The Open Education Consortium entered a partnership in 2015 with the National Center for e-Learning and Distance Education in Saudi Arabia to offer a year-long, comprehensive eLearning Pioneers Program. Motivations for forming this partnership included: 1. The Saudi Arabian Ministry of Education has a strong desire to expand access and enhance education through online and blended learning. 2. Saudi Arabian educators who want to teach online still face barriers due to assumptions that online teaching will be lower quality than traditional classroom teaching. 3. Cultural and religious restrictions on females can make online learning an attractive option for them. 4. Hosting institutions in the U.S. can benefit from having a cultural and information exchange with educators from another country. The core of the program is built on sharing the principles of online learning in the U.S. and providing mentoring and internships to prepare female faculty and university leaders with skills in online and blending learning. Over forty participants from multiple universities and disciplines were nominated by their universities to learn and apply best online teaching techniques and practices and also interact in-person with U.S. faculty and administrators engaged in online learning at leading universities and colleges. Providing a strong foundation in eLearning tools and techniques, pedagogy, and learning theory the goal is for participants to bring back these new skills and strategies to better educate the Saudi population of girls and women. Participants entered either a leadership or instructional cohort based on their university roles and mentoring, training, and summer internships were customized to support those roles. Each participant developed a Personal Development Plan to capture their goals for the year-long program. These plans were reviewed with a mentor and updated throughout the year. Summer placements were provided at community colleges, state universities, and private colleges and universities in California, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. We will share participant reflections on different phases of the program as they progressed from personal development planning to earning an online teaching certificate, interacting with faculty and staff at U.S. colleges and universities, to implementing the new ideas back home.

1. Una Daly, Open Education Consortium
Lisa Young, Scottsdale Community College
April 13, 2016
Unless otherwise indicated, this presentation is licensed CC-BY 4.0
eLearning Pioneers:
Transforming Teaching and
Learning in Saudi Arabia

3. Welcome
Una Daly, Director
Curriculum Design &
College Outreach
Open Education
Consortium
Dr. Lisa Young, Faculty
Director, Center for
Teaching & Learning
Scottsdale Community
College

4. eLearning Pioneers Program
Overview
• Participants
• Timeline
• Personal Development Plans
• Training Events
• Technology

5. Open Book Project 2013
Promote creation, translation, and use of free
Open Educational Resources in Arabic with
focus on science and technology.
State Department & Arab League

6. Motivations
• Saudi Ministry of Education wants to expand
access through online and blended learning.
• Overcome the perception that online learning is
lower quality than traditional classroom.
• Cultural and religious restrictions on females can
make online learning an attractive option.
•

7. Participants
• 25 Faculty
• 25 Administrators
• Appointed by their universities
• 13 universities throughout Saudi Arabia
nominated female faculty
Image: King Abdul University, wikipedia

8. Timeline

9. Mentoring
Personal Development Plans
• Year-long relationship to encourage and
assess progress of participants.
• Mentors assigned based on
discipline and social groups.

10. Training Events
• Onsite in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
• OLC teaching certificate
• Summer U.S. placements
• Webinars, QM, & MOOCs
• Online Ed Conferences
178 hours online
workshops and
webinars

11. U.S Summer Placements

12. Highlights of Two-week US Visit
• Met 154 faculty and administrators
• Participated in student panels
• Visited academic technology centers
• 220 hours of training, meetings, tours,
and discussions

14. Reactions
"I realized how important to analyze
learning... Consequently, I aim to
propose a learning analysis project to
the Excellence of Teaching and Learning
Center at King Saud University."
on EADTU
https://pixabay.com/en/thoughts-think-psyche-psychology-551263/

15. Reactions
"I realized that the quality of e-learning is still under
investigation …
This raised the importance of having R & D project that
develops e-learning guidelines by the National Center
of E-learning.
The Elearning pioneers could be the researchers at
such project." - on EADTU
https://pixabay.com/en/thoughts-think-psyche-psychology-551263/

16. Feedback from Saudi Faculty
• eLearning isn't about the
technology. It's about people
and connections.”
• Institutional support structures
• Cooperation/collaboration
among faculty and institutions
• Enjoyed new cultural
experiences in United States

17. Outcomes
• Blended courses
• Flipped classroom strategies
• Peer group assignments
• Interactivity in courses
• Encouraging student feedback
• Mobile apps and tablets increase
communication and feeling of connectedness.
Photo by permission: Dr. Basema Saddik, MPH, PhD
College of Public Health & Health Informatics
King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences

18. Final Projects
Something was missing: My students’ voice
by Dr. Hind Alotaibi, PhD,
King Saud University, Riyadh

19. Reactions
“When I attended the program, I had
the notion that we are the far east and
west coming together with many
differences, but I realized that in the
case of Blended Learning and our
wishes to improve
the educational environment
we are almost the same”
https://pixabay.com/en/thoughts-think-psyche-psychology-551263/

20. Reactions
“...I listened carefully and critically to speakers
who are just whispering we are the same and
we share the same anxieties and daily
concerns.
https://pixabay.com/en/thoughts-think-psyche-psychology-551263/
To be the student,
the faculty, and
the decision maker
in one experience
is really unique”

21. Reactions
“The program has
provided me with great
opportunities to
understand e-learning
context in US, KSA and
Europe”
https://pixabay.com/en/thoughts-think-psyche-psychology-551263/

22. Thank you for coming!
Contact Info:
Una Daly: unatdaly@oeconsortium.org
Dr. Lisa Young: lisa.young@scottsdalecc.edu
Questions?

23. Reactions
“The program was a very
great chance for me to
enhance my personal
skills, teaching skills or
even my time
management skills… it
widen my vision
toward the online
courses,
https://pixabay.com/en/thoughts-think-psyche-psychology-551263/
It is a great chance for me
to meet such brilliant
tutors and Saudi ladies
across universities”

24. Reactions
“I started a series of meetings in my
College about Successful Stories of
using Blackboard.. My aim is to
encourage faculty to use Blackboard
by sharing with them some
successful stories at the college”
https://pixabay.com/en/thoughts-think-psyche-psychology-551263/

25. Reactions
“The application of quality Matters guidelines inspired
me… I assessed the UoD LMS platform and realized ...
the project I did is based on the latest practices of
eLearning and quality Matters.
Without having the workshop, I do not think that I may
succeed in connecting the gaps… This workshop
completed what we achieved earlier with the OLC”
https://pixabay.com/en/thoughts-think-psyche-psychology-551263/