Wednesday 8 October 2014

Makerere to monitor students online.Drive Hot News


Urban Andersson the Swedish Ambassador to Uganda (L) holds chats with Professor John Ddumba (R) the Makerere University Vice Chancellor over a cup of tea after commissioning the research supervision tool.

KAMPALA
Makerere University Graduate School has commissioned an online tool to monitor the research students conduct in the course of their studies as well as track their supervision.
The tool known as the graduate research process tracking tool will enable the students select competent supervisors to supervise their research and it will also monitor their level of interaction so that they can complete their degrees within the stipulated time.
While commissioning the tool at the College of Design, Art and Technology, Dr Vincent Ssembatya, the director quality assurance, said the tool is meant to reduce the time graduate students spend in their courses.
“We have developed this tool because we have realized that there is a very low completion rate for all the students who enroll for graduate courses. When we register 600 at the beginning of the program, we realized that only 60 graduate in time,” he said.
He explained that whoever is interested in monitoring the student’s academic performance will be able to use the tool to understand the stage the student has reached as well as the level of engagement between the student and their supervisors because the system keeps reminding the students and supervisors the stage they have reached with the research and prompts them to move to the next stage using SMs alerts on phone, updates and e-mails.
The Swedish Ambassador to Uganda, Mr Urban Andersson hailed Makerere University for the role it has played in increasing the critical mass of PhDs and Master’s degrees in the country.
“Research creates new insights and answers. It provides solutions and forges boundaries by constantly posing questions and seeking understandings of upcoming complexities,” he said.
Speaking at the event Professor John Ddumba the University Vice Chancellor said the support from the Swedish government, has greatly contributed towards the visibility of the University in terms of continental rankings, especially where it currently commands the second position in the continent in terms of research and publications.
“ Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) support has contributed to enhancement of centers of excellence in waste management, health systems research and renewable energy among others,” he said.

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