Virtual University

The virtual university has emerged as a potent vision for the future of higher education, utilising new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to radically restructure higher educational provision. What is envisaged in this scenario is a "university without walls". Freed from the confines of the campus and its region, the university becomes a 'virtual' institution consisting of little more than

The rapid advancement in educational tools experienced over the recent decades has introduced online teaching environments that can facilitate or help develop virtual universities. As more and more students are obtaining free Internet access, we see instructors starting to provide class information, events, lectures, labs, tutorials, etc. on-line. The King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM) has embarked on an initiative to develop courses across all its engineering departments for web-based learning. This paper outlines the development of Digital Systems Engineering (8086 microprocessor) course as part of this initiative. This course is now in its first year of implementation. Initially, it was used entirely as supporting or supplementary material. Feedback taken from students indicated that the e-material enhanced their understanding of the course.

This short chapter is the introduction to all the chapters in the e-University Compendium. Key sections include an overview of the theory of virtual universities and e-universities and a “helicopter view” (or World Tour) of the world of e-universities, followed by a thematic approach to the material. The final key section gives an overview of the everlastingly popular topic of Critical Success Factors for e-universities and foreshadows the benchmarking e-learning work in the 2004-12 era.
The chapter is based on work that the author carried out over the 2000–01 period , but reaches back to work at the Open University from 1995 and in fact lays the foundation for a whole range of studies to date including Re.ViCa, VISCED, POERUP, SharedOER, ADOERUP and a growing body of market research. competitor research and country report work for commercial, university and (inter)governmental clients.

Evolving online virtual worlds are intensely being utilised as 3D Virtual Learning Environments (3D VLEs) by hundreds of universities worldwide. However, there is inadequate academic research depicting satisfaction of users from the environmental design factors of 3D virtual buildings used within these virtual worlds. Specifically, there is no research evidence representing satisfaction of educational facilities’ users, namely students and faculty, from the architectural design characteristics of their 3D virtual university campuses. This research focuses explicitly on capturing the contentment levels of students towards specified variations of certain architectural design elements of the 3D virtual learning spaces, where educational sessions are conducted in 3D VLEs. This hence provides preliminary guidelines on how to enhance the design of these spaces to augment e-learning experiences of students within 3D VLEs; achieved by analysing survey results representing students’ opinions towards different architectural features of the learning spaces within different university 3D virtual campuses.

— This paper presents a collaborative software development platform allowing traditional and virtual universities actors who are geographically distant to work on a software development project using common (usual) programming languages. In the context of the virtual universities operating in the field of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), pratical classes are needed to acquire and to enhance the necessary skills particularly in software engineering. To the various actors of these digital and traditional universities making some e-learning, this paper supplies a preconfigured collaborative software development environment including synchronization of files belonging to a given project, instant messaging, audio and video. Our platform has an administration interface allowing the management of permissions and preconfigured virtual machines allocation to the various actors. To reach our goals, we used the XMPP protocol for instant messaging and file synchronization. Then, we used WebRTC for audio and video between actors. Finally, we used the RDP protocol to allow the access to the virtual machines. In this work, we show how our platform was used by the Virtual University of the Senegal (UVS) teachers and students in the field of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science for some pratical classes about C/C++, Java, Python and PHP programming languages. Tags: collaborative software development platform, virtual university, STEM education, e-learning

Although many online instructors have varying degrees of classroom experience, limited experience with the online environment makes them novices in this teaching and learning context. This paper, which is aimed at the novice online educator, articulates a unified online learning framework that: describes the higher education online instructional environment in terms of student inputs, institutional influences, and student outcomes; describes

La presente comunicación expone conceptos analizados durante la elaboración del
Trabajo Final de la Especialización en Docencia en Entornos Virtuales1 de la
Universidad Nacional de Quilmes titulado “La virtualización de las Universidades
Públicas Argentinas: configuraciones emergentes frente a los desafíos de la Sociedad
de la Información”.
En este trabajo se revisa de manera crítica y reflexiva la emergencia de una nueva
configuración de Universidad, denominada «Universidad Virtual», como producto de
las tendencias transformadoras establecidas sobre la base de los procesos de
incorporación de las tecnologías de información y comunicación (TIC) a las complejas
estructuras de funcionamiento de las Universidades Latinoamericanas. Procesos que
se dan en el contexto de fuertes transformación de las bases estructurales que vienen
experimentando las sociedades contemporáneas como consecuencia de la centralidad
del conocimiento en los procesos productivos

