How Daffodil International University made online teaching and learning a reality in Bangladesh

The COVID-19 pandemic is the greatest challenge we have faced since the second World War. The sector that is still facing lockdown in Bangladesh is education. Schools, colleges and universities or even their residential halls are still closed as the second wave of COVID-19 begins to hit worldwide. Alternatives are being tried. Online activities are going on. But one institution which had a quick and smooth transition to distance learning is Daffodil International University (DIU). The greatest weapon that DIU is using currently is its own Learning Management System (LMS) and Blended Learning Center (BLC).

DIU started using its online platform BLC from the first day it faced lockdown as the university had the earlier experience of conducting classes through online platform. "100% academic activities of the university are going on in full swing smoothly using the BLC platform which DIU started in 2013, during the frequent interruptions caused by strikes, hartals and blockade programs, which equipped the faculty members with necessary skills, and that's why DIU faculty members were in line with this technology," said DIU Acting Vice Chancellor Prof. Dr. SM Mahabub Ul Haque Majumder. "As the teachers and students have earlier experience and are habituated with online platform, so it became very easy for them to conduct academic and administrative activities," he said.

BLC is the digital teaching and learning hub of DIU to connect teachers and students effectively allowing to track progress of individual students and better facilitate their learning. DIU specialises in process automation and digital teaching and learning management. Almost all the processes and activities of the university are run by a digital infrastructure, web applications and software. To mitigate poor internet connection for the students located in remote locations. DIU has worked on collaborating with Grameen Phone and Robi to provide low price data package for its students.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the university has successfully completed all academic and administrative activities online and still now the university has been able to  accommodate over 29000 users including students, teachers and administrators, and over 4000 courses in the BLC platform with a strong Cloud based infrastructure.

BLC has a well-structured and robust e-Learning Management System and is a one stop solution to create, organise, communicate and manage courses. BLC is very simple to use and manage for teachers and students with incredibly powerful plugins and integrations. The platform comes with a drag and drop Course Builder that helps teachers to publish courses with ease. It is convenient to add or create (link or embed) course materials, new lessons' videos, audios, power point slides, drive resources, any files from the desktop, and even interactive content. The platform contains over 25 inbuilt features along with hundreds of plugins and integrations that extend the possibilities for teachers to engage their students in multiple and flexible ways.

Quizzes, assignments, forums and online workshops provoke curiosity and make students participate in courses more. The platform also is integrated with Turnitin Plagiarism checker to present teachers with the originality of reports/ assignments submitted by students.

With these many options, teachers are able to set questions to assess the students following Bloom's Taxonomy so that the teachers can easily identify what level of understanding they are at present and accordingly provide them with further guidelines. All assessment results are accumulated automatically to a highly customisable grade book which gives the teachers an overview of how each student is performing in the course. Students can also see their records at any time, so that they can plan and prepare better for the next assessments. In short, the platform has increased the transparency and integrity for both students and teachers. The examination section of the university can also track and check these records that allows them to ensure the quality and integrity of the examinations.

Moreover, the BLC platform has its own analytics tool with three separate dashboards: Teacher Dashboard, Student Dashboard and Admin Dashboard. With it, teachers can check the performance of their students and their courses from a single dashboard and get a detailed report on their courses with a few clicks. Similarly, students can also get insight on their present performance from various courses so that they can prepare well and get organised or take help from their teachers. The Admin Dashboard lets the university management gain insight and report on the overall performance and activities of the platform allowing them to ensure teacher and student success. The reports are segmented into useful insight points like active teachers, course completion, teacher engagement, abnormal grades, innovative teachers, active students, at risk students and so on.

One of the greatest upsides to teaching online through BLC is that the classes can be easily made visually appealing, with videos from multiple sources like YouTube, Google, Drive, Edpuzzle, H5P interactive content. To create courses for students, teachers can upload a variety of multimedia files, images, PDFs, docs, excel sheets and so on. Teachers can also assign custom badges to students based on their activities in the courses. Students find it very encouraging and rewarding to engage themselves in course activities to earn those badges. Students can interact freely in the Discussion Forum sections, where they can comment and ask questions to the teachers, students can also review, rate and give feedback on their courses of study.

After watching a demonstration of the BLC platform and its activities in a sharing session, a Members of Bangladesh Accreditation Council, Professor Dr. Sanjay Kumar Adhikari opined that DIU has made groundbreaking innovations in the field of online education at this time of Corona pandemic through the BLC Platform. The platform is a highly effective online quality education system which other universities should follow.

Another Member of Bangladesh Accreditation Council, Professor SM Kabir opined that looking at the BLC platform of DIU, it seems that there are all kinds of teaching learning materials integrated here. DIU has all the skills and technology needed to conduct online classes and is already a pioneer in the use of technology.

The BLC platform is currently based on an intellectually designed cloud infrastructure suggested by both locally and internationally recognised experts, which enables the students to learn regardless of their remote location or internet connectivity and makes learning interactive and lively. During the last semester, DIU teachers initiated a total of 1647 courses through the BLC platform where over 16000 active students were engaged and continued their studies online.

For supporting the students to attend online classes, DIU ensured early distribution of 2500 free laptops for the students.

DIU is relentlessly striving for the betterment of higher education at national and international levels. The university is continuously excelling in world rankings with its education and research. Even in this pandemic situation, DIU is running at its usual pace, even faster.

Bangladesh is facing a serious disruption in all of its regular activities. Lots of students fear about session jams in the near future. But DIU has inspired other institutions to run their operations smoothly, even in this crisis. Not just academic, but any type of institution can feel encouraged by efforts like SmartEdu introduced by DIU.

In the 'new normal' challenging world, where even survival might be a big factor, Daffodil International University is committed to build its students as fully-fitted with an entrepreneurial mindset and technological expertise as possible. The university is indeed leading the country's education from the front, especially during this pandemic. DIU is now getting ready to contribute to Udemy, CourseEra and other well-known online learning platforms. It is therefore progressing beyond national boundaries and moving to contribute in education all over the world.  

Writer:

Md. Anowar Habib Kazal, Senior Assistant Director (PR), DIU

Md. Ejaj-Ur- Rahman, Deputy Director HRDI, DIU