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The Open Education Movement in Indonesia Archipelago Nationby Prof. Richardus Eko Indrajit - President of Aptikom OCW

IntroductionOpen Education has been recognised as the new today’s emerging revolutional concept wi th in emerg ing lear n ing p r a c t i c e s . B y e f f e c t i v e l y embracing such paradigm, access to quality education would be guaranteed for all through virtually extending and expanding the arm-reaching of education asset and resources. As example, OER (Open Education Resources) and OCW (Open Courseware) are two well-known initiatives under open education principle which are highly k n o w n a n d i m p l e m e n t e d throughout the world to leverage limited education resources. This document acts as brief report on how the concept of open educat ion i s evo lved and e s tab l i shed in Indones ia ,

especially within the higher education institution.

Major IT IssuesThe posture of archipelago continent that consist of more than 18,000 islands have caused several problems faced by I n d o n e s i a a s a n a t i o n . Essentially, there are four issues encountered presently by the society of Indonesia, which are: diversity, disparity, scalability, and sustainability. Diversity comes from the fact that Indonesia comprises more than 500 ethnic groups throughout the nation. It brings to the situation where every state or district has its own unique characteristics in nature that differentiate them from one another. This situation creates a large spectrum of people’s

cu l tu re - inc lud ing the i r perception on IT roles and functions. Disparity among regions in Indonesia is the cause o f i m b a l a n c e f o c u s o f development within the history of the country. A multi-digital gap is the word that correctly defined the nation problem in IT development. Scalability has a meaning that for every successful implementation of IT initiative in one area does not mean it can easily be expanded by replicating i t t o o t h e r a r e a s . A n d sustainability implies to the phenomena of the difficulties faced by related IT practitioners to come out with financial model that can ensure long-term existence of any IT program. These four aspects have been considered as the Indonesian core problems.

OEROCW

This article is prepared by Aptikom and Indonesia Higher Learning Council for OCW Consortium.

For enquiry please contact the following email address:indrajit@rad.net.id

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Higher Education ProfileIn 2011, there are at least 3,016 higher education institutions operated throughout the nation. Most of them are located in the highly populated area within Java and Sumatera Islands - which are geographically spread out in the western part of Indonesia (Picture 1). In the eastern part of the country, there are a lack number of higher learning instututions established by state or private sectors. This discrepancy causes a shortage of competent people in most of the country’s territory - resulting real problems in exploring and exploiting natural resources within such rich areas.

Picture 1: The Unequal Distribution of HEI in Indonesia

If the data is drilled down based on student population, it can be seen the disparity profile of the 33 states or provinces. The following figure shows how two states - Jakarta and Yogyakarta - dominate the HEI’s student population (Picture 2) across the nation. Such phenomena occur due to the facts that most of quality universities are located in these two big cities.

Picture 2: The Distribution of HEI Students in Indonesia

Another real problem encountered within the higher learning ecosystem relates to student’s gross enrollment rate that is considered relatively low in Asia. The latest statistics in 2010 states that only 26,34% students go to college or university (Picture 3). There are several reasons causing such low figure, such as: high cost of education, difficult access to education institution, very limited learning resources, student body volume restriction, a few number of related program of studies, low motivation or willingness to study (loss opportunity), etc.

Picture 3: The HEI Gross Enrollment Rate in Indonesia

The next figure shows another problem faced by the country which is the education attainment trend where in 2014, it is predicted that only 11% of Indonesian students who can reach and finished their higher learning studies (Picture 4).

Picture 4: The HEI Students Attainment Rate in Indonesia

In order to ensure quality delivered, the Indonesian government develops several national standards, which are defined as minimum criteria of various education aspects to be achieved by all campuses.

Picture 5: The HEI National Standards in Indonesia

For higher education institutions, these standards are: graduate competencies, contents, learning process, human resources, facilities, financing, institution management, monitoring and evaluation, research and development, and services (Picture 5). It is government task to ensure that all higher education institutions meet these ten standards so that the vision and missions of national education system can be achieved.

