Webinar Series on Blockchain Technology for Higher Education "Coursera for Campus"

Following the previous webinar, Institute of Cyber Education (ICE) and Universitas Terbuka hold the second webinar on 4 November 2020. The webinar was also sponsored by Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Government of Japan. The theme of the second seminar was “Coursera for Campus”.

As we all know, Coursera is a leading Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) provider. Coursera served 71 million learners from all over the world. Therefore, how Coursera may empower universities to develop courses that are not only have high quality, but also relevant to job market was the focus of this webinar.

In this event, Coursera was represented by Emily Sands, and Eklavya Bhave the first speaker who is vice president and had of data science at Coursera. The second speaker is the Regional Sales Director of Asia-Pacific in Coursera. Meanwhile, the convener of this webinar was Prof. Udan Kusmawan PhD, Dean of the Faculty of Education and Teacher Training. Rector of UT, Professor Ojat Darojat gave a speech in the opening of the webinar. He pointed out that MOOC is in line with the need of industries. He also pointed out that in 2019, UT initiated Indonesia Cyber Education Institute, a marketplace for online learning providers in Indonesia.

The first presentation described what Coursera is. Its network includes 150 universities and 50 industry partners as content producers. In addition, 6.400 universities joined it. Interestingly, the companies participates in developing content, enriching learning with applicable input from labor market. Regarding Covid 19, she considered that this pandemic brings about challenges toward universities, such as student employability, cost management, and innovation. She described also Coursematch, a machine learning-based catalog that enables users to match university courses to Coursera courses.

The second speaker, Ellavya Bhave showed that despite campuses and laboratories are closed during the pandemic, Coursera offers Guided project. This is an online platform using real-world tools that allows students learning practical skills. There are 1.5 million students joined it ready. Another feature is a content authoring toolkit that helps faculty member to develop their online content.

Those inspiring presentation was followed by question and answer session. Besides question about how Coursera increase possibilities of learners to enter job market, there were some questions about how to access Coursera in different situation. In the end, the convener closed the webinar. Most participants of the second ICE UT-ADB would like to see that Coursera develop collaboration with stakeholders in Indonesia.