The university has worked with IBM and Alpha Office Automation to develop a new on-demand electronic-learning service to allow its 4,000 master's degree students to study through a Web-based system.

Pratya Vesarach, president of STOU, said the university is offering the electronic-learning system under the Education Services Innovation concept.

It is an on-demand teaching and learning system that allows students to retrieve teaching material on every subject from the university's website.

He said students can also plan their learning and lecture schedule through the Web Schedule Broadcasting system. This new education system will manage the database and details of subjects.

The university has 5,000 education programmes posted, which come from 300 subject lists on the STOU website. Next year 10,000 programmes are likely to be available.

"The electronic-learning facility is very useful since STOU students are able to retrieve their lessons in video, voice data and multimedia formats.

It also allows students who live abroad to enter the university over the Internet," Pratya said.

He said the university next year will provide electronic learning to doctoral degree students, utilising technology to provide knowledge and information anywhere at any time.

IBM and Alpha Office Automation provide infrastructure and applications to support the electronic-learning system such as digital conversion,

Web on demand broadcasting, content management and IT foundation infrastructure for operation and analysis of the overall system.

Jirapan Boonnoon

The Nation

jirapan@nationgroup.com