Vol 2 No 1 (2008) Research Development In Open and Distance learning

Abtar Kaur

Abstract

Open University Malaysia (OUM) started operations in August 2001 with 753 students  and 12 programmes. Today student enrolments are more than 60,000 spread our at 61 learning centres. Research at Open University Malaysia has been conducted in the following areas:  e-Iearning, LMS, quality assurance, student retention. tutor issues. capacity building, programme implementation, open distance learning pedagogy, and support services.

Research at OUM starred in an ad-hoc manner in the first 2 years. However. from 2003 onwards. research was more institution and faculty based. Findings from OUM research match those of other Open  Universities,  but there are some variations because the focus taken by OUM researchers was to unravel the challenges faced by OUM.  For example, in e-learning, OUM research will show  that the focus is more on the OUM learning management system (MyLMS) and quality of online interactions.

On pedagogy, the focus is on blended pedagogy of the 3 main blends. face-to-face, self-managed and online interactions.

On student retention, student perspectives, resources and management issues, there are some similarities with other open universities and  specifics pertaining to OUM will be shared in this paper. Results from research findings at OUM will be impactful as the findings can be matched against the phenomenal increase in student numbers in an  open and distance learning environment.