Dr Ruslan Ramanau

The World Bank Tajikistan Higher Education project Centre for competency development and employability for students of the Russian-Tajik Slavic University Brief project description This project focuses on improving employability skills and gaining additional competencies for students of the Russian-Tajik Slavic University (RTSU) via study in an open online mode. The key outcome of the project is creation of the Centre for competency development and employability for RTSU students. The three main strands of the project are:  Modernising the curricula of existing academic programmes by bringing them in line with demands of the labour market. The first step in this process will be conducting research on employer requirements of graduate skills and competencies in the context of the Republic of Tajikistan (RT);  Creation of the open online learning portal, which will be comprised of a range of courses and disciplines that will help Tajik students gain new skills, develop competencies and improve employability. The distance learning process would allow for learning irrespective of place and time and would aid students studying in more traditional universities in undertaking additional training as well as for attracting new students;  Redesign of the learning process, underpinned by the open online portal and aiming to modernise teaching and learning on more traditional face-to-face programmes, giving greater salience to blended (i.e. those taught by a mix of online and face-to-face methods of delivery) and online modes of learning. The project will be conducted over the course of two academic years (2017-18 and 2018-19) and will be implemented in partnership with the Omsk State University after Dostoevsky in Russia, The Open University in the United Kingdom and the Iskidor educational organisation. Nature of OU involvement Funding is requested for 12 days of consultancy work for Dr. Ruslan Ramanau, Lecturer in the Department of People and Organisations, and travel and subsistence for two field trips and project team meetings in the cities of Omsk in Russia and Dushanbe in Tajikistan. His responsibilities will mostly lie in the areas of design of open online courses, organising webinars on methods and approaches to teaching online to RTSU teachers and general oversight of project delivery and meeting the intended outcomes.

The study is intended to explore student views on internationalising the curriculum, learning and teaching across two courses – The Professional Certificate and the Diploma of Management, studied in the UK, continental Europe with the Business School and in Russia with IIM (International Institute of Management) LINK, the OU partner institution. Two online self-completion questionnaires will be administered via the OU PRESTO survey system to selected samples of a total of 800 students. The study will provide more insights into student perspectives on how international current course provision is and what they expect of their current and future learning experiences. The results of the study will provide baseline information for further, more in-depth research on the subject, including the use of qualitative methods of collection and analysis and will highlight the issues and challenges of current internationalisation efforts to both stakeholders within the OU and the field of Business and Management teaching and learning in general.