Strategic plan for distance education at the Anton de Kom University of Suriname (AdeKUS)

Strategic Plan for Distance Education at the Anton de Kom University of Suriname

Final Version - 28 December 2005

Pieter van der Hijden MSc

Sofos Consultancy

sofos consultancy consulting on management and ict m p.o. box 94874, 1090 gw amsterdam, the netherlands v b. stokvisstraat 38, 1097 hz amsterdam, the netherlands t +31 (20) 694 12 22 e [email protected] w www.sofos.nl

Client: Carribean Universities Project for Integrated Distance Education Project Director: Stewart Marshall Project Operations Manager: Christine Marrett Project Chairperson AdeKUS: Dennis Wip

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CUPIDE / AdeKUS Strategic Plan for Distance Education at the Anton de Kom University of Suriname sofos consultancy

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Preface The Japanese fund-in-trust for capacity building funded the UNESCO/UWI project CUPIDE, the Caribbean Project for Integrated Distance Education. The University of the West Indies (UWI), along with the University of Guyana, the Anton de Kom University of Suriname, the University of Technology (Jamaica), and the University Quisqueya (Haiti), are involved in this project.

CUPIDE aims at the development of the human resources within the region through enabling each university to develop and deliver quality distance education programmes using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs).

To date, two consultancies have been undertaken involving the five participating institutions: one to recommend appropriate information technologies (IT) and the other to review the human resource and programme needs (HR&PN) in the development of ICT-based distance education in the region.

In order to accomplish the strategic planning for three of the institutes involved, CUPIDE invited firms or consultants to submit proposals for a strategic planning and implementation consultant. Sofos Consultancy was one of them. It was selected for the assignment concerning the strategic planning for the Anton de Kom University of Suriname (AdeKUS).

The objectives of this assignment were:

• to produce a strategic plan for AdeKUS for distance education involving the use of information communication technologies, identifying the resources required for implementation, possible barriers to implementation and suggested solutions to overcome the barriers, with an indicative budget for the implementation of the plan,

• to assist AdeKUS to develop strategic planning capacities to effectively manage its resources to provide distance education incorporating the use of ICTs,

• to be part of the larger CUPIDE project which implies enhanced cooperation with the institutes involved.

The assignment started on 24 August 2005 with a telephone conference and ended on 23 December 2005 with the completion of two reports:

• Strategic Plan for Distance Education at the Anton de Kom University of Suriname,

• Final Report - Strategic Planning and Implementation Consultant for the Anton de Kom University of Suriname.

The consultant wishes to thank the numerous persons at AdeKUS who contributed to this assignment, especially the members of the ICT Steering Committee for their advise and support, the participants of the Workgroup Education and the Workgroup Strategy for their enthusiasm and for the richness of their ideas, and the crew of the University Computer Centre for their hospitality and daily support.

This is the first of both reports mentioned above: Strategic Plan for Distance Education at the Anton de Kom University of Suriname.

Wanica, Suriname, 28 December 2005,

Pieter van der Hijden

Sofos Consultancy


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Summary For distance education in which the learner is separated from the teacher, digital multimedia, the Personal Computer, and the Internet offer a wealth of new opportunities.

The Suriname Ministry of Education and Community Development the use of ICT in education is a tool to implement new didactical insights. For the Anton de Kom University of Suriname (AdeKUS), distance education is a possible way to overcome the shortage of qualified staff by bringing them in from abroad, via the Internet.

The Workgroup Strategy (university managers) and the Workgroup Education (university teachers) participated each in three workshops on distance education. They constructed a AdeKUS vision of the future (i.e. the year 2010), confronted that with a picture of current reality and derived an agenda for change. This agenda contained various starting points for distance education:

• Distance education may attract new categories of students,

• Distance education may decrease the number of drop-outs,

• Distance education may increase the quality of education,

• Distance education may decrease the "brain drain" and "brain waste",

• Distance education is a "must" for a modern university.

The next step was the formulation of a AdeKUS distance education strategy:

• AdeKUS becomes a dual mode distance education university,

• AdeKUS sets central quality standards; the Faculties remain responsible for the course content,

• AdeKUS students get access to online resources, e.g. a virtual learning environment,

• AdeKUS chooses a systems approach to organise its core processes,

• AdeKUS participates in national community,

• AdeKUS participates in international community.

To implement this strategy during the coming five years, the following activities are recommended:

• establish a Distance Education Steering Committee (possibly together with other institutes), supported by a small office (2 people),

• launch 25 online supported courses at the start of 2006/2007, increase this number annually and support al courses online in 2009/2010, at least 10% of them may be followed completely via distance education,

• also in 2006/2007 a pilot with a distance learning centre will be held, probably leading to a range of such centres,

• a Community of Practice at national level will stimulate educational innovation, a.o. by organising an annual conference on this theme,

• the Steering Committee will stimulate the participation in foreign conferences and will give grants to innovative projects.

The estimated budget for these activities is USD 100.000 per year, during five years. Preconditions for the successful implementation are: AdeKUS has a well-designed planning & control structure, AdeKUS has a professional ICT-function, and AdeKUS has an Internet portal for publishing relevant internal and external information and for connecting to other web-enabled applications.


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Table of Contents 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................. 5

1.1 Distance Education........................................................................................................... 5 1.2 CUPIDE ........................................................................................................................... 6

1.2.1 IT-Consultancy.......................................................................................................... 6 1.2.2 HR&PN Consultancy ................................................................................................ 7

1.3 Objectives......................................................................................................................... 9 1.4 Methodology and Implementation ................................................................................... 9

1.4.1 Stakeholders .............................................................................................................. 9 1.4.2 Strategic Plan / Implementation Plan ........................................................................ 9 1.4.3 Developing Capacities............................................................................................. 10 1.4.4 Organisation ............................................................................................................ 11

2 Strategic Plan......................................................................................................................... 12 2.1 Suriname......................................................................................................................... 12 2.2 AdeKUS ......................................................................................................................... 13 2.3 Vision of the Future........................................................................................................ 14 2.4 Current Reality ............................................................................................................... 15 2.5 Agenda for Change......................................................................................................... 17 2.6 Distance Education Potential ......................................................................................... 19 2.7 Distance Education Strategy .......................................................................................... 20

3 Implementation Plan ............................................................................................................. 21 3.1 Analysis .......................................................................................................................... 21

3.1.1 AdeKUS 2010 ......................................................................................................... 21 3.1.2 Priorities Workgroup Strategy ................................................................................ 22 3.1.3 Priorities Workgroup Education.............................................................................. 23

3.2 Synthesis......................................................................................................................... 24 3.2.1 Possible Roadmap ................................................................................................... 24 3.2.2 Activities ................................................................................................................. 25 3.2.3 Preconditions........................................................................................................... 27 3.2.4 Budget ..................................................................................................................... 27

4 Conclusions & Recommendations ........................................................................................ 29 Appendices ............................................................................................................................... 30 Contributors.............................................................................................................................. 31 Resources ................................................................................................................................. 33 Abbreviations ........................................................................................................................... 35


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1 Introduction This chapter introduces modern distance education, the CUPIDE project, the objectives of the current assignment, the methodology used and its implementation.

1.1 Distance Education Distance Education can be defined as "an educational process in which the learner is separated from the teacher for a substantive part of the learning time; in which face-to-face teaching is replaced largely, or in extreme cases completely, by instruction through printed texts, or other media; and in which provision is made for two-way communication, by face-to-face meetings, by written correspondence, or by some form of mediated communication." [Curran, 1995]. This definition is "technologically neutral". Today especially the "electronically enhanced" distance education is growing all over the world.

