Dr. Soodamani Ramalingam

The above post is of interest to me because it fits my academic background and experience in Higher Education and distance education, overall. All specifics have been provided as part of my application and I would like to summarise these as follows: My teaching and research experience fill the requirements of the above post. I am qualified with a Ph.D. in Computing Science from the top ranking University in Australia, The University of Melbourne. My UG and PG qualifications are also from one of the top ranking technological institutes in India. My teaching experience in Higher Education has been long (22 years) and varied ÔÇô all in full time positions and covering countries as India, Australia, Singapore, China, and England. Because of this variety of experience, I am able to understand the cultural influences in the learning process of students and provide varied support and necessary encouragement to students. My experience in this regard has been as follows. The modes of teaching include face to face communication, distance, online and mixed modes. Furthermore, the age groups have invariably varied from regular younger generation, to working professionals, others aiming at personal development and adults wishing to further education, industry sponsored professionals from other fields, and others resuming education after a big break or from financially dis-advantaged communities which has affected their higher education (Koori students in Australia and Backward Communities in India) . The pace and level of teaching have therefore varied for such categories. The levels of support have also been different. I have been involved in and contributed to programs that offer specific courses for each of these groups. While working professionals only require pointers, there are others from multi-disciplinary streams. Such groups have adequate education but not necessarily specific skills in Computing. Hence, they have to be treated as ill-literates in Computing and essential support be given. There are yet other groups which basically have great interest in their education, but have no graduate education or cannot afford further education. The material content, the level of support and pace have been on the basis of ÔÇÿstarting from fundamentalsÔÇÖ. This is also the current state of foundation degrees. I have been involved in teaching, providing support and mentoring such groups. The mechanism of education is varied with distance and online programs as compared to the regular ones. The availability of timely material has been important in terms of the studentsÔÇÖ expectations of the educational system. A high level of customer service needs to be provided. The assessments have also been different. In some cases, they require 24/7 service. Luckily this has been made possible with PC and Web technologies for off-line and on-line discussions and evaluations. Such teaching methodologies require compiling online queries and forming FAQs to provide support. In some case, specific responses needed to be provided. This requires organisational skills for providing effective feedback and education in distance/online modes. I have been involved in preparing material for online/distance programs and publishing and contributed to the committees as a member. Contributions have been on strategy, planning and dissemination of new plans. Presently, I am involved in training faculty members on WebCT for use in the regular teaching involving online programs, as well as evaluating the usability of the system. Online and distance education programs have typically large sized groups of students and proportionately substantial number of staff members. I have led such courses and trained staff members (tutors) in preparation for the program. This experience covers both the UK and India. I have worked in teams and have always maintained cordial relation that is conducive to team work. The feedbacks from staff have been very encouraging. Part of my research interests includes using groupware in eLearning and applying authentication techniques that is non-intrusive to the user. Specific industry collaboration has been carried out on the groupware pilot project on using advanced but simple technologies in an easy manner to enhance the education process. This has shown promising results and I wish to explore and continue such research. Because of the nature of rapid changes in educational modes, it is important to be updated of such changes and equip oneself with the use of latest and commonly used technologies and be aware of latest developments. In this regard, I have been pro-active about undertaking training, workshops and conferences on a regular basis. Further more, I have undertaken pedagogical research work and published in reputed international conferences and journals. With the above educational background and professional experience, I am confident of making significant contributions to the Open University program. I hope you will find my application suitable for the post.

Organization Full Name

University of Hertfordshire

Person full name (first and second name)

Dr. Soodamani Ramalingam

Postal Code

AL10 9AB

City

London

Telephon number

+44 (0)1707 284 130

Full Address (street, number, Postal Code, City, Region)

University of Hertfordshire, College Lane, Hatfield, Herts

URL: http://mydomain

http://www.herts.ac.uk/

EU-proposals

B4 profile (half page organization description)

We are a large department with our own teaching and research laboratories offering a person-centred working and learning environment for staff and students. We offer taught courses at undergraduate and Masters levels with multiple transfer arrangements between routes and opportunities for industrial placements.

Our computing courses range from computing science, information systems, software engineering and artificial intelligence to multi-media, e- Commerce systems and internet computing. Our mathematics courses are applicable, business applications- related, and computing laboratory-based.

There is close affinity between routes enabling those studying computing or mathematics as their primary route to study a variety of complementary modules.

Research is carried out in computer science, intelligent systems, computational fluid dynamics, information systems and mathematical modelling. Opportunities exist for students to progress to PhD level or to a postdoctoral research position working alongside academic staff.