Virtual University in Dominican Republic Project (VU of DR)

The Global Foundation for Democracy and Development - GFDD - and its partners are embarking on a project to develop and implement the first Virtual University in Dominican Republic (VU of DR). With the knowledge that the quality of education influences the economic growth of a nation, the GFDD intends to extend and accelerate social and economic development of the DR and, therefore, is committed to providing learning opportunities to all Dominicans and learners throughout the region.

The Main Goals

• Provide distance learning courses to all Dominicans and learners throughout the region.
• Enhance education in the Dominican Republic through mechanisms that will increase human capital: using new technologies and new concepts of pedagogy to provide a student-centered distance and distributed learning (education and training) environment.
• Support the use and development of distance education throughout the educational system of Dominican Republic and in the region.
• Promote the development of new contents relative to the Dominican Republic and relevant to its people and its specific conditions of development

The Virtual University Infrastructure

The University infrastructure will be physically located in the Dominican Republic . Its faculty, professors, tutors, and learners will be from all around the world. It is divided in three main areas which interact with each other: academic : includes considerations of functional processes; technological : encompasses hybrid delivery methods, and administrative : includes establishment of the functional diagram of the Virtual University .

Courses Material

In the beginning, the courses will range from professional development courses to graduate-level courses in areas of eCommerce, Communications and Media, Public Administration, Global Law, Sustainable Development and International Relations. Also, specific areas relative to the Dominican Republic will be developed and offered world wide (e.g. culture, history, geography, etc.)

The professional development content will be a collaborative effort among local and international educational institutes.

The graduate-level courses will be supported and accredited by the educational institutes' partners.

Instructional Model

The instructional model will involve but will not be limited to PDF's and Word process, Power Point documents, digital media such as streamed video of lectures, audio contents and their transcriptions, lab demos, communications tools (chat sessions, email, and forum discussion), online activities for instance assignments, forum discussion, self-quizzes, and online exams.

Delivery Method

The VU of DR will adopt online courses, the only method of delivery. This delivery method requires an enormous active involvement of learners.

This involvement is accomplished through online discussions, interactive meetings, prompt feedback, individual attention, as examples. Learners have the opportunity to exchange opinions, reflect about them, and provide long-term retention of knowledge.

The technology allows instantaneous feedbacks at anytime through email, chat or forum. Professors and tutors can keep continuous feedback and give personal attention to learners.

Faculty participants

Participants for this project are going to be recruited in three main different ways:

•  Professors and tutors must have previous experience in teaching distance courses using Internet.

•  They must have experience in any type of e-learning environment, for instance Blackboard, WebCT, Click2learn, Embanet, Lotus Learning Space, MentorWare, SCT learning suite, Vcampus, FirstClass, or Topclass.

•  They must be fluent in writing, reading, and speaking Spanish, which is independent of its nationality.

The first participants, after their experience in the VU e-learning environment, will serve as teachers of teachers by transferring their know-how to local professors and tutors that do not have experience in distance education.

The Investment

GFDD and its partners have agreed to invest in this initiative in different ways, through:

•  Development of contents for e-learning environment
•  Contribution with software
•  Donation of equipments
•  Grants contribution, which is tax-deductible
•  Free workshops in Dominican Republic

Where we are

06/13/05

• Currently we are in the phase of gathering information about e-learning environments to serve the particular needs of the University.
• Contacting Institutions for participations along with the partners
• Forming the team to define instructional model and instructional design, the technological infrastructure, the pedagogical model, and administrative area.
• Participating in Distance Education events
• Preparing groups or individuals to provide specifics workshops in Dominican Republic .
• Making alliances to develop course contents or use existed ones.

11/07/05

• The e-learning environments were identified and will serve as a guide for the University.
• Received impressive support and advice from many Spanish and Portuguese - speaking Universities, especially from Argentina , Brazil , Chile , and Spain .
• Inaugurated the first seminar of our “Distance Education Series” - a three day seminar on “Regulation and Legislation of Distance Education: The Brazilian Experience”. This seminar was led by two officials of the Brazilian Ministry of Education, Professor Luciane Carneiro, Coordinator for Education, and Dr. Helio Chaves Filho, Director for Policy on Distance Education. Details on this activity are available at the following website: http://www.globalfoundationdd.org/cpo_actividades86.html

• Planning the second seminar of the “Distance Education Series” which will take place at FUNGLODE in the Dominican Republic , February 13 to 17, 2006 . This seminar will include many experts in Distance Education who have many years of experience in such field. We will invite professionals from the International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE), in Norway; Universidade Virtual do Sul de Santa Catarina (UnisulVirtual), in Brazil; Universidad Tecnol ó gica Metropolitana (UTEMVirtual), in Chile;  and Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), in Spain.
• Defining the core of the University. This means selecting a few people who will start the University.
• University domain name: www.univirtual.edu.do (Website is not yet available).

ICDE – http://www.icde.org
UnisulVirtual – http://www.unisul.br/index.pfm?codpagina=400
UtemVirtual – http://www.utemvirtul.cl
UNED – http://www.uned.es

01/10/06

• The core structure of the University has been defined.
• The plan is to launch Univirtual at the beginning of November 2006
• The University will begin as an Institute.
• Univirtual will start with five professional development courses, some of which will be developed by Dominican Republic faculty experts, adapting contents from already existing courses being offered by associated Universities
• The curriculum includes the history of the Dominican Republic , E_commerce, International Relations, E_government, and other topics to be defined soon.
• The Second Seminar in the “Distance Education Series” called “International Week of Distance Education” is to take place at FUNGLODE in the Dominican Republic February 13 – 17, 2006 . We have invited highly regarded professionals involved in the field of in education, such as professors, pedagogues, and teachers, university administrators, and Deans. The goal is to:

-          Identify processes when developing educational programs
-          Identify processes and techniques for the formation of professors in distance education
-          Provide vision, analyze actions, and identify criteria when designing a program
-          Identify criteria for evaluation processes, and identify different types of e_learning platforms

Seminar's schedule >>

Speakers' Profile	Presentations	Language	Audio Brief	Date
Marta Mena	Desarrollo de Programas Educativos	Spanish		02/13/06
	Evaluación en Educación a Distancia	Spanish		02/13/06
Lorenzo García Aretio	Experiencia de la UNED en EAD	Spanish		02/13/06
	Formación del Profesorado en la EAD	Spanish		02/15/06
João Vianney	UnisulVirtual – La implementación de una universidad virtual contemporánea en Brasil	Portuguese		02/15/06
Daniela Erani Monteiro Will	Diseños y modelos de la universidad virtual en Brasil	Portuguese		02/16/06
Angélica Maria Rojas Munoz	Plataformas Tecnológicas	Spanish		02/17/06
Marcelo Meléndez	Bibliotecas Digitales	Spanish		02/17/06

Press releases

First Day

• Diario Hoy 02/14/06 >>
Diario Libre 02/14/06 >>

• Diario Libre 02/15/06 >>

For further information and in order to collaborate, please contact

Semiramis de Miranda, General Manager of this project
Email: SemiramisMiranda@globalfoundationdd.org
Phone (202) 458-3157
Website: http://www.globalfoundationdd.org (English)
http://www.funglode.org (Spanish)

Office Washington, DC
1889 F Street, NW
Suite 778C
Washington, DC 20006