Distance education has a rich history of more than 150 years. It started with so-called correspondence courses that became available as soon as new railway systems enabled fast and secure postal services. In a later period radio transmission was used too, followed by television, and, again, the postal distribution of audio cassette tapes, video cassette tapes and their successors. In fact, synchronous (simultaneous) and asynchronous (time-shift) media took turns. The modern multimedia Personal Computer facilitated the use of interactive multimedia software distributed on diskette, CD-ROM, or DVD. Dedicated telecommunication services made audio conferences and video conferences possible. And now, the Internet can eliminate the need for physical distribution of materials, reduce the need for dedicated equipment and software at the user side, and decrease transmission costs, while offering both asynchronous and synchronous communication modes [Moore et al., 2005]. The only resources needed by students are access devices (a multimedia PC with Internet browser software) and an Internet connection with sufficient bandwidth. In many countries these resources still are scarce. However, with constantly decreasing prices for PC's and for Internet connections worldwide, it is a matter of time and this type of scarcity is over. The Internet offers to many educational institutes and commercial educational publishers a wealth of new opportunities in the field of distance education. As a contrast, the Internet also implies a threat: in fact any institute in the world can become a competitor and attract the own students via Internet-based distance education.

Not only the technology changed over the years, the same happened with the reasons to implement distance education. It started as a means to cross the geographical distance between learner and teacher. It evolved as a vehicle to shift the time, appreciated by learners with other obligations during the day. And now, distance education is entering the stage of just-in-time learning, the piecewise offering of learning content at the moment and at the place it is needed.

Higher education institutes like the British Open University are offering distance education as a single mode institute. It is their core business. Course production and course delivery are two more-or-less separated business processes, organised in an industrial way. Large numbers of students can be handled. Economies of scale apply and the production cost per unit per student can be low. Conventional universities who are offering face-to-face education may sooner or later add distance education to their offerings. These institutes are called dual mode institutes. The numbers of students following a certain course via distance education may be relatively low. Economies of scale do not apply. Nevertheless, there exist cost efficient strategies for small distance teaching universities (<10,000 students) [Curran, 1995]. The following table lists some examples.


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Examples of Strategies

Cost Efficient Strategy for Small Distance Teaching University Strategy applied in Large Distance Teaching University

Use existing course materials from face-to-face course as the starting point for preparing distance education.

Start from scratch.

Use regular faculty or part-time staff (monitored by regular faculty) for assessments and tutoring.

Have separate staff for course production and for course delivery (tutoring).

Use PC and standard office software to prepare course materials. Use dedicated graphical work stations and software.

Use a specially equipped classroom for video production. Set-up your own tv studio for video production.

Use simple video-recording of lectures. Use scripting and rehearsing.

Apart from the single mode and dual mode universities, a third category is distinguished: the consortium, in which different dual mode institutes cooperate, especially in course production, but optionally in course delivery as well. The CUPIDE project may evolve into such a consortium.

1.2 CUPIDE The Japanese fund-in-trust for capacity building funded the UNESCO/UWI project CUPIDE, the Caribbean Project for Integrated Distance Education. The University of the West Indies (UWI), along with the University of Guyana, the Anton de Kom University of Suriname, the University of Technology (Jamaica), and the University Quisqueya (Haiti), are involved in this project.

CUPIDE aims at the development of the human resources within the region through enabling each of the five participating universities to develop and deliver quality distance education programmes using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). The intended effects of these programmes are:

• The competitiveness of the region in general and the institutions in particular will be enhanced

• Participation in the knowledge society will increase – not only as users, but also as generators of knowledge –

• Cost savings will be realised in the use of the technology for distribution of the course materials and the teaching and administration of programmes

To date, two consultancies have been undertaken involving the five participating institutions: one to recommend appropriate information technologies (IT) and the other to review the human resource and programme needs (HR&PN) in the development of ICT-based distance education in the region. The conclusions of these consultancies led to the current assignment.

1.2.1 IT-Consultancy In January 2004 Ken Sylvester prepared for CUPIDE the "Final Report On Assessment of Institutional Capacity and State of ICT Infrastructure at each Participating University With Recommendations of an Integrated Network for connecting the five Participating Universities And Management Framework, Skills, Competencies and Budget to Implement and Sustain Network Infrastructure For The Delivery of Distance Education and Collaboration".

In general, his report recommended:

• Distance education be based on the Internet with a preference for asynchronous modes of course delivery.

• The Internet be used as the network backbone for connecting the five universities.

• Two-way IP enabled VSAT terminals be provided to the five participating institutions including the distance education centres of The University of the West Indies and The University of Guyana.

• A Satellite Service Provider be selected to provide a service to include the required space segments and the supply and installation of the VSAT terminals to each institution.


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• Each institution be provided with a Learning Management System of their choice that conforms to agreed international standards and within a specified price band.

• That a Web Portal be developed or purchased as a platform for collaboration between the participating universities.

• Training is provided to each university in the use of the Learning Management System for courseware development and delivery.

• A technical consultant be retained to work with each institution to assist in the development of business plans for the delivery of distance education and facilitate the selection of ICT tools and their implementation.

Concerning (a.o.) AdeKUS, the report noticed the absence of distance education practices as well as a "documented plan or IT strategy for the delivery of distance education". It recommended "to develop an ICT plan before beginning the implementation of project elements under CUPIDE", i.e. the current assignment.

1.2.2 HR&PN Consultancy In the period February-April 2004, Ron Nicholas prepared his "Report on the Distance Learning and Online Education Programmes and Human Resource Development Requirements for Participating CUPIDE Institutions".

The report notes that systematic collection of data failed due to low response. Conclusions have been based on formal and informal interviews and desk research.

The report focused on four themes:

• Programmes

The report signalled that the participating universities shared a number of high priority needs:

• Providing accessible education to improve primary and secondary teachers, especially secondary;

• Increasing the number of technology programmes available, and to strengthen the technology content of most programmes;

• Supplementing any programmes with access to global alternatives; and

• Designing programmes that provide access to the greatest number of prospective students, while preserving quality within the constraints of technology and available resources.

Underlying needs are:

• Assessing student needs and constraints;

• Redesigning course development processes;

• Increasing project management skills;

• Enhancing processes and mechanisms for continued program planning including mechanisms for regional planning and collaboration.

• Learning Styles, Preferences, Modalities, Pedagogy and Distance Education Methods

The report stresses the need for informed decisions on learning and teaching models and methods.

• Human Resource Professional Development

"Though the participating universities appear to have individuals with sufficient basic computer technology skills, these same individuals are woefully lacking in knowledge about the technologies, methods and related learning models for online distance education alternatives."


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The report identifies two levels of development: 1) comprehensive overview, and 2) focused on specific (selected) technologies.

• Projects, Initiatives, and other Collaboration

According to the report, successful collaboration appears to be a critical issue. Opportunities for collaboration are:

• CUPIDE / CARADOL Collaboration

• Collaboration beyond universities

• Technology collaboration

• Virtual university concept

The report presents a large number of (general) recommendations, summarised in a figure (see copy below).

Manage the Transformation Process and Enable Change

CUPIDE Recommendations Overview

��

Establish Professional

Development Plans

Assess Faculty & Staff Learning

Style Preferences

Professional Development Overview of Online & Distance

Ed Fundamentals

Improve Project / Change Management

Skills

Projects & Teams for Planning of Online & Distance Education

Programmes

Overall Project Framework

Individual Professional

Development Plans

Assess Student Needs & Constraints

Assess Existing Baseline of Programmes & Courses

CUPIDE Target Categories

TechnologyOpportunities

Beyond CUPIDEfor Access

Potential for RegionalVirtual University

Explore Collaboration Opportunities / Frameworks for Implementation Continuation

Projects & Teams for Development and Implementation of Online &

Distance Education Programmes

Prof Dev Focused on Selected Technologies, methods, etc.

Utilise Targeted Capabilities in Professional Development

Articulate Preferred Default Modality

Department Review of Learning Models

Department Modality Feasibility

Communicate Plans & Strategies

Build Learning Style Measurement Into Distance

Admissions Process

Develop (Revise) Online & Distance Education Strategies

Pilot Development of Teacher Education Course Prototypes

Continually Update Individual/Regional Plans & Strategies

Future Tech Content & Emphasis on Regional Development Needs

Regarding Suriname, the reports signals on the one hand a minimal level of experience with distance education, on the other an interest level that is quite high:

• AdeKUS is looking at CUPIDE to learn from the experiences of others;

• One of the opportunities for distance education is building up the capacity and qualifications of primary and secondary teachers, especially in the remote areas of the country's interior; at the same time, the availability of Internet in remote areas could diminish the social isolation of teachers from their relatives in the city.

