SEA: Indonesia : Universitas Terbuka (UT)

Introduction

Rapid advances in science and technology have driven organizations and institutions to develop their ample human resources in order to achieve improved productivity and better performances. However, the constraints of time, geographical location and other committments have become major obtacles to many people to upgrade their qualifications and improve their professional competencies in responses to dynamicaly changing nature of professional work and shifting demands of the society. Additionally, limited access and participation in higher education in ndonesia has hampered the process of continuous professional development of human resources throughout their lives. Universitas Terbuka (UT) provides opportunities for anyone interested in advancing their professional lives through the improvement of their knowledge, skills, and competencies.

UT is Indonesia’s 45th state university which employs open and distance learning (ODL) system. This system has been proven to be effective in increasing educational outreach and in widening access to quality higher education to all Indonesian citizens, including those who live in remote islands thorughout the country as well as in various parts of the wrold.

Since its founding in 1984, UT has been providing a wide opportunity to all citizens of Indonesia, fresh high school graduates as well as working adults, to actively engage in higher education, regardless of their domicile, age, and socio-economic background. UT offers learning flexibility system to people who do not have the luxury of attending face-to-face higher education system.

UT’s development must be put in the context of Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelago with over 17,000 islands, leaving Indonesia’s area over 80% comprised of water. Demographically, Indonesia is the fourth most populous country in the world (after China, India, and the United States of America), with over 220 million people. The country represents a mosaic of ethnic and regional cultures with over 1,000 local languages and dialects spoken among different ethnic groups; however, Bahasa Indonesia is used as a national language.

In 2009, UT enrolled over 600,000 students, residing in different parts of the country and some overseas locations. Over 95% of these students are working adults. UT has major roles to play in developing high-caliber human resources needed for the nation’s sustainable development. Since its foundation, UT has enrolled over 1.4 million students and has produced over 700,000 alumni, working in various professional fields.

UT has developed and used information and communication technology (ICT) for delivery of its teaching and learning, as well as for its daily operation. UT’s innovation in the use of internet-based teaching and learning can be seen as a pioneering initiative in the Indonesian higher education sector, for a substantial student segment still does not have easy access to the internet. However, UT’s experience in the use of internet in distance education might well illustrate the case wherein the use of the internet for teaching and learning at a distance has been continually enhanced and improved to noted student benefit, demonstrated also with an increasing trend of using online learning services by UT students.

Vision and Missions
Vision

UT has set a vision of being one of the centers of excellence in the world for distance higher education by 2020.

Missions

UT had three main initial missions: (1) to widen access to higher education, especially for recent graduates of senior high schools, (2) to train increasing numbers of students in areas required for the country’s economic and cultural development, and (3) to upgrade primary and secondary school teachers who graduated from short-term programs, to enable them to obtain full-scale teaching degree.

UT has expanded the above three initial missions into the eight following missions:

1. to expand the opportunity for quality higher education through the distance education system;
2. to produce competent academicians and professionals who are able to compete globally;
3. to increase participation in continuing education in order to create a knowledge-based society;
4. to increase the quality and quantity of research and development in the distance education system, especially in distance higher education;
5. to innovatively and continuously disseminate and share information on distance education especially on distance higher education;
6. to strengthen national unity and integrity through the broad and equal provision of higher education;
7. to increase cross-cultural understanding and networking through local, national and global partnerships;
8. to produce academic products in distance higher education as well as in other fields of knowledge.

Organisational Structure

The main mission of UT is to provide academic education, professional education, and vocational education in various branches of knowledge, technology and the arts by using the distance learning mode. In doing so, UT has the following functions.

1. Developing and managing higher education;
2. Developing and managing research and development activities in various branches of knowledge, technology and the arts;
3. Developing and managing community services;
4. Developing academic communities in relation to their environment; and
5. Organizing administration services.

The operational system of UT includes the following activities: (a) registration, (b) course offerings, (c) learning-material purchase, (d) independent learning, (e) student learning evaluation, and (f) certification.