Molecular markers are essential in plant and animal breeding and biodiversity applications, in human forensics, and for map-based cloning of genes. The long terminal repeat (LTR) retrotransposons are well suited as molecular markers. As dispersed and ubiquitous transposable elements, their “copy and paste” life cycle of replicative transposition leads to new genome insertions without excision of the original element. Both the overall structure of retrotransposons and the domains responsible for the various phases of their replication are highly conserved in all eukaryotes. Nevertheless, up to a year has been required to develop a retrotransposon marker system in a new species, involving cloning and sequencing steps as well as the development of custom primers. Here, we describe a novel PCR-based method useful both as a marker system in its own right and for the rapid isolation of retrotransposon termini and full-length elements, making it ideal for “orphan crops” and other species with underdeveloped marker systems. The method, iPBS amplification, is based on the virtually universal presence of a tRNA complement as a reverse transcriptase primer binding site (PBS) in LTR retrotransposons. The method differs from earlier retrotransposon isolation methods because it is applicable not only to endogenous retroviruses and retroviruses, but also to both Gypsy and Copia LTR retrotransposons, as well as to non-autonomous LARD and TRIM elements, throughout the plant kingdom and to animals. Furthermore, the inter-PBS amplification technique as such has proved to be a powerful DNA fingerprinting technology without the need for prior sequence knowledge.

The scarcity of studies on academic advising in virtual environments hinders the development of alternative models that can be compared in search for greater efficiency. As a contribution to fill this gap, this paper describes the online academic advising system in a virtual university. We describe the background of this system and its main elements: the advisor’s functions, the types of advisors (incorporation, beginning and continuation), the available tools for advisors, and the organisation of the advisorial activity both from the internal and the student’s point of view.

The past two decades have been characterized by renewed attention to the importance of early childhood development (ECD) policies and services in the world's richest and most industrialized countries. During the same period, we have witnessed unprecedented efforts to place ECD policies on the national development planning agenda of the economically less advantaged countries of the Majority World. This paper is premised on the concern that the purposes that have led bilateral and multilateral international agencies to promote and support ECD services in Africa may also be paving the way for uncritical adoption of program and service delivery models grounded in value systems and knowledge bases that may not be appropriate for the continent. We present two critiques to highlight the dangers of ignoring the sociocultural contexts of the knowledge bases that inform ECD policies and practices. We describe one capacity-building effort, under the auspices of the Early Childhood Development Virtual University (ECDVU), to promote culturally relevant knowledge and prepare leadership personnel for Africa's emerging ECD movement. Finally, based on an exercise designed for an ECDVU cohort to engage and reflect on critiques of mainstream research and theorizing on child development, we share insights that are suggestive of the ways in which African perspectives can contribute to and enrich a global knowledge base on child development.Les deux dernières décennies ont été caractérisées par une attention renouvellée pour l'importance des politiques du développement à la petite enfance (DPE) et des services dans les pays les plus riches et les plus industrialisés au monde. Durant cette même période, nous avons assisté à des efforts sans précédent pour placer les politiques DPE sur l'agenda de la planification du développement national des pays du monde majoritaire qui sont économiquement les moins favorisés. Cet article est fondé sur le souci que les objectifs qui ont mené les agencies bilatérales et multilatérales internationales à promouvoir et à soutenir les services DPE en Afrique pourraient aussi être en train de frayer le chemin pour une adoption non critique de programmes et de modèles de livraison de services qui sont fondés sur des systèmes de valeurs et des bases de connaissances dont la pertinence pour le continent est questionnable. Nous présentons deux critiques pour souligner les dangers d'ignorer les contextes socio-culturels des bases de connaissances qui informent les politiques DPE et les pratiques. Nous décrivons un effort de renforcement de capacité, sous les auspices de l'Université virtuelle du développement de la petite enfance (ECDVU pour Early Childhood Development Virtual University), pour promouvoir une connaissance culturellement pertinente et préparer le personnel de gestion pour le mouvement émergent du DPE de l'Afrique. Finalement, en se fondant sur un exercise destiné pour une cohorte ECDVU pour engager et réfléchir sur des critiques de la recherche du courant principal et la théorisation sur le développement de l'enfant, nous partageons des idées qui suggèrent des façons dans lesquelles des perspectives africaines peuvent contribuer à et enrichir une base de connaissances globale sur le développement de l'enfant.Las dos décadas pasadas se caracterizan por reiterada atención a las políticas y servicios para el Desarrollo Temprano de la Infancia (DTI) por parte de los países más ricos e industrializados. Durante el mismo período, hemos sido testigos de unos intentos sin precedencia de implantar las políticas del DTI en las agendas de planificación nacional de los países más desfavorecidos económicamente en la mayor parte del mundo. La base de este trabajo es el asunto de los propósitos que han conducido a las agencias multinacionales bilaterales y multilaterales a promocionar y apoyar los servicios del DTI en África y que éstos podrían también abrir el camino para adopción carente de sentido crítico de programas y modelos de reparto de servicios basados en un sistema de valor y base de conocimientos cuestionable para este continente. Se presentan dos críticas para resaltar los peligros de ignorar los contextos socioculturales de las bases de conocimiento que informan las políticas y las prácticas del DTI. Describimos una prueba de construcción-de-capacidad bajo los auspicios de la Universidad Virtual del Desarrollo Temprano de la Infancia (ECDVU) para promocionar el conocimiento culturalmente relevante y preparar el personal directivo de los movimientos emergentes del DTI en África. Finalmente, basándose en el ejercicio diseñado para una cohorte de ECDVU para ocuparse de las críticas sobre la investigación mayoritaria y teorías sobre el desarrollo infantil, compartimos los conocimientos que pueden sugerir las formas de las que las perspectivas africanas pueden contribuir y enriquecer las bases de los conocimientos globales sobre el desarrollo infantil.

