The AAOU Annual Conference is targeted to be attended by community of academics and practitioners, administrators, students, as well as information and communication technology developers and providers. It provides a focal point for bringing everyone up to date on ideas, issues, and the developments in the field of ODL. The participants are expected to come from developed countries as well as from developing and in-transition countries, and also from the local participants. The increasing presence of delegates from many countries all over the world demonstrates the prestige of the AAOU Annual Conference as an international forum for academic exchange in open and distance education. This conference will be a forum for participants to share and learn from each other on how to plan, develop, and manage better ODL programs. Since there is a wide range of content in ODL programs in participating institutions/countries which cover all of those three components, directly or indirectly, it will help to promote new ways of thinking about a future in which environmental, societal, and economic considerations are balanced in the pursuit of development and improved quality of life.
Main Theme:
The main theme for the 31st Annual Conference of the Asian Association of Open University is “Open University for inclusive and equitable quality education”. The theme is timely because with the rapid advancement in technology for learning, there are indeed plenty of opportunities for ODL institutions to explore and to expand the capability of ODL as a vehicle for inclusive and equitable education.
Sub-Themes:
The conference will address the following sub-themes:
- Repositioning Open University in the Digital Era: Providing Sustainable Learning Pathways
Open University in the digital era does not only call for knowledge of different literacies but also captures orality, the exchange of ideas verbally and the moments of quietly contemplating in modes of visuality. Open University puts university in a whole new world of teaching and learning. The course is propelled by a completely online teaching and learning environment which shifts academic texts in hard print into hypertext, visual texts as hypermedia and audio and moving images as hyper-multimedia/rich-media. Online teaching and learning is meant to enhance the learning experiences of the students and to reach more independent learners in the world and for those who want to access it. - Leadership in Open, Distance, and Online Learning University
There have been significant shifts in the open and distance education practices (ODL). The rapid changes of the information and communication technology have transformed ODL practices into more technology enabler promoting more efficiency and increasing student completion. The development of online learning into more modern open and distance learning universities, including fostering the development of online learning, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), and Open Educational Resources (OER) has presented some significant challenges and opportunities for open and distance education leadership. In addition, open universities have also been imposed by global cultures, ethics and values to become more equitable, quality driven and inclusive. Hence, open university leadership needs to serve multiple roles as an important issue in the fast-growing open distance education world. - Quality Assurance in Open University
Open University is required to prove that the quality of its teaching and learning process is equivalent to face-to-face teaching. Quality Assurance (QA) in Open Universities requires a systematic process, including the development of the QA framework and job manuals, promotion of awareness and commitment amongst all involved staff, internal assessment, and integration of QA programs into the university’s annual action plans, external assessment and benchmarking. A comprehensive QA system in Open University is designed to prove and improve the quality of institution’s methods, educational products and outcomes. This includes developing and producing learning materials, academic programs, assessment method, learning support and services, and standards of students’ learning. Current ICT development including managing big data, learning analytics and personalized learning management system has required Open Universities to revisit the current QA standard in order to ensure all process conform to the requirements for the purpose of increasing student success. - Assessment and Accreditation of Learning in Open University
Open and Distance Learning (ODL) has emerged as an important mode for providing education to diverse sections of the society because of its inherent flexibility and affordability coupled with application of new information and communication technologies. Assessment and accreditation play important role in ODL as they maintain the quality of education. However, assessment and accreditation in ODL have not been globally standardized. Hence, there is a need to promote assessment and accreditation including identify the issues and challenges in order to establish well-structured assessment and accreditation programs in ODL. - Access and Justice in Open, Distance and Online Learning
Open education is the main drive of the democratization in higher education. It encompasses various noble values and principles of liberty, inclusiveness, flexibility, quality and accessibility. In light of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2030 to promote inclusive and equitable education and lifelong learning opportunities for all, ODL system has been seen as the most viable mode to achieve this goal. The ODL system has been possible by providing quality education for all and targeting marginalized and socially disadvantaged people who have been discriminated due to various reasons including the access to technology. As the ODL in the future would be focusing on the ICT, ODL leader has to pay great attention on the technology access barriers of those disadvantaged people.
Submission
Pre-submission of abstracts is a strict requirement. All papers and abstracts have to be submitted electronically via the conference submission system, which can be accessed by Clicking Here .
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At least one of the authors of the accepted paper/poster must register for the conference and attend the conference to present his paper/poster.
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