Queen’s
Queen’s University Belfast has been announced as one of the new partners in Futurelearn, the UK’s first provider of free, open online courses from multiple top-ranking institutions.
The announcement was made as six of the Futurelearn partners take part in a major business and skills mission to India with the Prime Minister, David Cameron.
Futurelearn, which is owned by The Open University (OU), has signed an agreement with the British Library (BL) to develop online courses using BL resources. In addition, Queen’s University Belfast and the universities of Bath, Leicester, Nottingham, and Reading have now joined the existing partners bringing the total number to 18.
Northern Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales all now have universities in Futurelearn. Welcoming the news, the Prime Minister said: “Britain boasts some of the best universities in the world. This innovative new offer led by The Open University will mean that Indian students can access some of the best teaching and learning online from their home in Mumbai or Delhi. I’m delighted that Futurelearn is expanding to include more British universities and the British Library. I hope it will encourage many more Indian students to take the next step and study with a UK university.”
Vice-Chancellor of Queen’s University, Professor Sir Peter Gregson said: “Queen’s is delighted to be a partner in this exciting collaboration, which will extend access to our high quality educational content to students around the world. Increasing accessibility to higher education is an objective to which Queen’s is committed and this important initiative has the potential to provide opportunities to new audiences worldwide, including those who might not normally engage with universities.”
Futurelearn was launched on 14 December 2012. It is an online platform that will make courses from the UK’s best universities and institutions available online for free. It will establish the UK as a global leader in online higher education (HE), offering world-class UK university courses to students throughout the world.
The first Futurelearn courses will be open to students in the second half of 2013.
University of Ulster
THE University of Ulster research excellence in the area of education, conflict and international development has been recognised by UNESCO.
Professor Alan Smith from the School of Education at the university’s Coleraine campus has been renewed as UNESCO Chair in Education for Pluralism, Human Rights and Democracy. He holds the only UNESCO Chair in Northern Ireland.
Welcoming the news, Professor Smith said it was a strong and welcome endorsement of Ulster’s UNESCO team and its work over the past decade and plans for the coming years.
“As part of the UNESCO international education network, we act as bridge builders, establishing dynamic links between the academic world, civil society, local communities and policy makers.”
He continued: “We are delighted that our work has been recognised and praised by UNESCO, particularly, our work in engaging youth from around the world in helping to plan education systems to help young people reach their full potential and help to guarantee their human rights.”
Professor Smith said that the UNESCO team at Coleraine provide a unique resource dedicated to bringing forward research solutions to some of the biggest challenges facing both Northern Ireland and the international community.
“We are clear that education, in Northern Ireland and in societies emerging from conflict around the world, is the key to unlocking the potential, not only of our young people, but of everyone in society, not only in an economic sense, but also in a cultural and societal sense. We look forward to continuing this work over the next four years.”
The focus of Professor Smith’s work in the past year has been on further development of research related to education, conflict and international development. His research, in collaboration with UNICEF, has been widely published and presented at international conferences in Italy, Belgium, Sierra Leone, Bosnia, Nepal and Sri Lanka.
Other news
The Open Your Mind mental health project for students is launching a comprehensive survey to find out the type of support students need.
Open Your Mind is a project run jointly by NUS-USI student movement and mental health charity Mindwise. It aims to promote awareness, overcome stigma and reduce risk factors relating to mental health matters.
The project is going on tour around campuses in Northern Ireland from Wednesday 20 February – University Mental Health Day – and will be running information stalls and promoting stress management techniques.
President of NUS-USI, Adrianne Peltz said: “Many students face very significant mental health pressures, caused by financial worries, exam stress and having to balance their time between study and the jobs they have to do to make ends meet.
“We want to secure as much funding as possible to help raise awareness and help equip students with the techniques for managing stress. It’s really important that as many students as possible across Northern Ireland take the few minutes needed to complete our survey so that we can identify the issues facing students and the areas of support that can be offered.”
Deputy Chief Executive of Mindwise, the project’s other partner organisation, Anne Doherty, said: “It’s really important that as many students as possible take part in this survey, including people who have never experienced any form of mental health issue.
“I would strongly encourage all students to complete our survey and have their voice heard on mental health matters.”
Anyone who takes part in the survey will have their name placed into a draw with a number of prizes on offer, including an iPad mini. Complete the survey at http://bit.ly/oymsurvey