UT operations throughout Indonesia and overseas have been designed to involve a network of participating institutions which support its activities. This means that to ensure its effective operations, UT needs solid cooperation with partner institutions to have access to their existing resources throughout the country. Regional Offices established to provide student services. Up to 2009, there are 37 Regional Offices (ROs) or Unit Program Belajar Jarak Jauh (UPBJJ) operating all over Indonesia to serve about 510,000 UT students

To carry out its functions, ROs build cooperation with local governments, educational institutions, and other service organizations, such as public and private schools and universities, local radio, television and mass media networks. Partnership activities include tutor recruitment, course writing, media broadcast, delivery of learning materials, and conducting examinations. ROs perform the functions of student registration, conducting tutorials and examination, in collaboration with local post offices, schools, universities, and governments.

The academic units are faculties and postgraduate programs. Faculties and postgraduate programs are responsible for managing academic programs based on specific disciplines through ODL system. The Dean and three Vice Deans are in charge of each Faculty. A Postgraduate Program Director and two Assistant Directors are in charge of post-graduate programs. Deans and the Director of Postgraduate Program are responsible for implementing and developing educational programs, carrying out research and community services, managing human resources, and serving distance students.

Besides Department faculties, UT has units which also carry out academic programs, which are the Institute of Research and Community Services and The Institute for Learning Materials, Examination and Information System Development.

UT also has three service Centers which neither belongs to LPPM or LPBAUSI, namely the Human Resource Development Centre, with the function to develop the quality of human resources; the Quality Assurance Centre which is responsible for developing standards, systems and procedures for assuring quality; and the Library Service Centre which is responsible for providing reference material and information for UT staff in the area of education, research and community service. Structurally, these Centers operate under direct supervision of the Rector.

The UT organisational structure under the Ministerial Decree Number 123/O/2004 can be seen in the following diagram.

Academic Programs

UT has four faculties and one Graduate Program that offer more than 30 Study Programs, including Master Programs (s2), Bachelors Programs (Sarjana/S1), Diploma Programs (D2, D3, and D4), and Certificate Programs. The four faculties are:

1. Faculty of Teaher Training and Educational Sciences;
2. Faculty of Social and Political Sciences;
3. Faculty of Economics; and
4. Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences

Student and Alumni

UT categrizes its student into the PENDAS and Non-PENDAS Programs (Non-PENDAS refers to all other programs offered by all faculties beside the PGSD and PGPAUD offered by the Faculty of Teacher Training and Educational Sciences). The total number of students in both the PENDAS and Non-PENDAS Programs is seen in Figure 1. As can be seen, the number of students in the PENDAS is much higher than the non_PENDAS due to the provision of scholarships from both the central and local governments. Of the 596,922 active students in the Semester of 2009.1, 499,985 are those of the PENDAS Program. Active students are defined as students who for the last four consecutive semesters have registered for at least one course. Figure 1 also shows that out of those 596,922 active students, only 487,313 students are actually taking courses (registered) in the Semester of 2009.1.

Figure 1: The Number of Active and Registered Students for PENDAS and Non-PENDAS
(Data per 23 June 2009)

Up until Semester 2009.1, the total number of UT alumni is 770.257. In line with the students’ occupational status, UT alumni also occupy various important positions either in government institutions or in private sectors. Approximately 660.430 or 86 % out of the total alumni are the PENDAS program graduates. Combined with the graduates of FKIP’s Non-PENDAS, this indicates that 94% of UT’s graduates are teachers.

Infrastructures

Universitas Terbuka Head Office (HO) in Jakarta is located in the suburban area of Pondok Cabe. It covers about 15.4 hectares of land for 20 office buildings, comprising office of the Rector, Bureaus, Institutes, Faculties, multimedia production centre, library, guest houses, warehouse, and general purpose building.

All existing buildings in the Head Office have been connected with fibre optics, the connection for which is done by using copper cable and wireless technology. UT’s connection to the internet network is provided through 2 (two) ISPs with bandwidth capacity of 12 Mbytes Clear Channel. UT is also connected to its ROs through a virtual private network (VPN) with bandwidth capacity 10 Mbytes. In the ROs, the connection uses a radio link (for 31 ROs location) and VSAT (6 ROs locations). The radio link connection has a 512 Kbytes bandwidth, while the VSAT connection has 256 Kbytes. UT also has a connection to the National Education Network (Jardiknas) organized by the DIKTI. UT has 155 Mbytes connection to the network through the local node of University of Indonesia (UI), while our ROs have a 128 Kbyte connection to the local university.

