VUSSC Launches Learning Portal
The Virtual University for Small States of the Commonwealth (VUSSC) has introduced a new online Learning Management System that makes it easier for learners and educators to access and contribute to VUSSC courses.
The new VUSSC website offers free online materials and tips for learning online. Educators can access learning materials, information about how to adapt learning materials to their needs and other resources. The VUSSC website features the Moodle Learning Management System. Moodle is an open source web application for producing, offering and managing online courses. VUSSC is also offering an offline platform, Poodle, which is Moodle from a memory stick. Poodle can serve as a backup for a course being developed on Moodle and enables course delivery without Internet access.
The VUSSC Learning Portal is freely available to all VUSSC participating institutions.
The Learning Portal was unveiled at the second VUSSC Management Committee Meeting, held in Kochi, India, prior to COL's Sixth Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning (PCF6). Management Committee members agreed on three areas of focus for the coming year:
- Establishment of the VUSSC Transnational Qualifications Framework (TQF) Portal,
- Implementation of the TQF, and
- Development of new courses.
Senior government officials from participating countries who serve as VUSSC Interlocutors also met in Kochi prior to PCF6. They discussed the need to further address quality assurance, copyright issues, transferring credits among countries and new funding sources. The Interlocutors also identified priority areas for VUSSC course development.
VUSSC hosted the ninth International Training and Materials Development Workshop in Lesotho in March 2011 in collaboration with COL, the National University of Lesotho and the Lesotho Ministry of Education. Participants collaborated on the development of a course on a degree-level Business/Entrepreneurship programme.
VUSSC is a partnership of 32 small states of the Commonwealth dedicated to expanding access to tertiary education. All VUSSC course materials are freely available online for adaptation and re-use.
April 2011