University of Technology, Jamaica 12 ACADEMIC AFFAIRS DIVIS ION Cont’d. semester, via the UTechOnline Learning Management System (LMS) and BlackBoard Collaborate webconferencing application. Of significance was the fully online development of at least nine (9) general education modules, available as online blended and/or fully online options for each semester. This continuum of online delivery options catered for the direct needs of the distance learners across the region, while allowing for the convenience of on-campus students. In March 2020, the faculties/colleges with online modules in the UTechOnline LMS, and lecturers who had prior online teaching experiences, were better able to pivot to emergency remote teaching and progressively incorporate good practices of the online learning environment. However, most of the practical aspects of the curriculum (laboratory, field-study and workplace experiences) had to be suspended, as these could not be accommodated immediately by virtual means. The College of Health Sciences has been the leading academic unit, with a strategic plan for online learning. During this period, it offered four fully-online courses of study including approximately twenty-two (22) online examinations, to at least one hundred and fortytwo (142) students from eleven (11) countries from the Caribbean and North America. The online courses of study were the Post Diploma in Pharmacy, the Doctor of Pharmacy, Master of Science in Public Health Nutrition, and the Master of Science in Health Administration. The countries were Antigua & Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Cayman Islands, Grenada, Jamaica, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, Trinidad & Tobago, and the USA (Florida). The College of Business Management has also been an academic leader by having approximately fifty percent of the total modules, lecturers and students utilizing the UTechOnline LMS, at any given time. The School of Business Administration had also been exploring the use of web-conferencing systems to link classes between the Western (Montego Bay) and Papine (Kingston) campuses. Faculty and Student Support for Online Learning The ODL continued to expand the range and quality of support services and systems for faculty and students. These services included: a. Implementation of the Safe Exam Browser to reduce access to non-exam websites for increased security and integrity of online examinations. b. Automation of a welcome letter with preliminary guidelines to be disseminated to students upon enrolment in an online module. c. Upgrading online modules and resources to reflect universal design principles for increased accessibility and engagement by all students, regardless of diverse physical or cognitive characteristics, abilities or impairments. d. Hosting of sessions with other central units, such as the Library, to provide information to students on the online resources available to support their learning in face-to-face and online environments. e. Increased access for students to practice areas such as the online orientation module and a test space for Turnitin plagiarism detection tool. f. Increased access to standard university resources within all UTechOnline modules. g. Increased access to recordings of training workshops, webinars and materials for all sensitization or orientation sessions, made available as resource links on the ODL channel on YouTube and the ODL Blog. Webinar topics included Open Educational Resources and Online PlannerWriting, while workshops included Applying Universal Design Principles and Creation of Online Quizzes. Community Service/Professional Services/ Linkages Members of the ODL Team have been responding
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