NTU recognised for elevating next-gen learning experience at Asian Experience Awards 2021

More than 650 undergraduate courses were offered through its platform.

Even before the pandemic, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU) already had an infrastructure in place that enabled it to swiftly adapt to changes in education. In January 2020, a scalable cloud-based Learning Management System was implemented as a cost-effective integrated solution whilst enhancing students’ learning experience at NTU.

The new Learning Management System proved to be timely and invaluable when COVID-19 disrupted and affected in-person lessons. The university’s earlier rollout of more than 650 undergraduate courses through the NTULearn ecosystem made the shift of all classes to digital seamless. Within one week, more than 1,000 in-person lessons weekly were shifted to online learning for 30,000 students in the first quarter of 2020.

These efforts were made possible due to the presence of a strong infrastructure that is supporting the online learning needs of the university, where cloud storage had to be increased by 400% to accommodate course materials. NTU had been implementing the 'flipped classroom' learning model across the university since 2013, leveraging on technology-enhanced learning through the NTULearn ecosystem. In this learning model, students access course content on their own before class, so that face time is better spent on team-based learning and engagement with the professor.

A strategic partnership with global e-learning leader, Coursera, was also established and integrated as part of NTULearn to allow undergraduate students to obtain transfer credits upon completion of massive open online courses (MOOCs) -. Over the last 12 months, more than 36,000 Coursera courses were enrolled with savings amounting to over S$2 million and shaping new lifelong learning behaviours.

To ensure that all students complete their final examinations during Singapore’s circuit breaker and heightened alert periods in 2020 and 2021, remote e-examinations were made possible with the introduction of an AI-based proctoring tool for e-assessments. As a result, NTU students were able to leverage this adaptive and innovative deployment from the NTULearn ecosystem.

In addition, a new cloud-based Student Response System was implemented for distributed lessons that allow lecturers and students to simultaneously interact and access multimedia content from different locations. The hybrid learning model was well received with over 90% positive student feedback for higher engagement and learning experience. 

The NTULearnVideo platform was also introduced in January 2021, bringing forth the latest innovation to raise education technology standards. The platform effectively enhances students’ online learning experience through a catalogue of over 250,000 videos produced in NTU.

Recognising the strong digital-driven transformation that NTU has made to benefit its students, faculty and staff, the university was awarded the “Singapore Digital Experience of the Year - Education” in the recently concluded Asian Experience Awards 2021.

The awards recognise the ingenious initiatives of creative companies delivering meaningful brand experiences to their stakeholders in all industries in Asia.

"We see this award as an encouraging endorsement from the industry of NTU’s commitment to continuously improve the digital learning and teaching experience for our students, faculty and staff", said Mr Alvin Ong, Chief Information Officer at NTU Singapore.

NTU was commended for its successful implementation of Learning Technology experimentations and pilots by its faculty and tech team to inspire innovation in education. In the first semester of 2021, NTU commissioned four experimentations that received positive student feedback ratings of over 93%.

Other key achievements include enabling, adapting, and scaling home-based learning delivery for 100% of NTU students with a service level of 99.9% uptime for cloud-based platforms, enhanced with an AI-based proctored exam solution for over 8,000 students per semester.

NTU also successfully enriched its online teaching and learning experience through the innovative use of an online two-way interactive and adaptive learning video platform, which achieved an estimated 35.6% cost saving per year, while increasing student engagement for its distributed hybrid learning.

Watch the interview below to know more about their winning project: