KU ramps up efforts to conduct online classes

KARACHI: The University of Karachi on Wednesday decided to ramp up efforts for conducting online classes, a press release said, as the coronavirus lockdown has left campuses deserted.

“We need to ensure that the learning process continues. Given the number of students at the university, we need to make sure that our house is in order before we start online classes," KU Vice-Chancellor Professor Dr Khalid Mahmood Iraqi said in a high-level meeting held in this regard at the VC Secretariat on Wednesday.

The VC made it clear that the university administration does not want to go for any "misadventure" and that they wanted to devise a comprehensive strategy that could facilitate and benefit students.

The meeting was attended by the Dr Iraqi, the Registrar Professor Dr Saleem Shahzad, all the deans, Student’s Advisor Dr Syed Asim Ali, in-charge Main Communication Network Professor Dr Sadiq Ali Khan, Deputy Director Quality Enhancement Cell Jawaid Akram. The agenda was to discuss the possibilities and opportunities in online and blended learning.

In the first phase of online and blended learning, the university will ensure the training of teachers for using online learning platforms and video conferencing software for conducting classes.

The Learning Management System (LMS), made available by the Higher Education Commission Islamabad through Virtual University, will be configured to be used by teachers and students for assignments, assessments and sharing lectures.

KU will incorporate the LMS as the online learning platform within two weeks while the varsity’s QEC would prepare tutorial contents and videos for commonly used online learning tools like Zoom, Teams and Adobe Connect and others.

On this occasion, the Dr Iraqi formed a technical experts committee which would be supervised by the Director QEC Professor Dr Syed Jamil Hasan Kamzi whereas Dr Ali and Engineer Ishfaque Khanzada from MCN, Director Distance Learning Program Professor Dr Abdul Waheed, Students’ Advisor Dr Ali, Deputy Director QEC Akram were appointed as the members of the said committee.

This committee would submit its report in the next meeting which would be held next week. During the meeting, it was observed that students from remote areas lack the internet facility and may face various difficulties to take online lectures.

The KU Vice-Chancellor directed the in-charge MCN Dr Sadiq Ali Khan, in consultation with respective deans, to prepare standard operating procedures to facilitate students.

All deans were asked to prepare the necessary requirement and establish connections with their faculty members and their students for concrete adherence at the grass-root level.

One of the members observed that this step would broadly facilitate the university in distance and virtual learning via online class management strategy.