Online Learning Principles

Humboldt International University is committed to serve lifelong learners through distance education, preparing them for common global knowledge.

There are five basic principles we follow:

1. Professional competence, values and ethics that allow graduates to master an array of disciplinary knowledge and abilities to help them apply their knowledge in real-world settings and develop a lifelong learning to improve their professions.
2. Critical thinking and problem solving techniques to help graduates acquire the ability to identify and evaluate issues, develop critical-thinking skills, recommend solutions to implement changes, and then evaluate the results.
3. Team learning which focuses on the development of students’ ability to lead teams through a combination of individual and group activity skills aimed at promoting intellectual and technical learning, as well as providing validation and exploring new ideas.
4. Engage in a learning process aimed at respecting human diversity and behaving in a tolerant manner towards colleagues and those they serve in a way that can communicate ideas in an environment of intellectual openness.
5. Information utilization in a wide variety of research capabilities through gathering, analyzing the credibility and accuracy of information gathered, regardless of source, while using that information to address issues or to take action.

The Distance Education Environment is composed of the Learning Educational Module, the Leaning Management System (Synchronous and Asynchronous Platforms) and the Administrative System. Students have access to the systems 365 days a year, 24 hours per day. To access the distance learning campus students and instructors require computers with internet access.Students will each get their own username and password to access the platform. The distance education environment is set up for maximum interaction between the students and their instructors.

THE MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS TO ACCESS THE ONLINE COURSES ARE:

PROGRAMS WILL BE CONDUCTED AS FOLLOWS

• Programs will be conducted through a linear progressive learning system organized in the platform, which may include program guidelines, learning activities, portfolio, learning evaluations, consultations and faculty advisory synchronic periods of office hours, chat rooms, student services, technology management and software for synchronic and asynchrony communications.Students must take HIU1001 Mastering e-Learning, as a prerequisite course. This course is an orientation on how to successfully take an online course. Students will develop functional skills on the use of the learning platform, time management, self-learning management and collaborative learning.
• The basic learning management system will be Moodle V.2. Moodle’s basic structure is organized around courses. These are basically pages or areas within Moodle where instructional designers can present their learning resources and activities to students. They can have different layouts but they usually include a number of central sections where materials are displayed and side blocks where extra features or information are offered. This process will be supported by an extra synchronous platform (Elluminate) that will allow, at certain stages, a direct online contact among students and their instructor.
• Social constructionism is the core theory behind Moodle (Lev Vigostki). Social constructionism is based on the idea that people learn best when they are engaged in a social process of constructing knowledge through the act of constructing an artifact for others.
• Courses can include content for a single session or any other variants. They can be used by one instructor or shared by a group of instructors. Courses are organized into different categories.
• The learning model is focused on building transversal and disciplinarian competences and skills through a problem-solving model.
• Courses are designed so as to develop competencies and skills through the learning activities and units which are implemented as interaction processes between advisors, students, contents and educational resources. Outcomes for each activity, unit and course demonstrate the academic success of students. This instructional design ensures students personalized attention (15 student maximum per group) and permanent interaction between all the elements involved.
• The indicators that will allow us to measure student satisfaction as well as quality feedback for HIU will be: evaluation, final and partial results, material effectiveness, educational resources, interactions, instructor’s involvement, curriculum quality, student’s engagement, feedback, course design, administrative and supporting services, flexibility and permanent access to technology. Students will have access to the platform and to their courses through an ID and a password assigned during their registration at HIU.
• Each student will have their individual page listing their courses as well as their grades.
• Students will have access to navigation, calendar, portfolio, evaluation, forums, questions, participants and messaging blocks,
• Students entering any course will find instructions to enable the development of learning activities and the generation of corresponding products.
• Facilitators (instructors) evaluate the product received and consequently assign a grade to the student or ask the student to perform new tasks to complete the learning product, establishing the interactions facilitator/student which allows the construction of knowledge,
• Asynchronous communication 24 hours 365 days is done through the Moodle Platform.
• Synchronous communication for the realization of tutorials, clarifying doubts, orworkshops will be held in the Platform “Elluminate”.

PROCEDURES FOR DISTRIBUTION OF MATERIALS

• Distribution of quality educational resources and materials is ensured through access from the learning platform to the digital library with peer review articles, eBooks, videos, audios and other educational materials.p. Library and Information Resources Network. The LIRN virtual library provides students with millions of peer-reviewed and full-text journal, magazine, and newspaper articles, e-books, podcasts, audio, and video resources to support their academic studies from Gale Cengage, ProQuest, EBSCO, CREDO Reference, eLibrary, and more, covering topics for General Education, Business, and Medical programs.q. Digital Oceano (Spanish) Digital products, accessible via the Internet, that have been created by Oceano Digital, which incorporates a large amount of information on Spanish regarding all area of knowledge.

EXAMINATION AND EVALUATION OF STUDENT WORK

• Evaluation and assessment of learning is systematic and formative. Monitoring of students by advisors on delivering activities and participation in forums is done every day, and control of advisors on interactions with students is done by coordinators every week. Weekly reports are issued. Periodic evaluations are presented for each unit at the end of the course and semester for each student. The facilitators deliver the comments on the achievement of competencies by students.

TIMELY RESPONSE TO STUDENTS’ QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS

• Communication between the participants in this learning process takes place via tools such as forums, portfolio, internal mail and chat rooms,t. Feedback to students is delivered within 72 hours, and answers to questions and doubts in 24 hours.

RECORD KEEPING

• Record keeping is done by software package DiamonD ®. This program performs the tracking, analyzing, and reporting of students records. The system manages admissions, accounting, registrar, financial assistance, and job placement, among others.

TECHNICAL SUPPORT

• Ensuring confidentiality, integrity and availability of information and data with mirrors on the cloud computing that allow their permanent and systematic updating. Technical support of the courses is conducted by website, phone and email and the staff follows each incident. Website with FAQs, tutorials and guidance on technical details of the operation of the tools and software.