Insightful & educational

UTAR’s innovative series of webinars support continuous learning from home

UNIVERSITI TUNKU ABDUL RAHMAN (UTAR) has successfully conducted more than 400 inspiring and educational webinars as well as online courses, viewed by more than 300,000 local and international participants.

These webinars and online courses have kept its students and staff, as well as members of the public, engaged with continuous learning from the comfort of their homes since the start of the movement control order (MCO) due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

UTAR academics and staff gathered resources and collaborated with local and international industry and university partners, as well as SME professionals, to conduct insightful and educational webinars and online courses to ensure its staff, students and even the public are kept engaged in mindful and continuous learning to ensure that their time spent at home also incorporates intellectual pursuits, knowledge acquisition and critical thinking in various areas of interests.

Accomplished academics, researchers, professionals, analysts, consultants, corporate leaders, entrepreneurs, TCM, health and medical specialists, among many others, unselfishly shared their knowledge and expertise through the webinars and online courses for the benefit of the students and the public community.

Among the webinar and online courses topics covered were medical knowledge and understanding of the Covid-19 pandemic, and how to boost immunity to stay healthy during the MCO.

In addition, mental, physical and emotional health, and stress management were key concerns of the community during the MCO.

As a response, webinars and online courses related to these issues were conducted to create an avenue for the public to participate and seek answers to their questions while providing guidelines for a more peaceful, healthy and harmonious living at home.

Free online counselling services were also provided by UTAR qualified counsellors to its staff and students during the MCO period, and these services are currently on-going.

Webinars and online courses on healthy rest and nutrition were also conducted to ensure the good health of everyone.

More importantly, online teaching and learning from home became the daily norm for academics and students, many of them are new to using technology to conduct teaching and learning.

Lecturers and students literally had to pick up additional technological knowledge, learn new software programmes overnight and engage in online communication instead of face-toface learning to continue their degree studies following the programme curriculum.

UTAR has conducted online teaching and learning by using Microsoft Teams, while Zoom is used for webinars.

Ongoing online support and telephone hotlines were also set up to provide assistance and guidance for those who require them from time to time.

UTAR has also strategised to conduct numerous webinars and online courses during the MCO not just for the staff and students on campus, but also to the public and international community to execute its social responsibility as an educational institution in the country.

There were also many webinars and online courses related to the UN’s SDG goals, particularly on environmental safety and sustainability, particularly on the management of wastes.

In short, during times when face-to-face communication is not possible, tools such as webinars and online courses are good options, as they also give the presenters a chance to create high quality visual contents that are impactful to the audience and allowing them to ask questions in a more relaxed environment on a more personal basis, instead of in a physical group setting.