UI received two educational staff from abroad as part of the Asian Universities Alliance (AUA) Staff Exchange Program 2024. Through this program, Ferlynda Jamaludin from Universiti Malaya, Malaysia, and Anjali Rijil from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, India, participated in a series of activities and visits at UI, especially at the Directorate of Academic Development and Learning Resources (DADLR).
AUA is an Asian-level regional organization network founded in 2017. AUA includes 15 leading universities from 14 countries, including UI, IIT Bombay, and Universiti Malaya. The AUA Staff Exchange Program was developed in 2018 as a mobility program for AUA member university staff. Director of DADLR UI, Gatot Fatwanto Hertono, Ph.D., said this program could be the strategy to promote UI, especially the services and university management.
“The AUA Staff Exchange Program also expands international networking. The arrival of two staff from Universiti Malaya and IIT Bombay is to exchange experiences with the staff of Universiti Malaya and IIT Bombay and UI. Everyone got a lot of positive feedback to improve academic services and management,” said Gatot.
The series of activities began with a sharing session regarding the main tasks and functions and the experiences of each sub-directorate. Ferlynda and Anjali took a tour of the recording facilities and smart classroom, tried recording a podcast, and visited the UI Library. They also visited and practiced in the virtual lab developed by the UI Vocational Education Program and the UI Health Sciences Cluster. They also had time to take a cultural and historical tour in Kota Tua, Jakarta.
Hopefully, the activities provided a clear and concise picture of UI’s academic implementation. “We get information about how UI works and learn about Indonesian culture through visits and conversations with UI staff from different backgrounds. UI ensures that we get the best experience from this program. This is one of my best experiences while working in the education sector,” said Ferlynda.
Ferlynda and Anjali’s academic development and technology backgrounds make them suitable to exchange insights with UI education staff. Anjali said, “It was a great learning experience. I learned about Learning Management Systems at UI, some of them are new to me, and I will try to implement them in my department at IIT Bombay. I also learned how UI is trying to improve its academic reputation using technology. This concept amazed me!”
The positive response from the two staff participating in the exchange program will be a good start for UI to continue developing and implementing other quality programs. UI will continue providing benefits globally through its involvement with other leading AUA member universities: the National University of Singapore, Peking University, Tsinghua University, The University of Tokyo, Seoul National University, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Chulalongkorn University, King Saud University, Nazarbayev University, United Arab Emirates University, University of Colombo, and University of Yangon.