Information Technology Initiativesto Solve Education ProblemsProf. Richardus Eko Indrajit

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Based on the data given by National Accreditation Board in 2010, presently there are still more than 30% institutions which are not met the standar requirements yet (Picture 6). Most of these approximately 1,000 colleges and universities are located within remote areas in Indonesia.

Picture 6: The HEI Accreditation Status in Indonesia

Value of TechnologyDue to the fact that such condition would keep Indonesia away from being competitive, a breakthrough solution should be found. One of the opportunity realised by the government and education practitioners in Indonesia is by utilising the information and communication technology as the tool to solve some issues. There are a good number of value propositions that can be achieved by the effective implementation of ICT, which are:

1. IT can help the country to build the environment so that the society’s access to quality education can be guaranteed;

2. IT can be used to leverage and to optimise the use of limited learning assets throughout the nation;

3. IT can enable the collaboration among various campuses through shared resources and services practices; and

4. IT can be utilised to enhance the quality of education by connecting higher education institutions to a great number of knowledge and research centers.

These four principles furthermore become the formal strategy adopted by the Ministry of Education and Culture of Indonesia to improve the quality of education within the nation.

Open Education Projects PortfolioSo far, there are several IT projects undergone by the government, private sector, and learning communities in Indonesia that are based upon open education philosophy. The followings are brief descriptions of various undertaken programs.

Open National Education InfrastructureThe Indonesian Higher Education Network (INHERENT) is the internet infrastructure backbone that connects more than 350 campus nodes across the nation (Picture 7). This broadband plays as the main highways of connected campuses in conducting their collaboration and cooperation

learning. Through this backbone, a range of applications such as tele conferences, webinars, open seminars, e-learnings, and virtual classes are being implemented.

Picture 7: The Indonesian Higher Education Network

Open Academic JournalsGaruda (Garda Rujukan Digital or Digital Reference Portal) is the portal that are used by higher education institutions in Indonesia to share their academic journals openly. Thousands of journals from hundreds campuses have been shared in this portal (Picture 8).

Picture 8: The GARUDA Portal

Aptikom Open CoursewareThe Association of Computing and Informatics Colleges and Universities that consist of 850 institutions has launched NEXSUS (National e-Education Exchange System for Undergraduate Studies) that functions a clearing-house platform for credit transfer exchange based on opencourse-ware paradigm (Picture 9). The courses that are agreed to be transferred are the ones that are considered as elective subjects.

Open K-12 Digital BooksThrough a presidential decree, the Board of National Education Standard working together with higher learning institutions community has developed more than 1,000 digital books that can be freely accessed, printed, and distributed by all K12 schools.

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Picture 9: The Aptikom NEXSUS

The government of Indonesia has bought all copyrights and intellectual properties of these publications so that anybody - or any publisher - who is willing to print and to distribute them are eligible to do so. Actually the way the license is handled is aligned with the existing creative commons concept.

Picture 10: The K12 Digital Books

JPA-APTIK Open Library NetworkAnother initiative that is conducted by the Association of Catholic University or APTIK is the establishment of open library network (Picture 11). Through this initiative, students and lecturers from any catholic university can have open access to other campuses within the network.

Picture 11: The JPA-APTIK Library

Open CC E-BooksUpon the introduction of creative commons license in Indonesia, there are several academic reference book writers from campus communities who are agree to share their masterpieces under such type of license. They upload all of their works in a special portal that can be easily and be openly accessed by anybody (Picture 12).

Picture 12: The CC E-Book Portal

The Way ForwardAfter undergoing several open education based projects, it is realised that such initiative can only be guaranteed to be sustainable if a systemic and a holistic approach is used. The latest research conducted by Aptikom, Ministry of National Education and Culture, Indonesian Telkom, and Warta Ekonomi Research Center, has delivered the ecosystem model that should be used in order to make the open education concept workable within campus environment (Picture 13).

Picture 13: The Open Education Ecosystem in Indonesian Campus

By taking into consideration all components of the ecosystem - which are representing the key success factors on the adoption of open education principle - the mission to make a campus adopting and embracing this new paradigm on education would be achieved.

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