• Another opportunity for distance education could be the mitigation of brain drain by providing students opportunities to pursue education and advancement, as well as access to quality programmes, without the necessity of living abroad.


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• Further, it is believed that many people from the "brain drain" population might appreciate opportunities to stay connected and give back to their home countries.

1.3 Objectives The current assignment builds on both CUPIDE consultancies. Its objectives are:

• to produce a strategic plan for AdeKUS for distance education involving the use of information communication technologies, identifying the resources required for implementation, possible barriers to implementation and suggested solutions to overcome the barriers, with an indicative budget for the implementation of the plan,

• to assist AdeKUS to develop strategic planning capacities to effectively manage its resources to provide distance education incorporating the use of ICTs,

• to be part of the larger CUPIDE project which implies enhanced cooperation with the institutes involved.

During the assignment, the CUPIDE project operations manager advised to postpone the latter issue to follow-up projects.

1.4 Methodology and Implementation

1.4.1 Stakeholders A strategic plan for distance education involving the use of information & communication technologies will have impact on almost every organisational unit of a university and almost every member of its community. Therefore many stakeholders could be identified who all rightfully may expect some role in the process of plan preparation. Just to mention a few: the University Board, planning & control units, statistical office, any unit involved with forms of distance education so far, educational professionals, ICT-service providers, the faculties and institutes (both from an organisational point of view and from an educational point of view), the office for students affairs, the office for study materials publication, the library, and last but not least the students (or even better: the future students who will practise distance learning).

It would be impossible to involve all these stakeholders intensively in our plan preparation process. Nevertheless, it was important to keep them informed and to show them the ways to have their voice heard. We therefore proposed to publish regularly and quite informally via existing means what is going on in this assignment. Preferably we could use ICT to publish and discuss the topic. This would have the positive side effect of introducing people to new forms of electronic collaboration, one of the corner stones of modern distance education. At a later moment, the university could organise a special event like a university-wide conference to present the results.

Implementation Unfortunately, AdeKUS does not have "existing means" of communication, nor electronically nor in frequent print. As an alternative, we planned therefore the weekly publication of a news bulletin to be sent to the local media. The first bulletin took three weeks to produce. It was copied in almost every local newspaper, although it did not result in any reaction or sign of further interest. Despite of this relative success, no new bulletins were produced. The benefits simply did not compensate for the costs. As a consequence, the intended communication with a broad range of stakeholders was rather limited. It has to be considered as a follow-up activity.

1.4.2 Strategic Plan / Implementation Plan In many cases, innovation with ICT in educational institutes starts as a bottom-up process. Individual teachers take the initiative to use their limited resources (time and sometimes money) to experiment with ICT in a modest way. Although not guided by any institutional policy, these practices could be very useful for the organisation as a whole. Close to the operational processes, these experiments


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create new knowledge and competencies, while their costs and risks are low. Sooner or later, a turning point is reached. The institutional management gets involved. They take a position and guide the further innovation with ICT. From then the innovation is a top-down process.

The Anton de Kom University of Suriname has the intention to go for ICT-supported distance education in a top-down way. Although, certainly some teachers will have experimented already with ICT in learning processes, the consultancies described above could not produce much significant information on this topic. We assumed therefore that bottom-up innovation has not come to age yet. This might hinder a top-down process in being fed by experiences from the work floor. Therefore, we proposed to pay explicit attention to the bottom-up process as well.

Together with a strategy workgroup at university management level (5-15 persons) we planned to develop the required strategic plan / implementation plan for distance education at AdeKUS. One of the topics of these plans should be how to deal with initiatives and project ideas from Faculties and Research Institutes.

Together with an educational practice workgroup of senior teachers (5-15 persons) from at least three different Faculties or Research Institutes, we planned to go through an accelerated bottom-up process. They will trace any in house e-learning experiments, study and experience a selection of e-learning products and educational practices, and generate ideas for future projects. These project ideas will be submitted to the strategy workgroup.

As said before, distance education has many stakeholders. Also many different disciplines are involved: management, ICT, logistics, educational professionals, multimedia specialists, etceteras. We did not propose to set up special groups for these specialists. However, when composing the two workgroups we would especially look for members who could bring in these extra expertise as well.

We realised that it might be necessary to do some fact finding for which workgroups and workshops were not the appropriate vehicle. In such cases, we planned to contact other specialists directly.

Implementation The above approach of the planning process could be followed without major amendments. The chapters "Strategic Plan" and "Implementation Plan" will present the results.

1.4.3 Developing Capacities To develop strategic planning capacities is a matter of developing knowledge, experience and attitude. Modern educational researchers stress that people learn these competencies most effectively and efficiently in authentic learning situations, especially in a collaborative environment.

We proposed to offer these learning conditions in the form of a series of workshops, three for the strategy workgroup and three for the educational practice workgroup. While offering a safe environment for collaborative learning, both workgroups will gradually produce the desired outcomes.

Two measures could help to secure that the lessons learnt, will be used in the future. One was that the workgroups would have their own local chairperson. In the end, colleagues will be longer available than consultants. Of course, the consultant would support them in any possible way, and continued to be responsible for the objectives of the assignment. The second measure was that all workshop formats, exercises, management games etceteras entered by the consultant, would be freely available for the AdeKUS for future re-use. The consultant planned to encourage the workgroups to repeat (parts of) workshops in other contexts, e.g. within the faculties. Also a university wide conference on distance education might be considered.

Implementation The above approach of the capacity developing process has been followed. The consultant organised six one-day workshops. To give the participants the experience of distance education, they had to do some homework via a Virtual Learning Environment (i.e. Moodle) set-up for that occasion. This AdeKUS-ELO (ELO being the Dutch acronym for Virtual Learning Environment) raised great


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enthusiasm in both workgroups. In the mean time all workshop documentation including the exercise formats (for re-use) have been published via this ELO. Some participants indicated they were interested to re-use it. Concrete plans are not known.

The Strategy Workgroup had a permanent local chairperson; unfortunately the other workgroup did not. The members of the workgroups came from all three Faculties and from some of institutes and the central units. From one faculty two student representatives participated in the Workgroup Education. The results of the workshops themselves are used in the chapters on "Strategy" and "Implementation". More details on the workshops can be found in "Final Report - Strategic Planning and Implementation Consultant for the Anton de Kom University of Suriname".

1.4.4 Organisation We proposed to set up a small Steering Committee for the assignment. We suggested it would be chaired by a member of the University Board, preferably connected to CUPIDE as well, and have the two chairpersons of the workgroups as its members. Extra members could be representatives of the ICT department, the Library and the Office for Student Affairs. This Steering Committee was intended to offer the consultant a platform to discuss and reflect his work, while it could secure the alignment with other activities going on at the university.

Implementation In fact, the existing ICT Steering Committee acted as the Steering Committee for the assignment. Chairperson was Dennis Wip, member of the University Board and member of the CUPIDE Project Advisory Team. He was chairperson of the Strategy Workgroup too. As the other workgroup did not have a permanent chairperson, it was not represented in the Steering Committee. Although educational expertise in the committee could be stronger represented, the Steering Committee offered to the consultant a valuable platform for feedback and reflection.


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2 Strategic Plan In this chapter we review shortly Suriname's educational policy and the actual policy of AdeKUS regarding distance education and ICT. We construct a AdeKUS vision of the future, confront that with a picture of current reality and derive an agenda for change. This agenda contains various starting points for distance education. We list its potential for AdeKUS and finally formulate the proposed AdeKUS Distance Education Strategy.

2.1 Suriname Suriname covers an area of 164,000 square kilometres, is situated at the North-East coast of South-America and is bordered by French-Guyana, Brazil, and Guyana. The total population counts about 493,000 people (Census 2005), a quarter of them less than 15 years old. About 90% of the population live in a 40 km wide coastal strip, 70% of them in Paramaribo and the bordering district of Wanica. Therefore, most of the educational institutes at secondary-senior and at tertiary levels are located there.

