Umm Al-Qura University E-learning Portal

Story of a Successful Partnership

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I. Introduction

As part of its ongoing efforts to enhance the skills and knowledge base of its students, the Deanship of e-learning and distance learning at Umm Al-Qura University (UQU) sought cutting-edge, e-learning solutions that both meet its needs and are based on global best practices in e-learning for large universities.

II. Challenges

UQU’s main objectives from this project, which was designed to serve all its major stakeholders (faculty, students and staff), included:

• Contributing effectively to e-university transformation.
• Meeting the strategic objectives of e-learning.
• Providing e-learning services via integrated solutions.
• Enabling faculty to develop and re-use e-courses according to internationally recognized quality standards and academic accreditation.
• Creating an e-learning repository and making e-courses available online at any time and anywhere.
• Reducing the time required to develop or acquire e-courses.
• Offering a user-friendly, economical and efficient mechanism for developing e-courses using the principles of economy in e-learning.
• Ensuring the highest quality standards through utilizing a seamless mechanism for continuous evaluation and modification of e-courses.

III. Solution

UQU turned to Naseej’s Desire2Learn e-Learning Solutions to overcome these challenges and achieve its objectives. Specifically, Naseej will implement the following processes to ensure an optimal outcome for UQU:

• Provide technical and logistical support to enable seamless transformation to an e-university.
• Install a uniform, harmonious platform that offers smooth integration with Microsoft Office Applications.
• Provide an Arabic-based support platform, fully operational and productive from the first day.
• Develop e-courses (100 in the first stage), and prepare the technical infrastructure for their operation.
• Provide professional training for faculty to develop e-courses.
• Offer consultation services to UQU in terms of e-course development and access to e-courses by users.
• Provide a full-time on-premises professional team to develop units for e-courses.
• Provide a fully integrated e-learning repository to make e-courses available at any time and anywhere.
• Provide 3,000 off-the-shelf e-learning units.

The UQU e-learning project engages a wide range of users, including:

• Faculty
• Students
• University staff