In order to use this network, UT has been providing video conferencing equipment for all ROS, plasma TVs and computers that can later be used for administrative and academic activities. Also, UT’s future registration process will be online through our virtual private network (VPN). The registration data will be applied in our online system. Thus, there will be no delay in other UT’s online service due to unavailable registration. Briefly network scheme can be seen in Figure 2.

Figure 2: UT Network Scheme

Infrastructure development is aimed at giving active assistance in widening student academic service access, including an online system for registration, payment, and learning material ordering. UT’s planning to purchase digital printing equipment in 2010. Printing on demand (POD) is planned for 2011. Students who wish to purchase learning materials may use different available accesses, such as SMS, internet, call center, or through the application offered by RO. Improvement in online examinations is still under the development process. The new online examinations will be fully online. Examination items will be extracted directly from the server and the students can take the online examination in an RO or in a selected place under the supervision of an RO.
To secure the availability of online service and to reduce direct traffic to the main server, UT will place three servers in three ROs as redundant servers functioning as data synchronization and backup.

Course and Learning Material Development

In distance education the course materials serve as the major learning resources for students. The availability of high quality learning materials is crucial to facilitate students’ learning process at a distance. Distance education systems have been established to expand access to learning, using a variety of technology. The philosophy of distance education is based on the value that it removes barriers to learning, and it allows flexibility for students to learn what they want, when they want, and where they want. A variety of technologies have been used to deliver content for students to learn. The technology used can be in printed and non-printed formats. The printed materials are usually in the form of modularized workbooks, and the non- printed materials can be in the audio, video and computer formats. The audio formats may include audiocassettes and radio programs. The video formats can be in videocassettes, television programs and CD-ROMs. The computer formats are in terms of asynchronous (such as video interactive, web-based materials, internet-based learning support system).

UT students learn from the learning materials delivered by the institution and from other accessible learning resources of other institutions. UT has developed multi-media learning materials for its students, with printed materials representing the major media, supplemented with non-printed materials such as audio-cassettes, video programs, television programs, audio-graphic programs, computer-assisted instruction (CAI), and web-based materials.

The UT printed materials contain learning materials that students should learn in accordance with learning purposes set in the course outline (Garis Besar Program Pengajaran or GBPP). The learning material is known as complete self- learning or self-contained learning materials, meaning that students primarily only need to study those learning materials in order to achieve learning goals. The learning materials are designed to be user-friendly for the learners’ self-study and independent learning activities. Learning materials serve as the major learning resource for distance students, in which the students learn from the printed materials and have the option to choose from a variety of media that suit their learning needs and circumstances. This variety of media includes printed materials, audio cassettes, video cassettes, television programs, CD-ROM software, web-based supplement, Computer Assisted Instructional (CAI), and audio graphic programs.

Since 2008, each faculty of UT has conducted “expert review workshops”. Learning materials are reviewed by external experts coming from Universitas Indonesia (UI), Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB), Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM), Universitas Diponegoro (UNDIP), Universitas Padjadjaran (UNPAD), Institut Pertanian Bogor (IPB), Universitas Jenderal Soedirman (UNSOED), Institut Pemerintahan Dalam Negeri (IPDN), Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia (UPI), Universitas Negeri Jakarta (UNJ), Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta (UNY), Universitas Negeri Malang (UNM), Universitas Negeri Semarang (UNES), Universitas Negeri Surabaya (UNESA), and Universitas Negeri Padang. Most of them (80%) appraised UT printed materials as good and 82% of them would recommend them for use as references for their students.

UT employs an information system called SIMBA for course material development. SIMBA stands for ‘Sistem Informasi Pengembangan Bahan Ajar’ or ‘Information System of Learning Material Development’. Through SIMBA, the newest condition of each course material can be controlled, such as the writers, the age of course material, the process of each course material development either the new or the revision, the year of course material development. The age of printed materials can be seen from SIMBA.