In 2002, the Ministry of Education and Community Development (Minov) concluded a participative process to elaborate a politically neutral Suriname Educational Plan (SEP). SEP has a planning horizon of 15-20 years. In 2004, a new plan was built on SEP: the Sector Plan Education. It has a planning horizon of 2004-2008.

The Sector Plan Education gives an extensive description of the state of the educational system. Regarding the higher education, i.e. AdeKUS and about six other institutes, it presents a list of serious bottlenecks. Amongst them are:

• the content and the quality of the curriculum,

• the lack of learning materials,

• the incapable teaching staff (especially in didactical competencies and in ICT-use),

• the insufficient level of services, like the Internet,

• the low output levels,

• the growing number of students.

ICT is mainly seen as a tool for educational innovation. It helps in implementing new didactical insights.

The Sector Plan describes a mission (focused on the person of the learner), targets (effectiveness, efficiency, equal opportunity, international competitiveness of the labour force) and strategies to reach these targets in the coming years. One of the latter is regional cooperation in the field of education. It implies documenting and disseminating of educational resources and practices and "increasing and broadening distance education technology and tools". A small unit of AdeKUS and IOL (Teachers Education Institute) should start putting distance education into practice. Distance education is considered to be a technology for regional educational cooperation.

Although the Sector Plan points at the internal and external inefficiency of the educational system, the latter is dealt with rather implicitly. Other sources [Sedney, 2003] point at the "brain drain" at different stages in the higher education process chain.

The bottom line is that Suriname wants to change its educational system in many aspects. It recognises the growing importance of ICT. It considers distance education as a tool for regional educational cooperation.

For the AdeKUS distance education strategy this implies that:

• strategic contributions of distance education other than for regional cooperation, might need extra clarification,


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• any distance education strategy has to fit into an educational system that will be changing in many aspects in the coming years; most of them have to be articulated further.

2.2 AdeKUS The Anton de Kom University of Suriname was founded in 1968, 7 years before Suriname's independence. At the occasion of its 35th anniversary in 2003, the University Board summarised its history as: exciting growth in the 70s, ideological entanglement in the 80s, painful reconstruction in the 90s, and creative innovation now [Sedney, 2003].

The figure below shows an organisation chart of the university plus the curricula they deliver (Bachelor level).

Two new faculties are in preparation:

• Faculty of Humanities and Educational Science (Bachelor level

• Faculty of Graduate Studies (Masters and Ph.D., all in English)

The Faculty of Medical Sciences is located next to the Academic Hospital in Paramaribo. The rest of the university is concentrated on a single campus (Leysweg, Paramaribo).

On 31 October 2005, the university counted about 440 students in the articulation year, 3200 regular students and 580 staff members (full-time + part-time). The next figure shows the distribution of students by faculty.


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Students by Faculty (N = 3636)

Faculty of Medical Sciences

Faculty of Social Sciences

Faculty of Technological

Sciences

Articulation Year

AdeKUS does not have a single comprehensive policy document. In various documents, the university reports certain shortcomings it wants to change: Only a few percents of all students will ever get their diploma; the number of publications by the scientific staff is low compared to the region; with the Faculty of Medical Sciences as an exception, the number of staff having their doctorate is too low for starting Master-courses.

The Draft Budget Financial Year 2006-2010 lists the AdeKUS strategy for the coming years:

• internationalising of all curricula (BaMa/Graduate),

• evaluating the planning & control structure,

• establishing a system for accreditation and quality control,

• offering short certified courses,

• raising the competence level of the scientific staff and offering possibilities to them to take their Ph.D.,

• making up arrears in ICT faster.

Concerning ICT, the document is not explicit on the current state, nor on the desired state. Distance education is mentioned as a possible way to organise master-courses. As long as AdeKUS does not have enough qualified staff, it could bring in foreign staff via distance education.

2.3 Vision of the Future At the moment, AdeKUS vision of the future is fragmented. Elements of it can be found in various documents, speeches, interviews with members of the University Board, etceteras. To be able to formulate a AdeKUS strategy for distance education, we need a coherent vision of the future of AdeKUS itself. This "Gestalt View" is missing.

We used the knowledge, experience, diversity and commitment of our workgroups to synthesize a preliminary AdeKUS vision. The Workgroup strategy formulated a general vision, the Workgroup Education formulated the AdeKUS direction towards educational innovation. The result is shown in the figure below. The blue texts should be considered as directions, not as absolute goals. We will come back to this in our section "Agenda for Change".


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2.4 Current Reality The counter part of a vision of the future is a picture of the current situation. Again both workgroups were the primary sources of information. The following picture is the result.


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Although officially AdeKUS has not been involved in distance education, participants to our workshops reported about 45 more-or-less informal local initiatives, both for course material production and for its delivery. The figure below shows where these initiatives take place (each reported initiative is indicated with a "@"-sign.


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Although listing all activities related to distance education in Suriname's society is out of the scope of the current assignment, it should be noted that at every level of the education system there are projects going on or there have been systems installed to innovate in the field of education and ICT, or more specifically in the field of distance education. As an example, the Educons Foundation has set-up about 30 "knowledge centres", i.e. computer rooms, near schools all over the coastal area and has plans to go to the interior. These centres not only offer computer facilities and courses to schools, but also to the local community.

2.5 Agenda for Change When we compare the Vision of the Future with the picture of Current Reality, we can derive the AdeKUS "Agenda for Change". Note, that this goes further than distance education alone.


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Agenda for Change

Vision of the future Current Reality Agenda for change

AdeKUS is the principal state funded higher education institute of Suriname. Its importance for the development of the country is undisputed.

AdeKUS is the principal state funded higher education institute of Suriname. Its annual budget is the outcome of short-term political decision making. AdeKUS main interest is an annual budget to pay the salaries and to maintain its premisses.

From AdeKUS perspective, a more stable way of funding is needed, e.g. based on a management contract for delivering output (like education) in exchange for certain input (budget).

Its education, research & development, and other forms of knowledge transfer contribute to the further social and economic development of the country in the direction of a knowledge society.

Its education, research & development, and other forms of knowledge transfer have various impacts on the further social and economic development of the country. Decision-making, planning, and control is focused individual projects.

AdeKUS needs an overall planning and control cycle. Individual projects are welcome, but have to fit into an overal strategy or policy.

• Education - AdeKUS recruits its students mainly from Suriname and the rest of the Caribbean region. It offers them a competitive foundation for a regional career, easy access to lifelong learning opportunities, and membership of the AdeKUS community.

• Education - AdeKUS recruits its students mainly from Suriname. In their perception a study abroad offers a more competitive foundation for a career. The number of drop-outs is high. The percentage of students leaving AdeKUS with a diploma is the lowest of the region.

• AdeKUS needs to increase the quality of its educational processes, both in content and in delivery methods.

• AdeKUS needs to attract new categories of students (this requires "supply chain management" and marketing)(e.g. the large reservoir of drop-outs).

• AdeKUS needs to decrease its drop- out rate by a systematic approach to student performance monitoring and guidance.

• Research & Development - AdeKUS attracts foreign students and scientists in fields related to its unique natural, cultural, and economic conditions. It offers them opportunities to specialise in environmental sciences, tropical agriculture, tropical medicine, multicultural sociology, small enterprise economy.

• Research & Development - AdeKUS welcomes foreign students and scientists in environmental sciences, tropical agriculture, and tropical medicine. A clear policy on dealing with foreign students has to be developed.

• AdeKUS needs a planning and control process for scientific research, scientific publications and other dissemination activities.

• Services - AdeKUS cooperates with government organisations, NGO's and enterprises to develop science based solutions for actual societal needs.

• Services - AdeKUS sections cooperate with government organisations, NGO's and enterprises to develop science based solutions for actual societal needs.

• AdeKUS needs organisational units for external communication and marketing.

AdeKUS is an appreciated partner in a number of partnerships with other universities, both in the Caribbean and in the Benelux.

AdeKUS is a partner in many relationships with other universities and NGO's in the Caribbean, North- and South-America, and Western Europe.

