Distance education got full score from IUE students

Izmir University of Economics (IUE) continues to provide hassle-free distance education to its 10 thousand students with its strong technical infrastructure and allows them to develop themselves regardless of time and place. With full attendance to classes since 23 March, when the distance education first started, IUE students expressed their satisfaction on the “accessibility of course materials”, “student-instructor interaction” and “tech skills of academics”, in the surveys. Dr. Esin Çağlayan, Director of IUE Teaching and Learning Center (TLC), said, “We use the system being used at leading universities worldwide such as Princeton, Johns Hopkins, Manchester University. Our students are very advantaged when it comes to distance education.”

Dr. Çağlayan reported that students’ positive feedbacks via e-mail and social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, etc. made them very happy. Dr. Çağlayan stated that by using the ‘Learning Management System’, owned by a limited number of universities nationwide, they also offered services to the graduates as well as students. They started to organize the “Online Seminar Series” for the graduates where an academic from a different discipline attends as a guest speaker each week. Dr. Çağlayan said that they plan to continue the seminar series until the end of the semester.

“STUDENTS ADJUSTED QUICKLY”

Dr. Çağlayan said, “With the ‘Smart Campus’ system as a result of the University’s excellence in education strategy, we try to shape the future of our students the best way possible. As we are doing this, our biggest supporters are the students. We received many messages on social media such as ‘We use the benefits of our school’, ‘Online education at home is super’, “We don’t feel apart from our school’, ‘We overcome these difficult days by learning, by improving ourselves’, etc. This makes us very happy. Thanks to the education technologies we use, and the support and training programs provided by TLC, both our students and faculty members adjusted to distance learning process easily.

“IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO USE TIME EFFICIENTLY”

Pointing out that we are going through a period of rapid change and transformation, and we have to use the time efficiently, Dr. Çağlayan said, “The technology offers us many advantages during this time period in which we stay at home. However, we need to improve our time management skills and maintain our self-discipline. Our students can access course materials, video recordings and assignments any time they want to with the Blackboard learning management system being used at the University. We are able to meet the educational needs of new generation of students with these online systems.”

“SYSTEMS USED BY LEADING UNIVERSITIES”

Dr. Çağlayan, stated that they started to implement the Smart Campus project five years ago by anticipating that the classic education would not meet the needs of today’s youth. “The systems we use are being used at leading universities worldwide such as Princeton, Johns Hopkins, Manchester University. Our students attend classes online concurrently with their instructors. Faculty members can share all print, and audio-visual course materials with students. With the video recording system our students can watch the course recordings and review the subjects again. Thanks to the mobile app, students can also access the system by their phones,” said Dr.  Çağlayan.