Learning materials development in UT involves a team approach, comprising of course authors, course reviewers, instructional designers, media specialists, and course managers. The course authors are responsible for writing the original manuscript of the course materials, and they are responsible for the content of the course. Course authors write courses referring to the basic course outline, while the course reviewers are responsible for reviewing the course materials and ensuring the quality standards of the content based on the basic course outline. Instructional designers are responsible for ensuring that all printed material consists of several modules, depending on the number of semester credit units of the course. Each module consists of the following components: general and specific instructional objectives, an introductory section, the content of the course comprising topics and subtopics, exercises, a summary, formative tests, feedback, lists of references, and a glossary of terms. Instructional designers are also responsible for ensuring that the modules designed are self-instructional to facilitate students learning the materials independently with a minimum of assistance from the tutors. All printed materials consist of content, map of competencies, course overview, author’s CV, and course description.

The process of printed material development, which includes the writing and reviewing the materials, is directly coordinated by each Faculty. Working together with some regional state universities as partner institutions, UT has established “course writing centers” with a purpose of achieving greater effectiveness and efficiency in writing course materials. These “course writing centers” are intended to facilitate the management of the course writing process in the designated areas. This process includes the recruitment of course writers and reviewers, the management of writing process, and the progress check of the writing activities done by authors. Supported by respective UT ROs, these designated “course writing centers” are attached to the local state universities, among others in Palembang, Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta and Malang

Most of UT’s learning materials are written by experts from other universities. The authors are senior academics and experts from well-reputed state and private higher education institutions, such as Universitas Indonesia (UI), Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB), Universitas Gajah Mada (UGM), Universitas Diponegoro (UNDIP), Universitas Padjajaran (UNPAD), Institut Pertanian Bogor (IPB), Universitas Jenderal Soedirman (UNSOED), Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia (UPI), Universitas Negeri Jakarta (UNJ), Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta (UNY), Universitas Negeri Malang (UM), Universitas Negeri Semarang (UNES), Universitas Negeri Surabaya (UNESA), Universitas Negeri Padang, and Universitas Hasanuddin (UNHAS). Table 14 indicates the number of authors of printed materials in UT by faculty.

The authors send the original manuscripts to the respective faculties to be reviewed by experts in the field appointed by the faculty. The review process is essential to ensure that the course materials meet specific criteria set in the basic course outline. The course materials must meet the stated criteria in terms of relevance, accuracy, updated content, readability, comprehensiveness, and freedom from gender, race and class biases. The content has to be critically reviewed to meet the presentation format and the systematic instructional design principles for independent learning. This process is carried out by instructional designers who are also academic staff responsible for ensuring that the printed materials draft meet the specified instructional design standards. Instructional designers have to address questions relating to whether the materials is in accordance with the UT format, whether it meets the criteria for the number of credits, and whether the course material is designed to be self-instructional. Learning materials failing to meet the specified instructional design criteria are returned to the authors for improvement.

When the original manuscripts from the authors have been reviewed in terms of content, language and instructional design, the faculty sends them to the Multi Media Development Center. The Centre will then record this manuscript in the administration logbook and key-in to the learning materials production database. After that, the manuscript is sent to the Division of Manuscripts Processing of the Centre to ensure that the learning materials are finalized to suit the UT printed material template, based on the UT guidelines and criteria.

To enhance the quality of the physical design of the learning materials, attractive multicolor images and illustrations relevant to the content are used on the front and back covers of the printed materials. To ensure the quality of the cover appearance, the cover is evaluated by a team consisting of representatives from the faculty and a specialist in graphic design, prior to large- scale printing of the learning materials for further distribution to students. This team evaluates the cover of the printed materials using particular criteria in terms of layout, font size, color, character composition, color combination, relevance between illustrations and the content of the printed materials, proportion of illustrations, and so forth. The lay-out of the module is designed by the Multi Media Development Centre in terms of readability (font size, kinds of font, legibility, and space), lay out design (location of the title and sub-titles, numbering and kind of icons).