AdeKUS needs an organisational unit for external communication and cooperation.

For its staff and students AdeKUS is a great place to work and learn. Its open and collaborative atmosphere is characteristic for the AdeKUS community. People are proud to be a member of the AdeKUS community.

For its staff and students AdeKUS is a pleasant place to work and learn. The atmosphere is open and collaborative. Nevertheless, economic conditions force both staff and students to look for additional sources of income. This has a negative impact on staff efforts for innovation and on students' study success.

AdeKUS needs better facilities for students who combine their study with other obligations.

AdeKUS is operating efficiently using state-of-the-art ICT technology. It has a clear and simple planning and control process. As a whole it operates as a learning organisation.

AdeKUS is operating as a set of loosely connected units. PC penetration varies by Faculty. The campus network (fibreglass) is mainly used for Internet connection; no LAN's have been implemented so far.

AdeKUS needs a professional ICT-function, partially centralised, partially decentralised. AdeKUS needs an overall planning & control cycle.

Concerning the agenda for educational innovation, we have to look at the pictures of Vision of the Future and Current Reality again. The educational issues (in blue) were in fact extremes on a five


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points scale. The picture below gives the scores by Workgroup members on the 12 aspects involved. In general we can conclude that the score for Current Reality is low (close to one of the extremes), while score for Vision of the Future is high (close to the other extreme). The picture also displays the difference between the "vision" and the "current" score. The gap between the vision on learning type (self study versus collaborative work) and actual situation is relatively small. The gap between the vision on management tasks (management of resources versus management of strategic vision) is relatively large.

Current and Desired Position on 12 Educational Trends

1

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2.6 Distance Education Potential For AdeKUS, distance education can contribute to its "Agenda for Change"; it is a method to increase the quantity and the quality of its Bachelors and Masters. Five arguments:

• Distance education may attract new categories of students.

Distance education offers organisational flexibility to students. To participate in learning processes, they are less dependent on time and place (i.e. Paramaribo). Especially, second chance students (e.g. earlier drop-outs) will take advantage of it. The positive effect of distance education will be enforced further, when the curricula become more flexible and shorter courses and/or separate modules are offered. The student can get custom-made education in that case.

• Distance education may decrease the number of drop-outs.

For students, distance education is better to combine with other activities. For teachers, the ICT-based character of distance education enables the automatic generation of figures on students (virtual) attendance and progress. These may be used for personal feedback and guidance. The objection that distance education lacks the peer pressure of face-to-face learning is a serious one. This drawback can be compensated by introducing some face-to-face meetings (e.g. at the start and at the end of a course), by including virtual social and collaborative activities to the course, and by guidance and face-to-face activities in a Distance Learning Centre.

• Distance education may increase the quality of education.

1. There is a widespread need for more active learning processes, e.g. authentic learning, collaborative learning, learning via simulations, learning through games. ICT in general,


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and distance education more specifically, offer the tools to implement these new ways of learning.

2. Distance education also contributes to the desired internationalisation of education: students can collaborate in international projects, from their homes students can participate in courses abroad. Institutes can share course materials or co-produce them, teachers will learn from colleagues abroad.

3. Where AdeKUS staff does not have the right quality or quantity, distance educations offers a relatively cheap solution to work with teachers from abroad.

• Distance education may decrease the "brain drain" and "brain waste".

When distance education increases the quality of education, there is less need for students to go studying abroad. Even when doing teaching practice abroad, the distance education tools can maintain the link with Suriname at a high level.

• Distance education is a "must" for a modern university.

ICT and Distance Education is applied in an ever growing number of universities. When no distance education is offered at AdeKUS , the effect on the university's image will be negative.

2.7 Distance Education Strategy We propose a AdeKUS Distance Education strategy based on six components.

AdeKUS Distance Education Strategy

Strategy Component Comment

AdeKUS becomes a dual mode distance education university.

In order to increase the quantity and the quality of Suriname's Bachelors and Masters, AdeKUS will modify itself into a dual mode distance education institute. AdeKUS sees this change process as a major change operation. It has to be orchestrated with other major ongoing or planned change operations to strengthen and improve the internal organisation. Concerning ICT, AdeKUS will create a professional ICT-organisation, organise the management of large university-wide systems and continue to organise more bandwidth for its Internet connection.

AdeKUS sets central quality standards; the Faculties remain responsible for the course content.

AdeKUS will improve informal and cross faculty learning by teachers. It will create a pool of DE professionals. It will develop central policies regarding distance education. Course development and course delivery, however, remain the responsibilities of the Faculties. In general, electronic courses will not be created from scratch, but using existing face-to-face courses as starting point. Every teacher will be trained in course delivery via distance education. Most teachers will be trained in course development for distance education as well. A system for teacher development will be created. Each faculty will include DE into its rules, regulations, and organisation.

AdeKUS students get access to online resources, e.g. a virtual learning environment.

AdeKUS students will have personalised access to the AdeKUS Virtual Learning Environment that in due course will support all courses. Some courses can be followed either face-to-face or via distance education. Other courses only can be followed by distance education. A system to monitor students will be in place. AdeKUS will analyse the facilities needed by students and try hard to organise them.

AdeKUS chooses a systems approach to organise its core processes.

AdeKUS will set-up various monitoring systems, e.g. to follow the individual student, and to monitor (changes in) student streams.

AdeKUS participates in national community. AdeKUS will organise flexible forms of cooperation on a national level as distance education may be a valuable strategy for other Suriname based educational institutes as well.

AdeKUS participates in international community.

AdeKUS opens the doors for national and international cooperation. It will let its teachers operate in an international context. It will continue to participate in CUPIDE, partially for mutual learning on distance education, partially for exchanging educational resources, or for teaching each other's students.


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3 Implementation Plan This chapter presents an analysis of the desired future with distance education and how to realise it. It gives a synthesis of projects to be executed, and preconditions to fulfil (e.g. obstacles).

3.1 Analysis

3.1.1 AdeKUS 2010 To make the strategy more concrete, a scenario has been developed for AdeKUS in 2010. From the perspective of about 11 stakeholders the future has been described, while looking back to the world in 2005. The following table "AdeKUS 2010" contains a summary of the scenario. The full text (11 pages) is available in Dutch.

AdeKUS 2010

Role Citation Summary

Student "Nieuw Nickerie is a virtual metropole"

The LearningLearning site of Minov helped me to prepare my study selection; I could compose my personal study program. For enrolment, I could stay in my city and go to the notary. Introduction days were held here in Nieuw Nickerie and afterwards in Paramaribo too. Assignments are a crucial part of my learning process. I needed to develop enough self-discipline. The Distance Learning Centre is my second home; it has excellent facilities. One of my courses is run from Jamaica; next year I have an online project with students in Trinidad.

Student Counselor at Secondary School

Going to study at Adekus? Yes, please!

More educational providers are active in Suriname now; AdeKUS offers more curricula as well as short courses. Distance education enables the students to study from their homes and ftom the lical Distance Learning Centres. We guide our students to compose the right custom-made study arrangement. The LearningLearning site of Minov is of great help. The answer to "Going to study?", nowadays is almost always "Yes!". The answer to "Going abroad?", nowadays is mostly "No".

Staff Member of the Unit Student Affairs

Less students in a jam.

The whole enrolment process now is an automated self-service process. Our system also handles the enrolment for short courses. In well-defined cases we can give dispensation for certain assignments. We are the central service desk for students, even for personal problems; they can also find us in every Distance Learning Centre. Thanks to and despite of all the computer systems, we have a better look at the individual student and can intervene when we see problems arise.

Head of a Distance Learning Centre

"The Distance Learning Centres are the heart of the modern university"

Every district will get its Distance Learning Centre. Students can come here to find computers, Internet access, group meeting rooms, a staff member of Student Affairs, etceteras. We have facilities for teleconferencing and for video telephone calls with Paramaribo. The Distance Learning Centre have become so successful, that even in Paramaribo, every Faculty now has converted some lecture rooms to a Distance Learning Centre.

