b'ACCESS FEATUREImproving Migrating All Courses Online to quickly realignThe Campus reopening on The above required the leadership of the Mona Infor- April 14, 2020, also saw over the quality mation Technology Services (MITS)andinfrastructure1300 courses being made and redeploy existing on-premises ICT (server-computer, network-Internetstorage) andfully available online; off-premises ICT cloud services to drive the creation, delivery and online access to digital teaching content.68 of these were new online Critical to this was the implementation of online mo- courses and over 95% of of teaching, learning and studentdalities for student assessment and examinations. Thisthe initial set of 1,255 online wasachievedthrough(1)resourcerealignment,(2) development staff training and development, and (3) the develop- courses were updated and ment of processes and manuals to streamline the man-agement of course and examination information.enhanced for the resumption Resource Realignment of classes. The single most criticalThe pivot to online learning created a need to con-challenge that faced thenect users locally, regionally and internationally with University and the Monathe teaching, research and learning outputs that weresources were made available for faculty to assist in the available on the Campus. For the period April to Maycreation of digital content; course and examination in-28 Campus during the year2020, over six hundred thousand (600,000) users fromformation was also streamlined to ensure effective use29under review, was itsJamaica tapped into the online resources and over thir- of the e-learning platforms (OurVLE and Blackboard ty-five thousand (35,000) gained access from acrossCollaborate) by faculty and ease-of-use by students; capacity to deliver andthe region and in the United States. Reports from MITSand manuals and processes were developed to inform enable access for all studentsconfirmed that the number of user sessions doubled inthe use of various student assessment methodologies. comparison to the corresponding period in 2018, com-to the core business ofpromising neither the capacity nor capability of the on- Meeting the Challenges of Online Accessteaching, learning andline systems. The Campus reopening on April 14, 2020,The primary challenge faced by students in the online also saw over 1300 courses being made fully availablemodalities was that of access: access to a suitable de-research in the criticalonline; 68 of these were new online courses and overvice and reliable and cost effective access to the Inter-requirements of the raft of95% of the initial set of 1,255 online courses were up- net through Wi-Fi and mobile data services. The need COVID-19 protocols. Within adatedandenhancedfortheresumptionofclasses.was addressed largely with the assistance of internet This was achieved through the repurposing and rede- and mobile data service providers (Digicel and FLOW) very short time the Campusployment of computer servers, storage and networkthat provided specific data plans for students and ze-was mandated to migrate allresources to ensure adequate architecture and capaci- ro-rated access to the virtual learning platforms (OurV-ty to meet the demand of online delivery of all semesterLE and Blackboard Collaborate).courses online and addresscourses (undergraduate and graduate) to students.the challenges faced byTheOfficeofthePrincipal,supportedbyMITS, Training and Developmentspearheaded the acquisition of various devices (tablets different groups of studentsThenewnormalwasmetwithexpandedlevelsofandlaptops)forstudents.Thesewereconfigured The UWI Digital Transformation. Contributed by Ms. Amanda Maitland,learning and creative development. Online learning re- byMITSforreadyaccesstoCampuse-learning first-year student in the BFA in Animation Programme, UWI Mona Campus. in accessing digital content. ANNUAL REPORT 2019/20 Realigning our Resources with Resilience and Resourcefulness'