I wrote an article on the effectiveness of online education platforms such as Coursera for developing countries like Pakistan sometime back. You can find it here:
Based on this article, ACM Student Magazine XRDS editor invited me to write a detailed version for their upcoming ICT4D issue (winter issue and hopefully it will be available soon, will share with all of you once it's available).
As for distributed computing courses and hands-on with Hadoop we attempted to teach some of that stuff on our short summer course at IBA. Some details can be found here:-
http://websci.iba.edu.pk/courses/cse509_2011_summer.html (see under Lecture 4)
We also made our lectures available on YouTube.
Many thanks for the valuable input by Dr. Qasim, these do seem to be some valuable suggestions.
Best Regards,
Arjumand.
Overseas Faculty and Visiting Research Fellow,
Web Science and Technology Research Group,
Faculty of Computer Science, Institute of Business Administration IBA,
Email: ayounus@iba.edu.pk
http://arjumand-atif.blogspot.com
Web Science and Technology Research Group,
Faculty of Computer Science, Institute of Business Administration IBA,
PhD Candidate, SNA and IR, NUIG and Univ. of Milan, Bicocca.
http://arjumand-atif.blogspot.com
From: arshad.ali <arshad.ali@seecs.edu.pk>
To: Qasim Sheikh <qs358@yahoo.com>
Cc: Hammad Qureshi <hammad.qureshi@seecs.edu.pk>; "pakgrid@yahoogroups.com" <pakgrid@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, October 22, 2012 6:32 AM
Subject: Re: [pakgrid] Need to invert higher education pyramid in Pakistan
Dear DR Qasim,
We have already initiated some activities. I shall share with concrete results.
Best regards
On Mon, Oct 22, 2012 at 10:31 AM, Qasim Sheikh <qs358@yahoo.com> wrote:
I find following 3 courses missing from this wonderful e-learning cloud created by EDx, Coursera, Udacity and others:
- An introductory practical course on Distributed Computing for undergraduates, the course could start with introduction to socket programing and end with a significant application developed and deployed using API from Facebook, Twitter etc. In addition to relevant theory the course should teach practical issues in using LAMP or WAMP type infrastructure.
- A middle layer course for large data applications in distributed computing: the course should go all the way to teaching mapping between business layer taxonomy to engineering (or database, flat or relational) taxonomy.
- A very practical graduate level course in distributed computing that teaches details of Hadoop type frameworks with practical hands on projects done by students.
There is a real shortage of faculty in Pakistan that can teach these courses. SEECS, LUMS and FAST with their young and superior faculty could take lead in creating such courses in coursera style and sharing with rest of the country or the world.With Regards
Qasim
92 300 8540838 (mob)
From: Hammad Qureshi <hammad.qureshi@seecs.edu.pk>
To: arshad.ali <arshad.ali@seecs.edu.pk>
Cc: faculty <faculty@seecs.edu.pk>; qs358@yahoo.com
Sent: Sunday, October 21, 2012 10:29 PM
Subject: Re: [pakgrid] Need to invert higher education pyramid in Pakistan
I strongly agree. The courses on Coursera are indeed fantastic. I am learning a lot about teaching going through these courses. I intend to include some content in the next course I teach.
Best Regards,
Dr. Hammad A. Qureshi,
Assistant Professor,
Department of Computing,
NUST School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
Tel.: 051 9085 2221
On Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 9:51 PM, arshad.ali <arshad.ali@seecs.edu.pk> wrote:---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Qasim Sheikh <qs358@yahoo.com>
Date: Sun, Oct 21, 2012 at 12:27 PM
Subject: [pakgrid] Need to invert higher education pyramid in Pakistan
To: "pakgrid@yahoogroups.com" <pakgrid@yahoogroups.com>
It is really exciting to see initiatives taken by Edx, coursera, udacity and others in taking quality higher education to large audience in a very cost effective manner. Unfortunately, entities like HEC, senior management of public and private universities and faculty responsible for this task in Pakistan are enjoying their comfort zone of traditional modes of higher education where quality of education is hardly ever put to a transparent evaluation. Courses being taught on Internet are open to all sorts of open and transparent evaluation.I feel that industry has a very significant role to play. For example in IT industry, companies could adopt policy of giving hiring preference to fresh graduates and professionals who take relevant online courses from these top universities of the world. PASHA could take a lead in positively encouraging this hiring practice amongst its members and then reaching out to students and giving them this message as they enter undergraduate education. Students should know that knowledge acquired from these world class online courses is as or more important than name of their institution. This change will happen only if industry demands it and students internalize it on industry demand. Management of HEC and universities and faculty may come along if they realize that their current mental model and resulting management and teaching practices are making them irrelevant due to this change brought by technology.With Regards
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