Vilma McClenan and Dr. Christine Marrett (right), project officers at the University of the West Indies' Distance Education Centre. - Photos by Oliver Wright Andrea Downer, Features Writer

After 24 years of working together, they finish each other's sentences. Dr. Christine Marrett and Vilma McClenan are both project officers at the University of the West Indies' (UWI) Distance Education Centre, and part of a small core staff complement at the facility located in Mona, St. Andrew. Sitting across from each other in Ms. McClenan's office, they exchanged friendly banter, their synergy reminiscent of two pieces of a puzzle that fit perfectly together.

The distance education component of the university was devised to meet the training needs of countries in the region which had no UWI campuses, and Dr. Marrett became the first staff member of the unit when she was recruited in 1982.

Joining the team

"I began in July 1982 as a project officer. I had applied for another job, but during the interview, Professor Gerald Lalor (who served as chairman of the unit for several years) told me midway the interview that I was being interviewed for another job," she recalled with a laugh.

After one year on the job, she was asked by Professor Lalor to assist in recruiting Ms. McClenan, whom he had been trying to convince for a while to join the distance education team, but without success.

Ms. McClenan recalled that she had been employed at UWI in the Science Education Centre and that Professor Lalor kept encouraging her to pursue a master's in distance education in the United States. According to Ms. McClenan, she resisted and he persisted. However, she said while they were both on a business trip to Barbados, he made the decision for her and the rest, as they say, is history.

In 1983, she joined the team and UWI formally began offering distance education courses using an audio teleconferencing system that was known as the UWI Distance Teaching Experiment.

Ms. McClenan explained that initially, courses were taught primarily via teleconferencing, but students also received supplementary print materials. In addition to formal programmes, such as the certificate in business administration and the certificate in education programmes, UWI also offered outreach and related programmes in heath, agriculture, and education, and facilitated UWI administrative meetings over the teleconferencing system. She said they also used teleconferencing to coordinate the administrative activities of the distance learning sites in the various countries.

"We conducted weekly teleconferences, which helped us to manage the day-to-day running of the sites.

"We started off with three countries which had university campuses and two which had none, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, St. Lucia and Dominica," Dr. Marrett chimed in.

In April 1993, the UWI received a loan from the Caribbean Development Bank for the expansion of distance education at the institution. The first teleconference was held in March 1983 between the five initial sites, and the expansion of the network to include other sites continued steadily as funds became available from other sources.

In 1996, the unit was renamed UWI Distance Education Centre (UWIDEC) and as the number of sites and the programmes offered continued to grow, so did the staff. It was at this juncture that Ms. McClenan said there was a shift from teleconference being the central medium via which students were taught, and a print package was introduced as a learning tool.

"Teleconference tied students to particular times, so the printed material allowed students more flexibility in terms of their learning regimen," she explained.

Big shift

"The next big shift came in 2002 when we began incorporating more online access. We are now moving to a delivery mode called blended learning, which incorporates a more online, multi-media approach. We use a learning management system which allows students to access content online, and are more able to interact with each other and their tutor. Approximately 25 students are assigned to an online tutorial and the class has an online tutor," she continued.

She said as a result of the blended learning approach, the number of teleconference sessions has been reduced.

In the ever-changing learning environment which is necessary to meet the needs of students, both Dr. Marrett and Ms. McClenan said the distance teaching approach pioneered by the UWI in the region is responsible for changes in the approach to learning in the Caribbean.

"It has helped people in Jamaica and the rest of the region to see that they did not have to sit in a classroom to learn and it paved the way for the later success of distance learning programmes offered by other institutions such as NOVA," Ms. McClenan stated.

There are more than 3,000 students currently enrolled in some kind of distance education programme at UWIDEC, and distance teaching at UWI is set to evolve into the UWI Open Campus, which will see the unit having more autonomy.

Product of the system

Both Dr. Marrett and Ms. McClenan have undertaken studies through distance education. Ms. McClenan holds a master's in distance education from the university of London, and Dr. Marrett has a diploma in the practice of higher education from the University of Surrey, as well as a doctorate in social policy from UWI, researching collaboration in distance education in the Caribbean.

They were involved in the establish-ment of the Jamaican Association for Distance and Open Learning and the Caribbean Association of Distance and Open Learning. They have presented papers, written articles, organised conferences and been associated with organisations related to the development and practice of distance education, such as the Commonwealth of Learning, the World Bank, UNESCO and the International Council for Adult Education.

UWIDEC now has sites in 16 countries in the region with some countries having more than one distance learning site.