Uni Einrichtungen ZEF DESDe   

More about DESDe

 

• Our target groups
  
  
• Task Force DESDe
  
  
• Competence
  
  
• Technical infrastructure
  
  
• Courses and services
  
  
• Our partners
  

 

 

 

Our target groups

The different courses and programs are targeted to:

• Local experts and young professionals, including those working in development cooperation programs, to broaden their knowledge and deepen their professional understanding.

• Students and staff in universities to complement existing study programs through cooperation with an international institution

• Students with Bachelor Degrees willing to continue in one of the German Postgraduate Master Programs in Berlin, Stuttgart, Dortmund, Oldenburg, and elsewhere. The credits gained are accepted by the cooperating universities. This ensures more effective and/or shorter study time in Germany

• Citizens in developing countries enrolled in continuing education to update the general knowledge in one of the study fields DESDe offers.

Task Force DESDe

DESDe was founded by the Institute for Public Policy and Planning (IöP) , the Postgraduate Program Renewable Energy (PPRE), and the Center for Distance Education (ZEF) at Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg. Its goal is to promote the development of sustainable programs in distance education oriented towards professional training of specialists and executive staff, who live and work in developing countries.

Ulrich Bernath (Distance Education)
mailto: ulrich.bernath@uni-oldenburg.de
http://www.uni-oldenburg.de/zef/uli-b.htm

Michael Golba (Renewable Energy)
mailto: michael.golba@uni-oldenburg.de
http://ehf.uni-oldenburg.de/mitarbeiter.php?sprache=english&show=19

Thomas Hülsmann (Distance Education)
mailto: Thomas.Huelsmann@uni-oldenburg.de
http://www.uni-oldenburg.de/zef/huelsman.htm

Jens Windelberg (Urban and Regional Development and Town Planning)
mailto: jens.windelberg@uni-oldenburg.de
http://www.jens-windelberg.de

Competence

DESDe has already substantial practical experiences in the development and the delivery of courses including courses for participants from developing countries.

Distance education for development:

• Since 2000, the Center for Distance Education offers jointly with the University of Maryland University College (USA) an online Master of Distance Education (MDE) program; within this program a certificate Distance Education in Developing Countries is offered as one option

• Currently he Center for Distance Education develops a certificate program Distance Education for Development in partnership with the University of British Columbia (Canada)

• In 2002 a virtual seminar for professional development in distance education was offered through Global Development Learning Network GDLN to participants from three African countries.

Renewable energy:

• The post-graduate program Renewable Energy has developed two courses in "Energy Economics" (in 2000) and "Meteorology" (in 2002) for online teaching and learning within the institutional partnership with Harare University

Urban planning & development:

• A virtual professional seminar in urban planning and development is currently offered to participants from fourteen developing countries. Various institutional partnerships, GDLN including, are supporting the endeavor.

Technical Infrastructure

DESDe disposes of an already existing infrastructurefor e-learning provided by centers for distance education at the Universities of Hildesheim, Lüneburg, and Oldenburg. The platform for learning and content management in place is Lotus Notes LearningSpace. The features of LotusLearningSpace are robust and complex ranging from administration to course management, evaluation, pedagogy, technology, communication, learner and faculty support. Especially, the Lotus replication feature allows to work offline for most of the time which reduces substantially the costs of being online.
The functionality and reliability of this system (infrastructure and platform) has been tested and proven in numerous online programs in both higher education and professional development. It is permanently assured by a core team of four experts at the three centers.

Contact: Axel Kleinschmidt
mailto: Axel.Kleinschmidt@uni-oldenburg.de

Courses & services

• Development of tailor-made courses

DESDe has got both: the infrastructure and the competence to offer a range of courses in the three cooperating disciplines. However, to serve customers in developing countries there is need to improve in three areas:

• courses need to be better customized for the target audience
• course development time ('time to market') must be shortened; and
• courses must be offered at (nearly) marginal costs.

© DESDe

Here you can see a (post-Fordist) industrial model. Car manufacturers, for
example, serve different customer needs by implanting on a few platforms a
variety of tailored models.

• Provision of existing courses
  

DESDe has a pool of already existing courses. All of them are in use and passed the test. To get further information to the single courses, please click on the links below:

• Distance Education for Development (Dr. U. Bernath, Th. Hülsmann et al.)
• Renewable Energy / Energy Economics (M. Golba et al.)
• Urban Development & Town Planning (Prof. Dr. J. Windelberg et al.)
  

Our partners

Desde is collaborating with the following partners:

• to be named
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