Universities between war and peace - it must be difficult to keep up the quality of education!


Fawzi Baroud: We have gone through different phases: thirty years ago Lebanon was known for its high-quality educational system. We had overseas students from Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and many other countries. After the civil war of 1975-90, Lebanon ceased to attract overseas students due to security issues.


They thus sought their education in Europe, the USA, or stayed in their home country. In 2005, when our Prime Minister Rafiq Al-Hariri was assassinated, we went through another crisis that affected all sectors of the country, including its educational system. Even though we live in relative peace now, a lot of people are still cautious about the situation and prefer to stay away from Lebanon.

How does this instability affect the daily university life?


Fawzi Baroud: When the situation becomes too dangerous, we have to close down the University. The last time this happened was during the July 2006 war, when an unexpected conflict broke out. But despite that, Lebanese students need to be able to plan for their higher educational studies. Therefore, we rendered them online registration services and allowed them to keep their plans active despite the war.

How do you deal with it today?


Fawzi Baroud: We have introduced eLearning in our faculties. Now the students can follow up their courses and communicate with their instructors even if the University is closed. This is not the general rule, though, because not all instructors use eLearning. But many of them have found out that these tools and technologies are very helpful. In this way we can reduce interruption to a minimum and provide new learning opportunities.

Does this mean that eLearning only serves as a tool to bridge close-downs?


Fawzi Baroud: No, we have also implemented online learning in the regular schedule. When I introduced eLearning in 2001, I had in mind complementing the traditional face-to-face courses with online teaching. Ever since, we have been using blended learning, but I hope that one day we can offer full degree programs via the Internet. Then, all those students who are not willing or able to leave their country will still be able to participate in our educational program.


Unfortunately, the Lebanese government does not yet accept online degrees, but things are gradually changing. The trend these days is that students prefer to learn online, and Lebanon cannot lag behind.

How well do your instructors cooperate?


Fawzi Baroud: In the beginning, many instructors did not want to use technology in teaching because they were afraid that technology would be used to replace them. But we never had this in mind. Other teachers were reluctant to present their knowledge online because they did not want to make the course content and material they had prepared accessible and downloadable to everybody, maybe because of copyright issues. Last but not least, some were simply afraid of not being able to use technology. This last problem was easy to solve - we offered workshops on how to develop content for online courses.

What exactly did you do in this workshop?


Fawzi Baroud: We cooperated with Madonna University and invited one professor from each faculty to participate in a joint online certificate teaching workshop. We showed them how to use discussion boards, forums, newsgroups, and chats, how to design an online syllabus, and design course assessment. Before this workshop, many teachers thought that eLearning only meant putting their material online. But there is a big difference: Other than sitting in a classroom and consuming information, the Internet is designed for interactive cooperation.

What qualifications did they need themselves, and what was their response?


Fawzi Baroud: To qualify for this course, the participants needed basic IT skills, for example how to work with PowerPoint, Excel, and browsers because the workshop was offered online only. But for problems of any kind, they had a tutor to address their queries. At the end of the workshop, we sought feedback from the participants. About 95 percent of them were pleased with the benefit of using the technology in teaching. Only a few instructors gave negative comments, mainly because they found it time consuming to create online content.

How do you deal with faculty members who are not interested in virtual learning?


Fawzi Baroud: Sooner or later, this problem will be solved spontaneously because students put pressure on their instructors to use technology in teaching. Our new students - the -˜millennium generation' - know Internet, e-mail, SMS, chat, and blogs, so the instructors will be forced to deal with new technologies to satisfy students' learning needs.

How might education in Lebanon develop in the next three to five years?


Fawzi Baroud: I hope that using Web 2.0, we will be able to introduce social software that leads to eLearning 2.0. We should integrate blogs and wikis; we could cooperate with universities in the USA and Europe and talk to them about our common research interests. We should share best practices and learn from success stories, but unfortunately many instructors do not want to work in teams; they are still too individualistic and keep their knowledge to themselves.


We need more consortiums, not only a few champions to run the technology affairs. Unfortunately, the Lebanese government concentrates too much on political issues and very little on education. The government cannot remain far away from the breakthroughs in technology and its rapid penetration into education. For the moment, I don't expect too much, but as soon as the government allows online degrees, we will be prepared.