USM PENANG, 20 April 2020 – Making a move to online learning throughout the Movement Control Order (MCO) period at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) has become more favourable and receiving positive responses from both lecturers and students.

USM Deputy Vice-Chancellor Academic and International, Professor Dato’ Dr. Ahmad Farhan Mohd Sadullah said, USM reached the decision to restart the second semester via online in early April, in view of the current situation resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said that, statistics for the second week of the learning session beginning 12 April until 17 April showed a total of 1,421 courses were conducted online involving more than 16,000 students, which is translated into 89.24 percent of participation (online).

“Before the online sessions commenced, the University authorities had conducted various initiatives including engaging the students to identify their internet connectivity for online learning and planning strategies to ensure that 100% of the student population would be capable of being involved in remote learning.

“Aside from that, the University has also conducted learning sessions for the academic staff to provide them with exposure/training/reinforcement in various aspects for them to be more prepared to hold remote learning sessions,” he said.

He added that, the University is also monitoring the situation and gathering feedback from the academics and students in making continued improvements.

When commenting on the access capability of students for online learning, he said: “In the initial study, USM anticipated that between 10-15% of students had problems with internet accessibility (weak connection or none at all).

“Therefore, USM has changed its strategy, by allowing online learning using "low bandwidth" to be done. This would require pre-recorded sessions, as well as having to record the class sessions live, to allow for accessibility for all students.  As a result, we hope that all students could now undergo online classes.”

“The University has even taken the initiative to engage with several main telecommunication service providers (Telcos) in the country to start any sort of collaboration that would allow the students to have greater access to the USM e-learning portal through their smartphones,” he explained.

Additionally, Ahmad Farhan also shared the University’s gratitude to all those involved in giving their full cooperation to facilitate the online learning sessions, at the same time making it possible to continue with the second semester session (SA 2019/2020) at all USM campuses, including the group of USM medical students currently undergoing the USM-KLE International Medical Programme at Belgaum in Karnataka, India.

“I trust that the lecturers have persevered in making the best of the situation, and I hope that all students would be able to undergo the learning process as best as they can.

“We also hope that all parties involved could continue to provide the best learning experience to the students,” he said.

Translation: Mazlan Hanafi Basharudin/Photo & Infographic: Ebrahim Abdul Manan