The Virtual University of Pakistan delivers education through a judicious combination of broadcast television and the Internet. VU courses are hand-crafted in meticulous detail by acknowledged experts in the field. Lectures are then recorded in a professional studio environment and after insertion of slides, movie clips and other material, become ready for broadcast. Course lectures are broadcast on free-to-air television and are also made available in the form of multimedia CDs. They can also be made available as streaming media from the Virtual University’s servers. The multiple formats allow for a high degree of flexibility for students who may view the lectures at a time of their choosing within a 24-hour period. Additionally, students can use the lectures to review an entire course before their examinations – a facility simply not available in the conventional face-to-face environment.
In addition to the prescribed texts, comprehensive reading material/lecture notes in the form of web-enabled content are provided through a comprehensive Learning Management System (LMS) hosted on the VU Web Servers and accessible over the Internet. The full power of hyperlinks is utilized for making the online experience a truly powerful one. The LMS also provides an e-mail facility to each and every student as well as discussion boards for interaction within the VU community.
An important feature of the LMS is a Question/Answer board where VU faculty provides answers to questions posed by students on the subject matter covered in the lectures. The Question/Answer board (also known as the Moderated Discussion Board) is extremely fine-grained, providing separate sessions for each lecture of each course. In addition, read-only access is made available to previous question/answer sessions and this constitutes an extremely useful study resource for students. VU faculty monitors this board on a continuous basis and answers to student questions are provided within a short space of time.
Assignments are handed out through the LMS and also submitted by the students through the same mechanism. Pop-quizzes and practice tests are also conducted through the LMS.
Midterm and Final Examinations for every semester are conducted in a formal proctored environment at exam centers designated for the purpose throughout the country. Invigilators appointed by the University conduct the exams. The formal examination atmosphere assists in the critical quality assurance of the student assessment system.
