verbally interactive.

"The quality of telecommunications in the UAE is fantastic, which is vital for a university like BUiD which has to keep in regular contact with our partner universities in the UK. We regularly conduct UK - UAE meetings by video link and it has accelerated the pace of knowledge exchange," concluded Lock.