Kaderali, Firoz

My topic is straightforward: strategies for exploiting the potential for new media, particularly for Open Universities. In Germany we have just started a two-year project to evaluate, develop and (hopefully) introduce a new Open University. Besides providing an excellent education, one of the goals of the project is to give German universities a competitive edge by learning how to make use of all the technological possibilities around us.

Hagen University is 25 years old. In Germany it is an integral part of the regular public higher education system, a small university of 80 Professors, 420 academic staff, 1,700 courses, and 58,000 students. Our students are older than normal students. 80% are in employment. 40% already have an academic degree. We use the new media as tools for teaching and have different ways of using these, e.g. supervision assistance, “coaching” (i.e. tutoring), social contacts supported via the network and so on.