Recently, many national and international initiatives show an increasing interest in promoting distance education interventions by Universities. These directives aim at supporting students during their studies providing them with personalized solutions to their problems related not only to the fruition of on-line courses but also to orientation issues. In this paper we present a general architecture of an Embodied Conversational

A digital archive, together with its users and its contents, does not exist in is olation-there is a cycle of activities which provides the context for the archi ve's existence. In arguing for the broadening of the traditional view of digital libraries as merely collections towards the processes of collecting and deploying, we have developed an``extended''digital library environment for orthopaedic s urgeons which bridges the gap between the undertaking of experimental work and th e dissemination of its results through electronic publication. ...

Information and Communication Technologies [ICTs] are having a profound impact on learning and teaching in almost all countries, and in all models of education. The impact of these technologies is likely to continue unabated and, therefore, educators find it important to keep themselves abreast of the latest thinking. In this line of thinking, the concept of virtual university [VU] came into existence as the result of the modern ICTs. The main target of this paper is to deal with the relevant issues of VU which are emerging all over the world. Six VU Models from different continents have been brought under study to formulate a suitable VU model for a developing country. This paper has provided a brief description of how the VU models are being implemented in real life and how effectively they are fulfilling the work processes. As a result, this paper has come up with a new extended model of a VU through identifying the common factors of all the existing models. The paper has also identified the cost factors for establishing a VU. For the empirical analysis, the study has chosen a leading private university of Bangladesh, namely, American International University – Bangladesh [AIUB], where the process of virtualizing the physical university activities has been already started. Finally, the study finds the proposed VU model suitable for AIUB where physical- as well as virtual-university may coexist.

Information communication technology (ICT) is increasingly becoming a crucial strategic tool for facilitating global education. Africa's unique underdeveloped position makes her particularly suitable to take advantage of the many opportunities offered by ICT for global education. This same position Africa also presents challenges that threaten the sustainability of such projects. The African Virtual University (AVU) was originally launched in 1997 as a World Bank Project to facilitate the use of Open Distance and eLearning (ODeL) methodologies in African tertiary institutions and to use modern ICT to increase access to educational resources throughout Africa. After 10 years in operation, the learning centres in Ghana are confronted with practical challenges that seem to jeopardise their continuous existence. Prominent among the challenges are accreditation, students' inability to complete payment of fees and inadequate computers and other relevant facilities. This paper discuses the challenges the centres are facing and the strategies being employed to ensure their survival.

In this paper we propose a design and implementation of a collaborative virtual environment that supports virtual multiverse. With this, we are creating an infra-structure that allows the insertion of all possible and imaginable virtual worlds, allowing the coexistence of these different virtual worlds in a same application. On this system, the users can visit many different words using a same avatar.

This paper describes, with examples, the concept of Virtual University and the related concept of Virtual Campus, and gives some means of analysing such systems. It then goes on to describe how to plan and manage the costings aspects of a Virtual University.

The paper was first presented at the Euro-Med Conference on Technology in Learning Environments; held 25-27 October 1999.