Teacher Teacher commutes between "Course Team" and "Chat Room"

Since we started using a Virtual Learning Environment, changes were going very fast. Students were very enthousiast. Then students stopped attending lectures and the number of lectures decreased dramatically. My role as teacher changed. I'm part of a course team, developing new educational resources. And I'm a virtual tutor giving my attention to a group of students, virtually. Together we developed the AdeKUS Guide for the Digital Teacher.

Staff Member of the University Library

"Finally again a study guide for the whole university"

From collecting books, we transformed to a knowledge broker connecting our students and staff to whatever source of information in the world. Further, we now are publisher of hallmarked AdeKUS educational resources. Our proud is the electronic study guide, covering all the courses and modules of the whole university.


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ICT-specialist

From Handyman to Consultant

Earlier we were completely focused on the technical infrastructure. That has been outsourced now. We now are the functional manager of a range of general software products, give classes and run a help desk. Further, we are consultants to the managtement for all sorts of issues relating ICT.

Staff Member of unit for Educational Technology

"Internationally, we are on the map"

The new unit for Educational Technology is permanently improving the educational production process. We produced the handbook for the "digital teacher" and participate in almost every course team.

Faculty Manager

"With less managers a better managed university"

Communication within the AdeKUS community has greatly taken advantage of the new ICT systems created for distance education. Managers no longer have to spend a lot of time in transporting information from one organisational level to the other. The system does that for us.

Business Person

"AdeKUS is always on our shortlist"

AdeKUS is an interesting business partner. It is our gateway to a tremendous amount of information and a potential partner for almost every new development project we want to start.

Counsel for the Ministry of Education

Distance Education offers a 2nd change to many people.

Our Ministry not only is involved in policy making. It also delivers some services to the community. One of them is our LearningLearning website, a great hit. It gives information on study possibilities, offers online courses to eliminate certain deficiencies, etceteras.

Both workgroups explored the above scenario in a simulation game. Each participant played a role out of the list of 11 and had meetings with other roles. In general, the participants reacted enthusiastic. Not only did they like the method, but also they appreciated the sketch of a future with distance education. Time was not available to discuss all the details of the scenario. However, in general the projected future was considered to be both feasible and desirable. Some shared conclusions:

• Special attention needs the contact between teacher and student. It should not deteriorate when switching to distance education.

• Further, it has not become clear yet, how the optimal balance between face-to-face meetings and distance education can be determined.

The implementation of distance education is an innovation process. It will take time and cannot be executed overnight. The process should initially focus on the teachers who are "early adopters" of distance education. They are willing to invest time and energy, even if not all conditions are favourable. Next, the "early majority" gets the turn, followed by the "late majority", and ultimately by the "laggards". In other words: it does not make sense to try to change teachers who refused to touch a computer until now; at least not at this moment.

3.1.2 Priorities Workgroup Strategy Given the AdeKUS 2010 experience, both workgroups composed a prioritised list of projects to be executed in the coming years.


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The figure above shows the priorities according to the Workgroup Strategy. The highest priorities are numbered 1 - 5. It was a surprise that none of these priorities dealt with distance education directly. They all regard obstacles for distance education that have to be removed first:

• Absolute top priority is ICT. It is undisputed that the current Internet bandwidth is far too low. And, although there are no figures available on the actual number of PC's, oral arguments to increase that number sound reasonable. By the way, the ongoing SON-project will give some relief in this sense. Nevertheless, the ICT priority only partially is a matter of buying more bandwidth, hardware, and software. It is the whole ICT function that has to be kept aligned with the needs of the near future.

• The second position is for Planning & Control. At the moment AdeKUS, has no fixed planning and control procedure for its various policy domains. Decisions usually are made on an incident-base and without regular feedback on their implementation. The strength of this approach is operational flexibility. Its weakness, however, is that it may frustrate routine processes as well as processes organised as projects.

• The third position is for the development of a AdeKUS portal. In fact, the portal is only the packing. The underlying need is to have a communication medium for the AdeKUS community (the current paper bulletin has not been released for months) and a complete and actual study guide listing all curricula, courses and modules.

• The fourth priority implies the insertion of expertise in the field of educational technology. This relates to educational innovation and indirectly to distance education as well.

• The fifth priority is a shared position for both Student Affairs and Student Services.

3.1.3 Priorities Workgroup Education

The Workgroup Education came to a different picture. Here again the need for a AdeKUS-wide communication channel was mentioned. It was called a weekly news bulletin here. The Workgroup accepted it as the mother of all solutions.

• The first priority goes to:

• setting-up distance learning centres - indispensable to support the students, be it only with adequate ICT provisions;


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• setting-up training for teachers in electronic course development - the "early adopters" can no longer wait;

• connection to and cooperation with other universities - it could be very stimulating when AdeKUS staff could get out of their isolated position at the one and only university in Suriname.

• The second priority goes to:

• special software for students with arrears - self-study modules are socially safe tools for students to handle certain disadvantages, like language problems;

• student monitoring system - especially from the point of view to help the individual student;

• online research - a way to win scientific staff for distance education is offering them advantages for their research tasks as well;

• online courses for teachers in their own field of expertise - also a way to introduce teachers to distance education;

• development of electronic course material - last but not least: apart from all the supporting activities, it should not be forgotten that a certain volume of electronic courses is needed, to create a critical mass.

3.2 Synthesis

3.2.1 Possible Roadmap The Workgroup Strategy developed a first draft of a possible roadmap for the coming five years. The consultant finished it.

Possible Roadmap

Stakeholder 2005/2006 2006/2007 2007/2008 2008/2009 2009/2010 Bottom Line

University Board

Set-up a DE Steering Committee and Office. Set-up yearly P&C cycle. Create internal comm. channel.

Define business models for distance education. Set-up a unit for external communication & (international) cooperation.

Specify internal and/or external policy changes needed to implement the business models.

(try to) Implement the policy changes needed.

Pass the tasks of the Distance Education Steering Committee and Office to the permanent organisation.

Strengthen & improve the internal organisation. Orchestrate changes in external rules & regulations needed.

External cooperation

Continue and extend participation in CUPIDE. Build national community of practice on distance education.

Establish bilateral contacts with CUPIDE partners. Organise national conference on distance education.

Contribute AdeKUS educational resources to CUPIDE. Organise international CUPIDE conference on DE in Suriname

Obtain CUPIDE educational resources for AdeKUS. Organise a national conference on distance education.

Deliver courses to CUPIDE and let CUPIDE deliver courses to AdeKUS students. Organise another int. conf.

Open the doors for national and international cooperation. Let teachers operate in external and/or international context.

Internal Cooperation

Build a community of practice of AdeKUS (& IOL) on distance education. Organise internal seminar.

Maintain community for feedback and for recruitment of participants to innovative projects.

Yearly round of innovative projects.



Improve informal learning and cross faculty learning. Create a pool of DE professionals.


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Faculties / Institutes

Standardise the content of the study guide.

Publish a standardised electronic study guide.

Evaluate first experiences with distance education. Try to standardise other student related procedures.

Implement necessary changes in faculty rules & regulations.

Adapt evaluation mechanisms for curricula and courses to distance education.

Each faculty (preferably all together) has included DE into its rules, regulations, organisation.

Teachers "Early adopters" are trained in DE course creation and delivery. First version of DE Style Book.

"Early majority" are trained in DE course creation and delivery. Hallmark for DE courses.

"Late majority" are trained in DE course creation and delivery. Systematic course creation evaluation introduced.

"Laggards" are trained in DE delivery only. Systematic course delivery evaluation introduced.

"Laggards" are trained in DE delivery only.

A system for teacher development is in place (by training, coaching). A system for course evaluation (creation & delivery) is in place.

Students Incidental experiments with DE.

25 courses available with VLE support. Pilot with study centre. Set-up student monitoring.

75 courses available with VLE support. 10% of them completely DE. First study centre opened.

225 courses available with VLE support. 10% of them completely DE. 2 new study centres opened.

All courses available with VLE support. 10% of them completely DE. 4 new study centres opened.

All courses online for VLE support, at least 10% real DE. Systems to monitor students in place.

ICT-professionals

SON: better technical infrastructure,more PC's. Delivering basic ICT courses. Switching to service oriented organisation.

