For the past 16 years, the Catalyst Awards program has honored innovation and excellence in the Blackboard global community. In this series, a group of 2021 winners from across the globe shares their success stories and best practices.

This post was guest authored by Dr. Muneerah B. Almahasheer, Dean of eLearning at Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University (IAU).

Dr. Almahasheer is an associate professor in Philosophy of Arts. She is an ambassador of Social Responsibility awarded by the Eastern Region Council for Social Responsibility 2019. Her accolades include - first place winner of the Excellence Award for Scientific Research at the Faculty of Arts in 2017, first Place winner of the Excellence Award for Scientific Research in the Department of English 2019, and first Place winner of Community Service Award at the Faculty of Arts 2019.

Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University is a 2021 “Leading Change” Catalyst Award winner. 

Since its establishment back in 2010, the Deanship of eLearning at Imam Abdulrahman bin Faisal University sought to keep pace with the new developments in higher education through the employment of technology in education, to help foster a continuous, high-quality e-learning experience for both its students and faculty members. It became the deanship’s mission to provide an integrated, effective, and stable e-learning environment that enables the achievement of a better learning experience at various educational programs, courses, and activities, for all beneficiaries, in accordance with local and international standards. To achieve that, the deanship identified a total of eight goals that should be the focus of the of deanship journey, which included: 

• Developing and activating academic programs at different levels of e-learning. 
• Encouraging scientific research related to e-learning and distance education. 
• Boosting the work environment and investing in its resources. 
• Promoting systematic institutional work. 
• Raising the efficiency and reliability of e-learning systems. 
• Promoting integration and awareness, training, and support services for all stakeholders. 
• Developing and ensuring quality, measurement, and continuous improvement practices. 
• Enhancing the quality of learning and improving services for beneficiaries from inside and outside the university. 

One of the most significant projects of the deanship is the “E-Courses Development and Delivery Project (Basic Level)” which aims at developing and delivering a set of electronic courses that have been developed at the basic level in the university. A total of 342 electronic courses have been developed so far for 21 different academic programs distributed over nine colleges (including the College of Arts, College of Designs, College of Science, College of Science and Human Studies in Jubail, College of Applied Medical Sciences in Jubail). The project is one of the first projects to adopt the Saudi National eLearning Center quality standards and reflect these standards on  Blackboard templates to be easily filled by the faculty members (https://nelc.gov.sa/en/node/115 ).  

The project helped the university in boosting its eLearning practices by systematically developing e-courses on technology-enhanced levels using the basic level development process and templates. It also supported the automatic creation of templates in Blackboard to enable faculty members to develop courses that meet the quality standards by filling in the developed templates directly.  

Intensive trainings were regularly provided during the project to assist faculty members to help them design, manage and broadcast their courses on the Blackboard system. The training is usually provided in both Arabic and English languages and covers varied subjects, such as:  

• Applying Collaborative Learning on Distance Learning 
• Effective Online Teaching 
• Integrating Technology into the Online Classroom 
• Virtual Classroom Management Using Blackboard Collaborate Ultra 
• Advanced Usage of Learning Management System (Blackboard) 
• Developing Electronic Tests Using Blackboard 
• Using Application to Promote Distance Learning 

One of the keystones for the success of this project is the deanship team and its diversity. The cooperation and integration between multiple experiences and skills contribute heavily to the presentation of distinct and pioneering ideas characterized by diversity and opens up different areas for us to make a difference and leave the impact that we aspire to achieve in such projects. 

For more on our Catalyst Awards Program visit our Catalyst Awards Page.