The work I am reporting on has its origins in the early 1990s but its culmination only last month. It was originally financed by the CCAM procedure of the European Commission, then by various European Commission grants, by the Finnish government, and most recently by JISC, the Joint Information Systems Committee of the UK Higher Education and Research Councils. I am also grateful to both my recent employers, The Open University and Sheffield Hallam University, for their support of my work, and to the British Council, Telelearning Canada and the Online Educa organisation for facilitating attendance at relevant conferences.

I would like to thank my research manager and collaborator Charlotte Ash for many stimulating discussions on the topics of costing online education, and my research assistant Andrew Caven-Atack for his labours in updating my lists of Virtual Universities around the world.

The paper has always been available on the web but in several not very well-tracked locations including the Matic Media Ltd site, scribd and on some free textbook repositories.

ABSTRACT This work is motivated by the need to develop decentralized P2P approaches to support learning and teaching activity in virtual universities.In this paper, we present the stimulation effects of the SmartBox for e-learning using JXTA-overlay P2P system. We also show the design and implementation of the SmartBox environment that is used for stimulating the learners motivation to increase the learning efficiency. The SmartBox is integrated with our P2P system as a useful tool for monitoring and controlling learners' activity. We found by experimental results thatthe SmartBox is an effective way to increase the learner's concentration. We also investigated the relation between learner's body movement, concentration, and amount of study. We found that when the learner is solving more exerciseshe has more body movements.This shows that when the number of body movements is hight,the learner's concentration is high. We also consider the feasibility of our P2P platform to integrate different computational end-devices.

The virtual university has emerged as a potent vision for the future of higher education, utilising new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to radically restructure higher educational provision. What is envisaged in this scenario is a "university without walls". Freed from the confines of the campus and its region, the university becomes a 'virtual' institution consisting of little more than

SUMMARY: Nine universities started a project in autumn 2001 with the aim to develop an interuniversity postgraduate program in Construction Information Technology. The program is intended to be offered to students on most of the partner universities. On some of them it should start already in the academic year 2003/2004. The students will attend the subjects in different ways: face-to-face

Distance learning has become a very important mechanism for virtual university operation. In order to realize such an operation smoothly, it is necessary to consider distance learning from three perspectives: administration, awareness, and assessment. We are currently implementing a virtual university environment according to these guidelines. In this paper, we propose part of such a supporting environment of the Multimedia

AIMS: This study focuses on pedagogical aspects in virtual university. It is developed with regard to opinions of experts in education and E‑learning in order to suggest a virtual university model based on pedagogical aspects. To study main pedagogical dimensions and categories in virtual universities. METHODS: The descriptive‑survey method is used in this research. It is developed with regard to opinions of experts in virtual education around the world. Delphi method is used in this study. A number of 1345 E‑mail addresses of the experts found out from websites and journals and finally after several sending, 200 responders reply their answers. A research‑made questionnaire is used in this research. The questionnaire is standardized by using experts review method and pilot study (α = 0.931). In present study Likert‑type scale (5‑point scale) was selected for each statement in the questionnaire. These items are used from 5 = strongly agree to 1 = strongly disagree as a questionnaire. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED: Statistical techniques used for data analysis included t‑test, ANOVA, and factor analysis. RESULTS: The present study found the opinions of experts in education and E‑learning about the application of pedagogical aspects in educational programs and curriculums on virtual universities. These opinions are clustered in small groups through factor analysis. Hence, 103 subcomponents about the pedagogical aspects were found out. With regard to factor analysis, these 103 subcomponents were grouped in 10 components. Out of 163 initial components, 103 components with regard to experts' opinion are obtained which are analyzed by factor analysis. Out of 103 components, only the first 10 rows are extracted for analysis and could explain the variances. The first 10 rows show cumulative value of 53.946%. CONCLUSIONS: The 10 obtained components include philosophy and goals, theoretical framework, pedagogical principles, pedagogical functions, teacher's roles, technology and digital content, paradigms shift, learners' types, learners' roles, and evaluation. Consequently, it can be said that these pedagogical aspects can be used as an educational infrastructure of virtual university.

During the federal funding program ‘New Media in Education’, a project group was established, which produces learning contents for two E-Learning offerings of an international virtual university. The continuous improvement and development of the required production processes with the objective of creating professional and competitive learning units lead to process and efficiency-driven approaches for E-Learning production. After introducing the main elements from business process orientation and their application to the E-Learning domain, this contribution proposes a generic procedural model for the production of reusable and standard-compliant E-Learning offerings, which has been derived from the practical experiences. On a Micro-layer, this model can be adapted to meet the individual requirements of content developers. In the second part, the documented processes and their advantages are illustrated using two examples from practical project work: the production of video assets and XML-based SCO production.