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USP Deliver Lessons into 13 Countries

Lesson Delivery to 11 Countries Using REACT

The University of the South Pacific (USP) is based in Suva, Fiji.  The University is the premier provider of tertiary education for students living in the South Pacific across 14 campuses in 13 countries.  Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu campuses provide education to 19,000 students.

USP Lautoka Campus is one of the two Distance & Flexible Learning (DFL) Centres of USP in Fiji, the other being Fiji Centre Northern in Labasa.  USP Lautoka Campus represents the USP in the Western Divsion.  It offers courses mainly in the distance and flexible mode to external students but also provides vocational courses on campus.

To date, distance education of external students has been done through correspondence with some audio conferencing.  With an increasing student population, a diversity of courses to deliver and academic rigour demanded, USP were in need of an improved method of distance education delivery.

REACT IDL software's reputation for overcoming many of the challenges of distance education whilst providing real-time interactive and collaborative classrooms has resulted in USP's uptake of the software.

During the Christmas 2009 holiday period, REACT was deployed with 3 studios established at the Lautoka campus and at its remote campus sites.  M & S Consultants worked closely with the University's ICT department to ensure that the satellite network is optimised, installed and commissioned the software and advised on the design of the studios. The ICT department worked hard and are continuing to do so to ensure that everything is in place so that IDL lessons can commence at the start of the 2010 University year in late February.

The University's Centre for Flexible and Distance Learning instructional designers have also been working hard, consulting with a REACT IDL pedagogy expert from Australia, to prepare the lecturers for a paradigm shift in the modus operandi of distance education at USP. 

In embracing the technology, the University is now well equipped and well placed to become a world leader in distance education at the highest academic level.