Support operational VLE. Support student information system. Organise more bandwidth.

Support operational AdeKUS Portal. Support link to external databases. Organise more bandwidth.

Organise more bandwidth.

Organise more bandwidth.

Create a professional ICT organisation. Organise large systems support. Organise more bandwidth.

3.2.2 Activities As the possible roadmap illustrates, implementing the AdeKUS distance education strategy is a process with many stakeholders. It is related to educational innovation in general, AdeKUS management structures and processes, the ICT infrastructure and services, the ICT market (bandwidth!), and local economic conditions. The stakeholders have other interest than distance education alone, the related issues may follow their own change processes over time. To conclude, implementing the AdeKUS distance education strategy is a complex process with many uncertainties. This process cannot be organised as a single project with a well defined begin and endpoint and with a fixed amount of resources. Nevertheless, it should be managed. Therefore we recommend a program approach consisting of a Steering Committee, a small staff, a series of projects, not all of them have been formulated at the start of the program already, and certain incentives (grants).

The following table lists the six components of the AdeKUS Distance Education Strategy and how they could be implemented. It can be considered as a draft plan for the years 2005/2006 and 2006/2007. Every year in August, the Steering Committee should produce a plan for the next year.


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Proposed Activities

Strategy Component Proposed Implementation

AdeKUS becomes a dual mode distance education university.

• DESC - Distance Education Steering Committee - Steering Committee reporting to AdeKUS University Board, consisting of: one representative of each faculty and articulation year, representative of ICT Steering Committee, Library, IKIM, Student Affairs. Could be a joint Committee with IOL as well. Responsibilities: management of distance education implementation, i.e. preparing a yearly plan for projects and other activities, supervising distance education projects, communicating consistently with internal and external stakeholders, representing the distance education aspect in other internal and external projects, keeping distance education projects aligned with other developments at AdeKUS.

• DEO - Distance Education Office - Two full-time staff (at MSc and BSc level) for DESC policy preparation and execution, DE promotion, project support, incidental individual advise. Temporary office for three years.

• 2005/2006 Project DE Launch - Prepare the launch of distance education at the start of 2006/2007. This project aims at bringing online in a standard AdeKUS Virtual Learning Environment: 1) (as far as possible) the course materials developed as local initiatives until now, 2) about 25 courses from all faculties. Part of this project is the training and counselling of about 25 teachers in developing distance education materials. The project will cooperate with the various Faculty commissions in order to conform as much as possible to current regulations, discuss changes, and to prepare a solid evaluation.

• 2005/2006 Project Extra Bandwidth - Use the CUPIDE offer to augment Internet bandwidth by installing a VSAT terminal at the Medical Faculty and at the AdeKUS campus (Leysweg).

• 2006/2007 Project DE Roll-Out - Prepare the continued growth of distance education during 2007/2008. This project aims at 75 courses with online activities from all faculties. Now courses will be selected and./or created according to specific criteria.

• 2006/2007 Project Pilot Distance Learning Centres - Prepare a pilot with a distance education centre out of Paramaribo during 2007/2008. Including extra bandwidth via VSAT.

• 2007/2008 and further - Yearly Round with Grants for Innovative Projects.

AdeKUS sets central quality standards; the Faculties remain responsible for the course content.

• Community of Practice Educational Innovation - Organise a so-called Community of Practice (CoP), a nationwide group of teachers, management, ICT-staff to engage in educational innovation: new concepts, etceteras. They could maintain an overview of all local initiatives in distance education, search the web for whatever resources that might be useful, organise exchange of experiences and disseminate their insights. Note, that this CoP goes further than distance education alone.

• Joint Educational Committee - Organise a group of representatives of faculty education commissions to propose central policies regarding distance education, course development (hallmark?), course delivery, teacher training and monitoring, individual student monitoring and guidance, etceteras. The members also take care for the proper inclusion of DE into faculty rules, regulations, and organisation.

AdeKUS students get access to online resources, e.g. a virtual learning environment. • Joint Student Committee - Organise a group of student representatives from

the three faculties to discuss distance education from a students point of view, provisions needed, quality of the services being offered, etceteras. Note, that this initiative could go further than distance education alone, e.g. in discussing the web portal functionality, Internet café rebates, laptop project, etceteras.

AdeKUS chooses a systems approach to organise its core processes. • Process Management - Organise a group of stakeholders to develop a system

to monitor the educational core processes as a whole.

AdeKUS participates in national community. • Note that the Community of Practice Educational Innovation is a nationwide community. It could be involved in the organisation of an annual national conference on Educational Innovation (August 2007?).

AdeKUS participates in international • Let DESC - Distance Education Steering Committee stimulate international cooperation and exchange, e.g. with CUPIDE, CKLN, UNESCO,


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community. Commonwealth of Learning, etceteras. Organise an international conference on Educational Innovation, e-learning and distance education in Suriname in August 2008.

• DESC gives yearly grants to enable staff members to present papers at international conferences, especially covering educational innovation. The Joint Educational Committee might play a role in selecting the candidates for the grants.

3.2.3 Preconditions The following table lists preconditions that have to be met in order to go on with successful implementation of distance education at AdeKUS. For each precondition we propose two plans to comply to it. Plan-A, the preferred one, really tries to change. Plan-B only tries to avoid disturbances.

Preconditions

Precondition Proposed Implementation

AdeKUS has a well designed planning & control structure

• Plan-A - Diagnose the current planning & control structure of AdeKUS, compared to what is effective and efficient for universities. Let prepare an action plan and have it implemented.

• Plan-B - Develop a simple planning & control structure that might be effective for distance education projects and behave accordingly.

AdeKUS has a professional ICT-function • Plan-A - Diagnose the current ICT-function of AdeKUS, compared to what is needed in the near future. Prepare an action plan and have it implemented. Issues include, but are not limited to, the Internet bandwidth, the management of university-wide systems, and the remuneration of staff.

• Plan-B - Switch to an external Internet Service Provider when basic services like running the Virtual Learning Environment cannot be guaranteed internally.

AdeKUS has an Internet web portal for publishing relevant internal and external information and for connecting to other web-enabled applications

• Plan-A - Have an external party manage the process of defining, designing and realising a web portal for AdeKUS.

• Plan-B - Use the Virtual Learning Environment as a preliminary AdeKUS web portal.

3.2.4 Budget A budget has been prepared for implementing Distance Education at AdeKUS. It merely covers the out-of-pocket costs of the transition process itself, not any new investment.

The five year budget includes:

• Distance Education Steering Committee: no salaries, office costs are covered via Distance Education Office,

• Distance Education Office: 2 full-time staff (MSc and BSc), costs for meetings, documentation, etceteras,

• (National) Community of Practice for Educational Innovation: small annual budget, mainly for meetings,

• Annual Conference, fixed budget for basic expenditures, rest has to be covered by sponsors or by participants,

• Grants for International conferences, 2-4 grants annually for staff going to present a paper at an international conference.

• Emergency budget, especially for a quick fix of infrastructure problems.


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• 2005/2006: costs for DE Launch project and for Extra Bandwidth project.

• 2006/2007: costs for DE Roll-Out project and for Pilot Distance Learning Center project.

• 2007/2008 and further: costs of a yearly round of innovative projects.

The budget does not include:

• Staff costs except for the Distance Education Office.

• Eventual costs for external consultants.

• Investments, e.g. for new Distance Education Centres.

The following table lists the estimated budget for the period 2005/2006 - 2009/2010 in USD.