Once the decision has been made to print a particular course materials, it has to be equipped with ISBN (International Standard Book Number) from the National Library and KDT (Katalog Dalam Terbitan) or Publication Catalogue Number from the UT Library. UT collaborates with commercial companies for printing the master copy of the materials, as UT does not have its own printing facilities. The printing companies are selected according to government regulations. The titles and numbers of the materials for printing are decided in a review meeting coordinated by the Institute of the Learning Materials Development, Examination and Information System (Lembaga Pengembangan Bahan Ajar, Ujian, dan Sistem Informasi or LPBAUSI), and is attended by related units, i.e., the Faculty, Learning Materials Service Centre, Multi Media Development Centre, and the Bureau of General Administration and Finance. The prediction of volumes of the course materials for printing is based on the available stocks in the HO and ROs, the trend of registering students in the previous semesters, and the minimum stock requirements in HO and ROs.

The printing companies then produce the learning materials in accordance with the specific agreement in terms of schedule, volumes, physical quality of the printed materials. When the printing process is completed, the printed materials have to be checked by a team set up by the Multi Media Development Centre for quality control. This quality control process is done using a sampling method, considering the large numbers and volumes of the course materials to ensure that the printed materials meet the specified UT requirements. Then the Printed Materials Production issues a Letter of Approval stating that the printed materials meet the criteria for further distribution to ROs through the Learning Materials Service Centre.

UT has developed an online bookstore system (Toko Buku Online) as part of the effort to improve learning materials services to students. The online bookstore service (http://ebook.ut.ac.id) is available for students of non-primary teacher programs (Non Pendidikan Dasar), and is intended to facilitate student purchase of learning materials directly via the internet. Students can select needed learning materials, buy the learning materials online, pay the price and the cost of air delivery, and then receive the learning materials directly at home.

Learning Support Services

In Open and Distance Learning (ODL) system focuses on students’ independent learning process. However, independent learning is not the same as self-learning or self-study. Independent learning emphasizes the need for students to initiate, develop, and manage their own learning approaches and strategies. To facilitate students in their independent learning process and enhance their learning achievement, ODL providers have to provide their students with a robust and timely learning supports within their systems.

In general, learning support services are any form of services given to the students in order to make their learning process happen in the enrolment process, learning process, examination, and expected result. In particular, the learning support services are those services given by the education institution to its students in studying their course materials or when the learning process actually takes place. The last is known as a tutorial. In distance education, a tutorial can be done either face-to-face or at a distance by means of various media.

Academic Administration Services

The aspects of academic administration services include first registration and course registration (including credit transfer both among the programs within UT and from other educational institutions), as well as course omission and judicium postponement to increase a student’s grade point average (GPA). Students can access the academic administration services through various communication channels. For the time being, most students request the services in person in both the ROs and the Central Office’s Student Service Unit, as well as through letters and telephone calls. In addition, although it has not been as popular, it seems that more and more students now also use UT’s more recent services through “UT-Online” the short message services (SMS) using mobile phones. To provide this service, UT has established cooperation with a content provider called ‘the Jakarta Software’ to allow students to access the SMS service through various cellular telephone providers such as Telkom Flexi and Telkomsel (Simpati, Halo, and Kartu As).

The backbone of UT’s learning support system is a comprehensive database on students’ record, known as UT’s Student Record System (SRS). This SRS contains all information about every student registering in any course offered by UT. The system has been very robust and has been serving all necessary data to support the facilitation of students’ independent learning process. Figure 1 shows the design of UT’s SRS. There are two kinds of SRS applications dedicated to Basic Education Teacher (BET) programs and Non-BET programs. This difference is due to the characteristics of the program where the BET program offers course package programs, while Non-BET offers other services.

Academic Services

Academic services are learning support services which comprises of face-to-face tutorials, online tutorials, radio tutorials, and television tutorials. In addition, to complement these tutorial services, UT also provides supplementary course materials in the form of a web supplement in its UT Online website.

Face-to-Face Tutorials

Face-to-face tutorials are provided based on the course requirements (as in the S1 PGSD and PGPAUD programs) as well as those provided based on student requests. All face-to-face tutorials are organized by the ROs and conducted during the weekends to accommodate students’ busy working schedules during workdays.

Tutorial by Radio

Considering the cost and financial limitation of most Indonesian students, radio is an alternative and inexpensive media with high accessibility. Since 1985, UT has utilized radio broadcast as media for tutorials on a limited scale, broadcasting once a week for 25 minutes. In the period of 2000-2005, UT’s radio programs were reduced to 2 times a day (Monday-Saturday) due to the change of RRI’s organizational status from government owned-institution to public corporation. UT realized that the utilization of this media was not yet been optimized but efforts had been made by sending a six month broadcasting schedule for individual students periodically, while the programs were also accessible through UT’s website.

