Congratulating Students and Professors on the End of the Second Semester

Congratulating
Students and Professors on the End of the Second Semester

Dr. Hamzah: The
Achievements of UOB in Digital Education Is A “Success Story”

Dr. Fay Al
Khalifa: The Provision of Courses Digitally Shall Continue to Expand, And
Students’ Engagement is Great

 

21 June 2020

The President of the University of Bahrain (UOB), Dr. Riyad Yousif
Hamzah, congratulated the University’s academics and students on the occasion
of the end of the second semester of the 2019/2020 academic year.

Stating that “The challenge imposed by the current
circumstances witnessed by the whole world has shown many potentials and
opportunities, represented in mainly examining digital education in the work of
this chapter.”

Also, the President of UOB indicated that what has been
achieved at the University is a “success story” in which professors
and students alike participated, with great support, and tireless work from the
E-Learning Center which is responsible for the Black Board platform and the Information
Technology Center that is in charge of the MS Teams platform.

Furthermore, Dr. Hamzah stated that “The academic staff
has shown unrivaled enthusiasm for the shift from regular education to digital
education, and many of them have created methods that suit the nature of the courses
they present. During which, according to statistics, UOB students showed high
commitment despite knowing that the atmosphere of studying in a regular
classroom is different from watching lectures at home or remotely, stressing
that “This experience that the education sector all over the world was forced
to go through, opened wide doors for investment in digital learning and
technology.”

Also, he stressed that UOB has benefited a lot from this
experience, and shall continue to take steps towards enhancing digital
education and continuously improving it through its interaction with the
observations of professors and students.

On her part, Director of the E-Learning Center, Dr. Fay
Abdullah Al Khalifa, stated that: “The statistics we obtained after the end of
the second semester indicate the extensive use of many components of digital
education, in terms of the number of lectures, attendance hours, creation of
digital courses, exchanged messages, video hours, and other components, whether
on Blackboard or MS Teams, stressing that these statistics are similar to their
counterparts in the statistics of other international universities, and may sometimes
surpass them.

She further added “Without going too much into the
details shown by the statistics, the number of students who benefited from
digital learning and interacted with it reached 22,400 students, while all the
academic staff at the University of 868 professors used digital learning in
various forms, including broadcasting, recording, presentations, meetings,
correspondence with students, recordings and audio broadcasts, and other various
means provided by the two platforms used at UOB. Also, 4,625 courses were
presented during this period, and the attendance rate exceeded 90% in
e-courses, with an attendance period for lectures, and an active interaction by
both sides of the educational learning process. “

Moreover, Dr. Fay Al Khalifa stressed that “The E-Learning
Center has expanded with the presence of digital learning for the second
semester that ended days ago, as well as for the future, as it captured and
documented many clinical and laboratory experiments in the Colleges of Science
and the College of Engineering, and it continues to document and record what
needs to be documented in the rest of the faculties and parts of the University,”.
Noting at the same time that the Center is in continuous contact with regional
and international universities to exchange experiences and have the best implemented
ones, either through individual communication or by participating in digital conferences
and forums that are widely held these days to study different experiences.”

Also, the Director of the E-Learning Center indicated that
the experience of UOB received great praise and appreciation in the electronic
workshop organized by the British Council in the middle of last month. In which
many international universities participated, and the University College London
– one of the oldest British universities – praised the steps taken by UOB and
the results achieved by its digital education experience.

 

Sustainable Development Goals:

4 Quality Education

17 Partnerships for The Goals

Key Words:

End of the second semester, A Success Story, E-Learning,
Digital Learning, The British Council, University College London, Creating
Digital Courses, E-Courses, Information Technology Center