Budget for the AdeKUS Distance Education Implementation

Activity 2005/2006 2006/2007 2007/2008 2008/2009 2009/2010

DE Steering Committee - - - - -

DE Office (Salaries) 35.000 35.000 35.000 35.000 35.000

DE Office (Other costs) 15.000 15.000 15.000 15.000 15.000

National Community of Practice 5.000 5.000 5.000 5.000 5.000

(Inter)National Annual Conference 10.000 10.000 10.000 10.000 10.000

Grants for int. conferences 5.000 5.000 5.000 5.000 5.000

Emergency Budget 10.000 5.000 5.000 5.000 5.000

Yearly Round of Innovative Projects - - 25.000 25.000 25.000

2005/2006 Project DE Launch 5.000

2005/2006 Project Extra Bandwidth 10.000

2006/2007 Project Pilot Learning Centre 5.000 15.000

2006/2007 Project DE Roll-Out 10.000

Total 100.000 100.000 100.000 100.000 100.000


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4 Conclusions & Recommendations Electronically enhanced distance education has great potential benefits for the Anton de Kom University of Suriname and likewise for the country as a whole. These benefits go further than implementing modern didactical insights. They go further than facilitating teachers abroad to deliver their services to students in Suriname. Distance education can become the lever to raise the quantity and the quality of Suriname's Bachelor and Masters. It offers the means to intervene in student streams and to bend them in the right directions. Additional advantages may be gained by cooperating through the whole "education chain" and by international cooperation as is intended in CUPIDE.

This report proposes an AdeKUS strategy for distance education, together with an implementation plan. The latter assumes an organisational “readiness” for distance education implementation and lists three important preconditions that have to be met yet.

The enthusiastic members of the Workgroup Strategy and the Workgroup Education who via a series of workshops produced the input for this report, together form an interesting cross section of the AdeKUS staff. Nevertheless, they only are a small minority within the AdeKUS community. Although the short term impact of the proposed strategy and its implementation will not be very dramatic, the medium term impact will. We advise, therefore, to bring this report in broad circulation, give ample room for discussion and feedback, and decide subsequently.

Please, do not loose the momentum built-up. The next generation of students does not only need distance education, they are waiting for it already!


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Appendices


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Contributors

Steering Committee • Dennis Wip (Chairman, Scientific Staff, University Board)

• Fred Bobson (director University Office)

• Jerry Teixeira (coordinator University Computer Centre, University Board)

• Oswald Elmont (Scientific staff, IT-specialist)

• Danny Sewkaransing (Scientific Staff, IT-specialist)

Workgroup Education • Andrew Baasaron

• Leatitia Beek

• Robbert Bipat

• Thea Bonse

• Lucy Coats-Lewis

• Oswald Elmont

• Trevie Feurich

• Trees Gemin-Cirino

• Kenneth Goenopawiro

• Cindy Jacott

• Djiwhan Kalijan

• Merlyn Kamps

• Ngina Kent

• Marlon Koendjbiharie

• Chantal Landburg

• Allan Li Fo Sjoe

• Fernando Misran

• Natasha Moe Soe Let

• Mariska Muskiet

• Glenna Ramdhiansingh-Evans

• Danny Sewkaransing

• Jhiewan Sietaram

• Tamira Sno

• Sharda Soekhoe

• Tjiene Tsoei Tjien Theung

• Cornelly Vreden


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Workgroup Strategy • Usha Adhin

• Amar Bajnath

• Fred Bobson

• Thea Bonse

• Nadia van Dijk-Pelt

• Ram Dwarka

• Euridice Irving

• Vincent Jubithana

• Sun Kishoenmisier

• Ivy Lo Fo Sang

• S. MacDonald

• Hans Martinus

• Carole Partoredjo-Feurich

• Shailendra Ramtahalsing

• Wilfried Roseval

• Jane Smith

• Winston Soetosenojo

• Jerry Teixeira

• Clyde Tjitrodipo

• Jerry Toelsie

• Dennis Wip

• Juvenille Wolff


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Resources

Documents • AdeKUS, 2004-... - Focus; Journal of the Institute for Quality and Information Management;

Anton de Kom Universiteit van Suriname; 2004 - ...

• AdeKUS, 2004 - Student Guide; Department of Social Sciences, 2004-2007; [nl] Studiegids Faculteit der Maatschappijwetenchappen; 2004-2007; Anton de Kom Universiteit van Suriname; 2004.

• AdeKUS, 2005a - Contribution of the University Office in connection with the Annual Oration of the President of the University Board on the occasion of the 37th Dies Natalis on November 1st, 2005; [nl] Bijdrage van het Bureau van de Universiteit i.v.m. de jaarrede van de Voorzitter van het Bestuur van de Universiteit ter gelegenheid van de viering va de 37ste Dies Natalis op 1 november 2005; Bureau van de Universiteit; Anton de Kom Universiteit van Suriname, internal paper; 2005.

• AdeKUS, 2005b - Draft Budget Financial Year 2006-2010; Introduction; [nl] Ontwerpbegroting Dienstjaar 2006-2010; Inleiding; Anton de Kom Universiteit van Suriname.

• Curran, 1995 - Cost Efficient Strategies for Small Distance teaching Universities; Ch. Curran; Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam; 1995

• MinOV, 2004 - Sector Plan Education; [nl] Sectorplan Onderwijs; 2004-2008; Ministerie van Onderwijs en Volksontwikkeling (MinOV); Paramaribo, november 2004.

• Moore et al., 2005 - Distance Education, a Systems View; Michael G. Moore, Greg Kearsley; Thomson Wadsworth, Belmont CA, USA; 2005

• Nicholas, 2004 - Report on the Distance Learning and Online Education Programmes and Human Resource Development Requirements for Participating CUPIDE Institutions; Ron Nicholas; UNESCO/UWI, Jamaica, February-April 2004

• Poetsema, 2005 - Advice Design SON; [nl] Advies Ontwerp SON; Robert Poetsema et al.; Poetsema Consultancy, versie 0.91, 2005

• Sedney, 2003 - 1968-2003 University of Suriname 35 Years; Exciting Growth, Ideological Entanglement, Creative Innovation; [nl] 1968-2003 Universiteit van Suriname; Opwindende Groei, Ideologische Verstrengeling, Creatieve Vernieuwing; Jules Sedney; Anton de Kom Universiteit van Suriname; 2003

• Sylvester, 2004 - Assessment of Institutional Capacity and State of ICT Infrastructure at each Participating University With Recommendations of an Integrated Network for connecting the five Participating Universities And Management Framework, Skills, Competencies and Budget to Implement and Sustain Network Infrastructure For The Delivery of Distance Education and Collaboration; Ken Sylvester; UNESCO/UWI, Jamaica; Final Report, January 2004.

• Vervoort et al., 2005 - IUC Programme; Application File Partner University: Anton de Kom University of Suriname [ADEKUS] "Sustainable management of natural resources"; File of K.U. Leuven; A. Li Fo Sjoe, W. Jansze, S. Naipal, A. Sheikkariem, A. Vervoort; K. U. Leuven, Belgium; 2005.

• Wip, 2005a - Information and Communication Technology; Policy Assumptions 2005-2015 for the Anton de Kom Universiteit van Suriname; [nl] Informatie en Communicatie Technologie; Beleidsuitgangspunten 2005 - 2015 voor de Anton de Kom Universiteit van Suriname; Dennis Wip; Anton de Kom Universiteit van Suriname, Paramaribo, Draft version, 2005.

• Wip, 2005b - Suriname Educational Network (SON); [nl] Surinaams Onderwijs Netwerk (SON); Dennis Wip; Anton de Kom University of Suriname; 2005.


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• Wip et al., 2005 - The results responsible unit; [nl] De resultaat verantwoorde eenheid; Dennis Wip & Oswald Elmont; Anton de Kom University of Suriname; 2005.

Interviews • Nadia van Dijk-Pelt

• Wim Jansze

• Allan Li Fo Sjoe

• Ivy Lo Fo Sang

• Usha Adhin

• Trees Gemin-Cirino


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Abbreviations Afkorting Betekenis

AdeKUS Anton de Kom University of Suriname

CARADOL Caribbean Association for Distance and Open Learning

CKLN Caribbean Knowledge Learning Network

CUPIDE Caribbean Universities Project for Integrated Distance Education

DE Distance Education

ELO Dutch acronym for Virtual Learning Environment

ICT Information and Communications Technologies

IP Internet Protocol

IT Information Technology

SEP Suriname Educational Plan

SON Suriname Educational Network

UNESCO United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation

UWI University of the West Indies

VLE Virtual Learning Environment

VSAT Very Small Aperture Terminal