| Institution Name | University of Papua New Guinea Open College |
| Contact details | P.O. Box 320 University Post Office National Capital District Port Moresby Papua New Guinea |
| Website/URL | www.upng.ac.pg/oc_home.html |
| Brief Overview |
The University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) is a dual mode institution, offering undergraduate and post graduate programs through face-to face and distance mode. The schools are responsible for the development of tertiary level courses and providing academic support for both on-campus and off-campus programs. The UPNG Open College provides technical, administrative, logistic and support services for development and delivery of programs through its network of study centres. The Open College mandate also includes the development and delivery of pre-tertiary courses, professional education and provision of community based education and information. |
| Distance Education History |
Distance education in UPNG commenced in 1978 as a program to offer Adult Education Program though limited study centres. The Program was upgraded to Department Status in 1985 and housed under the Faculty of Education. The Institute of Distance and Continuing Education (IDCE) was established in 1993, replacing the Department. The IDCE continued to offer Adult Matriculation Program and a Diploma in Accounting until 2001. The IDCE was abolished in 2001, and the UPNG Open College was established in 2002. The UPNG Open College offers both undergraduate and pre-tertiary courses. The delivery of courses are paper-based supported by the audio- and video-based materials. Infrastructure is being built for satellite communication, which will pave the way for e-Learning. |
Teaching and Learning Profile
| Degree level focus | Bachelor focus Bachelor: 90% Masters:7.2% PhD: 21% Other: 0.2% |
| Expenditure on teaching | major 50% |
| Orientation of degrees | mixed |
| Range of subjects | comprehensive 7 disciplines |
Student Profile
| Distance learning students | predominant 65% |
| Mature students | some 8% |
| Part-time students | none |
| Size of student body | medium-sized |
Research Involvement
| Doctorate production | major |
| Expenditure on research | substantial 10% |
| Peer reviewed publications | some 0.26 |
Involvement in Knowledge Exchange
| Cultural activities | substantial 55 |
| Income | not reported |
| Patent applications | not reported |
| Start-up firms | not reported |
Regional Engagement
| 1st year bachelor from region | major 15% |
| Graduates working in region | major 90% |
| Importance of local/regional income sources | major 100% |
International Orientation
| Foreign degree seeking students | not reported |
| Importance of int'l income | none |
| Incoming students | 65 |
| International academic staff | substantial 11% |
| Outgoing on exchange | none |
DE-related Institutional Information
| Number of Students | 9,910 |
| Number of Students by DE mode | 5,000 |
| Number of Academic Staff | 270 |
| Summary of External Quality Assurance Processes | The National Quality Assurance and Accreditation policy is in place to regulate the quality of education in the Country. Each
institution has its own quality assurance policy including distance education. A separate quality assurance policy has been developed for the distance education institutions. National QA policy on distance education encourages institutions to develop and implement their own quality assurance policy. The UPNG Open College has a QA policy in place. |
| Summary of Quality Procedures | UPNG was created by Act of Parliament and is deemed to be self accrediting and are not subject to regular quality assurance
or accreditation as condition to funding. However, UPNG has its own quality assurance policy but it is yet to be applied rigorously. The Open College quality assurance policy was not designed and then implemented, but rather evolved along with the development of the institution. OC quality assurance refers to the standard and quality initiatives that were taken and introduced along with the development of systems, processes, and procedures, as well as resulting from emerging needs. The Open College has a comprehensive quality assurance policy and rigorously follows it at all level of its operation. Internal quality assurance processes involve regular and planned review of courses and programs using external peers to review content and relevance of each course offered. Quality assurance in the teaching and learning process involves evaluation of teaching by students and these student evaluations are taken into consideration for course evaluation. Quality assurance in distance education is conducted at course design and materials development level, as well as to assess delivery of courses. Regular surveys are conducted for student feedback, which is compiled and used for review of the course materials and the student support system. Courses are scheduled for review in a cycle of 4/5 years, but in practice it takes longer for such reviews. |
| Percentage of resources that are OER | 1-20% (Comment – about 10%) |
| Intellectual Property Rights Position | Owned by the institution but with some licensing back to the staff (Comment: Staff are paid for the development of content and, thus, content is considered as the property of the university. However, staff may use the content for teaching and learning, but not for profit making activities) |
| Expected changes for DE from the current strategy | The development of distance education in UPNG has been at an embryonic stage since the establishment of the Open College in
2001. It is now at development stage and the Open College Five Year Plan envisages to introduce: Multimedia and e-learning
(including a learning management system) Infrastructure for satellite communication Internal capacity for introducing e-learning Development of programs for professional and soft skill development Improvement of campus and centre management Improvement of student support services |
| Any future considerations for DE | Improving the management of study centres and establishing study centres in rural areas. |
| Summary of the impact of technology on distance education | E-Learning is yet to be introduced at the University. Plans are in place to develop the infrastructure facilities and capacity building for e-Learning. |
Technologies
| Technologies currently in use | Tools likely to be used more in 5 years time | |
| ASYNCHRONOUS COMMUNICATION | ||
| Blogs | ||
| ✔ | ||
| Microblogging (e.g. Twitter) | ||
| Online Forums / Threaded discussions | ||
| Personal Portals (e.g. iGoogle) | ||
| Podcasts | ||
| RSS feeds | ||
| Shared Calendars / Meeting Scheduling (e.g. Doodle) | ✔ | |
| SMS / MMS | ✔ | |
| Social Networking Utilities (e.g. Facebook, MySpace) | ||
| Vidcasts | ||
| Voicemail | ||
| Webinars | ||
| Website | ✔ | ✔ |
| Wikis | ✔ | |
| SYNCHRONOUS COMMUNICATION | ||
| Chatrooms | ✔ | |
| Instant messaging (e.g. ICQ, MSN) | ✔ | |
| Online forums (eg Eluminate) | ✔ | |
| Shared Whiteboards | ✔ | |
| Teleconferencing | ✔ | |
| Telephone | ✔ | ✔ |
| Video Conferencing | ✔ | |
| Virtual workspaces | ||
| Voice-over IP (e.g. Skype) | ||
| RESEARCH TOOLS | ||
| Citations/References (e.g. Endnote, Zotero) | ✔ | |
| News Sharing (e.g. DIGG) | ||
| Notification Services (e.g. Google Reader) | ||
| Online databases or directories | ✔ | |
| Search Engines (e.g. Google) | ✔ | |
| Social Bookmarking (e.g. del.icio.us) | ||
| Web Annotations (e.g. Diigo) | ||
| DOCUMENT SHARING & MANAGEMENT | ||
| Document Repositories / Management Systems | ✔ | ✔ |
| Document Sharing (e.g. Google Docs, Google Apps) | ||
| Grid/Cloud Computing | ✔ | |
| Learning Management System | ✔ | |
| Sharing Geographic Content (e.g. GoogleMaps) | ✔ | |
| Sharing Image Content (e.g. Flickr) | ||
| Sharing Presentation Content (e.g. Slideshare) | ✔ | |
| Sharing Textual Documents (e.g. GoogleDocs) | ||
| Video Sharing (e.g. YouTube, TeacherTube) | ||
| OTHER | ||
| Password Management (e.g. OpenID) |