ODL Opportunities for Students to Continue Their Studies Online

Cross-border education, digital and online education are receiving increasing attention today, thus providing an indication that these are future educational trends that need to be expanded and developed. Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), which has always been among the pioneers in the birth of new educational products and methods, sees digital and flexible education as being able to attract students to continue their studies to a higher level. UTM started Open and Distance Learning (ODL) since 2020 under the UTM HyFlex initiative, which is the delivery of hybrid and flexible learning. UTM currently has 1010 students following academic programs via ODL in 22 countries. Apart from Malaysia, other countries are Canada, the United Kingdom (UK), Belgium, Egypt, Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, Liberia, Iran, China, South Korea, India and Bangladesh. In addition to ODL, other delivery methods under UTM HyFlex are Micro Credential (MC) and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) which currently involve 987 international students in 115 countries around the world until 2024. UTM Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic & International), Prof Dr Mohd Shafry Mohd Rahim, said the success of ODL has been proven with 285 students successfully graduating since the ODL programme was offered. Of the total, 112 ODL students graduated at the 68th UTM Convocation Ceremony which was held recently. "With the increasing number of applications, we clearly see that digital education is becoming an option for those who want to improve their academic qualifications under time constraints and so on. "This is what we are arranging and planning when previously we saw that students' interest in continuing their studies was low. So they have options for flexible and online education such as ODL, MOOC and MC," he said when interviewed by BH recently.   Mohd Shafry said that UTM, which has the potential to be used as a model or example for other universities, has started offering 12 postgraduate programmes including an ODL doctoral programme which has received a convincing number of students, leading to it being expanded. He said that ODL, MOOC and MC are education based on self-learning materials in the form of videos, as well as interactive learning activities uploaded to the integrated learning management system for students to access at any time. "For ODL, it is still implemented according to the semester system which is held online, interactions are also online, examinations are also online and upon successful completion, we will award them the relevant degree. "We started with a Master's Degree in Forensic Engineering, a Master's Degree in Business Administration and a Master's Degree in Education (Educational Technology). "We chose this program according to market demand, where when we saw that physical attendance for each program was low, when we tried to implement it online, it received high attention, including from international students. "This method also saves costs for students who do not have to attend campus, and they can even continue their studies while they work," he explained. To facilitate flexible digital-based education, UTM uses the facilities available at the Center for Development in Digital and Flexible Learning (UTM CDex) at UTM which aims to develop learning modules on digital platforms. He said that through the UTM Online platform developed by UTM CDex, students can log in, pay fees, save learning credits in the academic credit bank and access education anytime, anywhere centrally as long as they have a smartphone and internet access. "UTM continues to maintain quality in everything that is implemented, including learning materials, assessments, teaching, including lecturers who provide complete courses, and all the facilities to make it a success are available at UTM CDex together with the School of Graduate Studies (SPS) and UTM Digital. "For the teachers involved, a year before starting teaching, they need to develop self-learning modules in digital form for students to access," he explained. Regarding the challenges of ODL, Mohd Shafry said, from the student perspective, it involves infrastructure problems, internet access and technical issues. "Some countries cannot access the Malaysian network, that is the main issue and most importantly, students need to have internet facilities to make ODL a success," he said. Mohd Shafry said that ODL is a solution for those who do not want to continue their studies due to certain constraints, but he sees that the country is now changing. "If mobile phones were once a want, now they have become a necessity. Therefore, education can be accessed anywhere nowadays," he said. At the same time, he said, UTM is in an effort to create a virtual laboratory to enable more technology-based programs to be offered through ODL with the facility to carry out activities involving experiments virtually. "Now we have a virtual campus, and we are actively developing a virtual lab and when this lab is complete, we will add technology-based programs," he said.
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