Memorandum of Understanding was signed between Universitas Budi Luhur and OUM on 5 August 2005 at OUM Main Campus. Both Institutions agreed in principle to collaborate and resolve reasonable efforts to promote academic programmes at the Diploma, Bachelor’s or Postgraduate degree in specific areas. The Agreement was signed by Prof Dr Ronny Rahman Nitibaskara, Rector of Universitas Budi Luhur and Prof Tan Sri Datuk Dr Anuwar Ali, President/Vice-Chancellor of OUM.

This cooperation encompasses the areas in academic programmes, administration, teaching research and development and cultural affiliation. This partnership is hope to boon the development of OUM’s internalisation effort and to be a world class educational provider and Lifelong Learning.

Chicken Run Charity
OUM participated in an interesting charity run on 3 July 2005 at Bukit Jalil Golf & Country Resort, KL. A total of 30 OUM students and staff took part in the charity aid. The chicken run was organised by Berjaya Roasters (M) Sdn Bhd and Universiti Malaysia in aid of Tabung Kebajikan Pesakit Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. The event was made interesting as participants had to run a distance of 3.8 kilometres with a dish containing a boiled egg without dropping or losing the egg. Among the participants from OUM who took part were Associate Prof Ramli Bahroom, Deputy General Manager, Corporate Planning Unit and Datin Teh Raqamah Abdullah, Senior Manager, Corporate Relations Unit.

GOTEVOT E-Learning Training Program
by Kenneth Ho Ju-Yin, Executive, Open and Distance Learning Pedagogy Centre
The ODL Pedagogy Centre, in collaboration with METEOR Sdn Bhd, organised a 2- week long E-Learning Training Program for 20 participants from Saudi Arabian Universities from 4 - 15 July 2005. This program was part of efforts by Saudi Arabia's General Organisation of Technical Education and Vocational Training (GOTEVOT) to further develop involvement in e-learning.

The delegation led by Dr Jasir Al-Herbish from Buraydah College of Technology, Saudi Arabia were given extensive exposure to Instructional Design in various aspects of ELearning. Two of OUM's in-house experts, Prof John Arul Phillips from the Faculty of Education, Arts and Social Sciences and Associate Prof Dr Abtar Kaur, Director of ODLPC were involved to train the participants in the application of Instructional Design in harnessing the potential of e-learning. Besides Instructional Design, the participants were also given hands-on training in Learning Objects Development using Flash MX.

Overall, it was indeed an immersive e-learning experience for the participants as they were given a comprehensive exposure to the many dimensions of e-learning. The knowledge gained will be invaluable in their efforts to fully harness the potential of elearning and technology.