Series of Online Lecture with International universities

A meeting was held on 30th March 2006 at Mural Hall HEC in order to discuss & decide the modus operandi for arranging series of both live and streaming Video conferencing lectures locally & internationally using the infrastructure of Pakistan Education & Research Network (PERN) on which 60 Higher learning universities/institutes are connected. The meeting Chaired by Prof. Dr. Atta-ur-Rehman, Chairman HEC and following attended the meeting:

• Dr. Sohail H. Naqvi, Excutive Director, HEC 

• Dr. Abdullah Sadiq, Rector GIKIEST Topi

• Prof. Dr. Anwar Gilani, Aga Khan University Karachi

• Dr. S. Riazuddin Director, CEMB Lahore

• Dr. Syed Qasim Mehdi Director General, Dr. A.Q.Khan Research LAB 

• Dr. Iqbal Choudhary , Acting Director HEJ Karachi

• Mr. Anwar Amjad, IT Consultant HEC 

• Mr. Nazeer Hussain, Director IT & PERN

• Mr. Javed Ali Memon, Liaison Officer (PERN)

 

The Chairman, HEC urged participants from various disciplines to plan the series of online lectures in major fields of study so that these lectures could be initiated in Sep 2006. He also added that this would be helpful to bridge the gap of good faculty and also narrow the gap between the technological countries and Pakistan. Initially series of online lectures will be planned to be delivered in universities of Pakistan during the current year.            

The Chairman HEC further added that Video conferencing lectures at graduate, Masters and Ph.D levels would be planned in various field of study including, but not limited to Engineering Sciences, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics etc. from the technological advanced countries including USA, Europe, Canada, Japan, Australia etc.  and also streamed through Video Conferencing facility.

The meeting was discussed at length and all pros & cons were considered. It was unanimously decided that in the first phase interactive lecture will be delivered by the permanent faculty members from local universities for graduate level in the above mentioned disciplines. The lectures will be recorded from various foreign universities including MIT, STANFORD etc. The recorded lectures will streamed/broadcast through Video Conferencing system to the universities.        

In the second phase lectures from abroad universities would be broadcasted and also interactive lectures will be arranged.

It was further decided in the meeting that a Video Conferencing Coordinator/Program Manager will be hired to schedule/plan the series of online lectures, Vice Chancellor Dow UHS, Karachi & Vice Chancellor LUHMS, Jamshoro will be requested to plan the series of lecture in the field of Medicine,  a budget head will be created at HEC for academic activities of Video Conferencing lectures and own resources would be build & those trained resources will be utilized for this purpose in future.