Faculty, Student Present Ideas on E-learning at Turkish-Arab Conference

Faculty of Graduate Studies dean Talal Shahwan and Mechanical Engineering student Mohammad Obada attended the Second Arab-Turkish Congress on Higher Education in Istanbul, which was held April 26-29, 2016, in the attendance of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.The congress brought together leaders of Turkish and Arab universities and aimed to promote a sustainable process of dialogue, mutual understanding, exchange of knowledge and increased cooperation between Turkey and the Arab world while enhancing research cooperation between Turkish and Arab universities, establishing more joint degree programs and further activating distance learning methods in higher education systems.The university’s participation is part of its vision for establishing and deepening an interactive network with peers in the Arab world and the Middle East. Birzeit University was among 180 universities to attend the congress and among eight Arab universities to  participate and present a paper.Shahwan gave a presentation on the university’s experience in distance learning and its future plans for engaging technology in the educational system. He pointed to the university’s accomplishments in building Ritaj Network. “We established a platform for distance learning, which was our educational survival strategy during the second Intifada. The university developed this scheme to continue students’ education despite the closure of the university during the Intifada.”