Tutorial by Television

TV is a very effective and potential media in its capability to present audio-visual information with wide range of accessibility. These characteristics are very useful for delivering learning materials for distance education. However, considering that the cost for developing TV programs is quite expensive, and that the process and time needed to develop the program is long, many countries that have distance education institutions use TV media only as supplementary media. In addition, the dependency on TV stations has made most distance education institutions use TV as limited supplementary media. This condition is also experienced by UT. UT has small allotment with TV media which is inappropriate to broadcast its programs.

Online Tutorial

In meeting future challenges, UT continuously develops and uses its internet networks. Although student’s access to the internet is still very limited, UT has developed support services through the internet called UT online. Figure 3 shows the UT Online Learning network application for UT online tutorials. This application is based on the Moodle online program. Through this application, students may register for online tutorials. Guidelines for participating in the online tutorials are available for students and tutors. This webpage provides also online student forum, UT Catalogue, and other portals containing current news and information released by UT.

Even though UT’s online facility is available, the main student constraint in using it is the cost which is considered expensive. However due to inadequate infrastructure in many parts of Indonesia, this media is the most powerful interactive media in distance education system. Thus UT and internet providers must work together in assisting the students. In the future, the use of computers, either network-based or not, will be intensified in accordance with the development of computer technology.

Other Online Learning Support Services

Beside the learning support services mentioned above, UT provides some other learning support services that complement and enrich the process of student learning. There are several other websites that are integrated into UT’s portal such as Portal Guru Pintar Online (Portal Pintu Interaksi AntarGuru secara Online) and E-Humaniora, which contain features and facilities to strengthen the learning process through clinical counselling based on real cases in some aspects of courses.

In addition, the online learning services also include provision of supplementary learning materials, open courseware as well as links to various open educational resources available in the internet. The number of local web-based supplementary learning materials (known as web supplements) that have been uploaded is about 80 titles.

The Development of Customer Relation Management Application

The continuous efforts to give better services to the students are UT’s commitment to the framework of educating people across the country. To improve the capacity of services, UT is now developing a Customer Relations Management (CRM) application. Target audiences for this service application are students, staffs, and others who are willing to have their problems solved by UT through an online application system. Through this application, students can ask for help to solve their problems in many aspects such as in registration, tutorials, and student examinations. To start this service, the customers can login to the program and write their problem on the New Ticket gate. The program will automatically give the customers a specific number (nomor tiket pengaduan) which functions for checking responses via the same webpage of the application. Responses are also sent via email directly to the customers. As a pilot project, the application will only be implemented for UT staff.

Student Assessment

Assessment of student learning is carried out using different assessment tools, namely tutorial assignments, teaching practice and practical work, final examinations, written comprehensive assignments, and oral thesis defense examinations for graduate program.

Examination Preparation

Examination preparation is done and coordinated by the Examination Centre. Preparation begins with the development of test items, all coordinated by the Faculties. Test items are written based on specified test blueprints and then reviewed by content experts. After the review process, test items are submitted by the Faculties to the Examination Centre for entry into the computerized item banking system (for multiple choice items) and manual typing (for essay items). The Item Bank is a computerized system with the capacity to store, retrieve and calibrate test items. Through the item bank system, test items can be retrieved according to specified characteristics and made into test sets

The examination system administered by UT is massive and involves enormous logistics not only in terms of the numbers of prepared examination papers, but also in the number of rooms and facilities, the number of recruited proctors and supervisors, and the financial resources required. To give an idea of the logistic preparation that needs to be completed for each semester, in the exam period of 2009.1, for the paper-pencil examination there were 487,756 students taking the exam, approximately 2.65 million examination papers reproduced, 290 examination sites, and 5,170 proctors for the non-Primary School Teacher Education (PGSD) Programs or non-PGSD. For the CBT administration, there were 549 registered students, 12 participating ROs, and 232 available courses.

Examination Administration

The key to successful examination administration is effective enforcement of rules and regulations during the examination process. UT realizes this and has developed the necessary guidelines for conducting examinations, which also include the types of sanctions and punishments available for any violations of examination regulations. Although there has been a significant decrease in the percentage of violations occurring during examination periods, maintaining order through the enforcement of rules and regulations is still of high priority. During the last couple of semesters, there have been increased trends of new student enrolment each semester and increased remoteness of coverage areas, especially for the Teacher Education Program. To anticipate this, UT has steadily increased its effort to ensure that the ratio of proctors and supervisors meet the required standards, improve the compensation scheme for examination committees, establish a much more comprehensive document in the form of a Rector’s Decree regulating examination violations, strengthen enforcement of the reward and punishment system for proctors, and monitor the administration of examinations not only in selected ROs, but in all ROs.

Examination Results Processing

After the examination administration, the examination results for objective tests are collected, packaged, and sent back to the Examination Centre by the ROs; while the results of the essay tests are sent by ROs within a region to designated regional ROs responsible for the scoring processing, referred to as UPBJJ Sentra. Further processing of examination results are different for objective tests and essay tests. Objective test results are processed through a computerized system at HO. Examination answer sheets are scanned, loaded, edited, and updated. During this process, answer sheets with valid identification are selected for scoring and grading, while invalid ones are put away to be filed as unprocessed results. To be more efficient and to cut down on the processing time, since 2008, UT has employed digital mark readers (DMR) to replace the older optical mark readers (OMR) which had been used since the establishment of UT in 1984. The application of DMR has helped speed up the process of updating examination results data. Currently, UT is conducting research on the feasibility of utilizing barcodes on individual student answer sheets, automating a part of the verification process and speeding up the updating of examination results.

Marking essays is conducted manually, as is initial recording of those results. Prior to 2005, marking was done by course managers at HO. However, since the number of students has increased significantly, marking and scoring of essay tests are now conducted by tutor markers, who are lecturers from partner universities at UPBJJ Sentra. Currently there are 9 UPBJJ Sentras for marking students’ essay tests of the Primary School Teacher Education (PGSD) programs and 9 UPBJJ Sentras for those of the non-PGSD programs. After the completion of the marking and scoring process, scores are sent by UPBJJ Sentra to the Examination Centre for further processing.

Grades for each course assessed through either objective or essay test are similarly obtained by calculating composite scores which are combinations of scores from final examinations and other assignments. Composition contributions of each type of assessment within a course are regulated by Rector’s decree No. 1254/H31/KEP/2009. Students will pass a course if they attain grades at or above the passing grade which is predetermined by faculties. The grading process is done through a computerized system at the Examination Centre.

After the scoring and grading processes are completed, digital files containing grades are sent by the Examination Centre to ROs which in turn are responsible for distributing printed semester transcripts to students. Grades are uploaded to the UT website for students to view. Grades are also available for students to view using short massage services (SMS).

Newest Development

Online Examination. To provide students with a more flexible and secured examination process, in 2009.1, UT has developed an internet-based examination system, referred to as online examination, which is an improvement over the CBE. The main difference between CBE and the online examination lies on the item retrieval process. For the CBE, the item retrieval and test construction process are carried out at the Examination Centre and then the digital files of these item sets are sent and stored in the RO’s computer server awaiting use. For the online examination, a certain subset of items is uploaded to a different server that serves as a mirror of the item bank. Retrieval of items and construction of tests are directly processed through the server which can be directly accessed by the ROs. Pilot testing of the online examination system will be carried out in 2009.2 in 6 ROs. By 2010.1 the online examination with approximately 600 available courses should be offered at 12 ROs.

To increase the efficiency and accuracy of assessing student’s ability, especially for the fully online courses, the online examination should be geared towards the use of adaptive testing (tailor-made). Adaptive testing will enable students to receive test items that are suited to their ability and thus will result in a much shorter test.

Digital Printing. Since 2008.2, systematic efforts to study the feasibility of utilizing digital printing to provide a much more efficient, accurate, and secured reproduction of examination papers have been carried out. Using digital printing the once tedious and formidable task of reproducing and sorting manuscripts can become a thing of the past. With digital printing, examination manuscripts can be individualized with students’ personal data such as name, student number, and passport photograph to enhance security. Also, examination manuscripts can be prepared and directly sorted into envelopes for the exact number of students taking the course per examination room. In 2009.2, pilot testing of digital printing at HO and one RO will be carried out with the assistance of a consultant. By 2010, it is anticipated that remote digital printing can be established at designated ROs.

Quality Assurance

The Quality Assurance System at UT has been developed as one of the strategies to achieve its vision to become a centre of excellence in distance higher education in the world by 2020. As one of the management tools used by UT, this system has been designed and implemented to address the following challenges.

1. Managing a mega-university is a complex task.
2. Transforming UT into becoming a quality higher education provider is a serious challenge.
3. The existing Quality Assurance Framework needs to be adopted and contextualized into the specific context of UT.
4. Quality assurance is a shared responsibility of all management and staff.
5. There is strong need to improve quality through focusing on learner’s requirements for a flexible teaching-learning system.
6. Quality assurance implementation requires significant changes in the work and organizational culture of a distance education institution.

Current Qa System

Since 2003, the development and management of UT’s QA system has been under the coordination of the Quality Assurance Center (Pusmintas), which has the following core duties and functions as follows:

1. Devising the Center’s program plans;
2. Continuing the development of the quality assurance system at UT;
3. Establishing cooperation with other organisations for developing and benchmarking the UT quality management system;
4. Facilitating, coordinating and administering the implementation of the quality assurance system;
5. Preparing on-going accreditation processes for UT, both locally and internationally;
6. Developing, implementing and evaluating regular unit and personnel performance assessment systems within UT;
7. Planning and running programs for rewarding UT employees and units based on their respective performance assessment results;
8. Monitoring, evaluating and preparing program reports.

Online Programs and Services

Universitas Terbuka (UT) has long been committed to providing high quality and timely learning support to students. Further to this, UT has also been trying to extend its reach to a wider range of potential students. UT’s current development of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) as well as Indonesia’s digital infrastructure expansion has opened up the possibility for UT to develop and offer educational programs fully employing online techniques to cater to students who are more comfortable with online communication technology.

Within the last two years, UT has been working on selecting and developing course programs to be delivered entirely online. Based on potential market demand, UT has decided to develop two online programs: the Master of Management (MM) and Bahasa Indonesia for non-native speakers (BIPA).

MM – Online (Fully Online Masters Of Management Program)

UT has been offering an MM Program since 2004, beginning with only ten (10) students and growing in popularity to now attract more than 180 students (in 2009). Within the regular program, UT has not been able to respond to demand by individuals who are scattered throughout Indonesia and who have no possibility for face-to-face tutorials. For this reason UT decided to develop and offer the fully online version of the MM Program.

Indonesian Language For Non-Native Speakers Of Bahasa Indonesia (Bipa-Ut)

Indonesian for Non-native Speakers of Bahasa Indonesia (Bahasa Indonesia untuk Penutur Asing Universitas Terbuka or BIPA-UT) was launched in June 2009. This language program is designed for non-native speakers of Bahasa Indonesia through the online system at Universitas Terbuka (UT) and offers systematic and comprehensive online courses that will enable the participants to learn Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) effectively and efficiently at their convenience.

The program is delivered through the E-learning platform including multimedia learning materials, assignments and learning activities which stimulate language competence in listening, reading, writing, and speaking in Indonesian. The competent and professional tutors of BIPA-UT assist the participants in learning the material in a meaningful and enjoyable atmosphere.

Partnerships

Universitas Terbuka, which was established to increase the capacity of the national higher education system, was designed to be a flexible and inexpensive university taking advantage of the available and already existing educational resources throughout the country. Within this government policy framework, UT was consequently not designed to be self-reliant but to establish partnerships with other institutions to carry out its missions. Thus UT is expected to mobilize available resources not only from other educational institutions (for academic resources) but also from public and private organizations (in terms of recruiting students and socializing UT’s existence). This requires UT to have strong and effective public relations.

Therefore, partnerships and public relations have been important elements in UT’s institutional development. To ensure effective implementation of the distance learning system to serve all its students throughout the archipelago, UT has established strong collaboration and has been enjoying vibrant relations with many institutions. The scope of this collaboration includes building relationships for designing curriculum; developing, producing, and delivering course materials; providing learning support services for students; conducting examinations, and managing UT’s ROs