History
MSU-Iligan Institute of Technology is an autonomous campus of the MSU System, located in Iligan City. In line with its vision to be a world-class institution of higher learning, and its mission to provide quality education in Mindanao, the MSU-IIT Online Learning Environment (MOLE) was launched in 2002, using Moodle, a course management system from an open source. In the same year, the On-line Center started to conduct workshops for faculty to train them in the use of Moodle. There are now about twenty volunteer faculty members mostly from the College of Engineering, College of Science and Mathematics and College of Education, both in the graduate and undergraduate levels, who have supplemented their classroom instruction with online lessons.
A significant part of the Institute’s initiative on on-line learning was the research study undertaken by Dr. Fe I. Destura and Dr. Brigida Roscom on the “Benefits and Status of Distance Learning Centers in the Philippines, An Assessment Towards Developing a Distance Education Center at MSU-IIT.”The main objective was to have a comprehensive assessment of distance education centers operating in the Philippines vis-a vis some international distance education centers. Observation of Distance Learning Centers in the Philippines was undertaken in August 2003. Dr. Destura and MSU-IIT Chancellor Marcelo P. Salazar then personally observed on separate occasions the Distance Learning Center at the University of Texas, Panam, (UTPA) through contact persons, Raphia Maglinao and Nenita Eya, former faculty members of MSU-IIT, who were then teaching in Texas. As an offshoot of those travels and observations, former Director for the Center on Distance Learning (CDL), University of Texas PanAm, Douglas Young, paid MSU-IIT a visit to personally assess the Institute’s distance learning capability and potential as university collaborators. His assessment was favorable towards the establishment of a Center for Online Learning in MSU-Iligan Institute of Technology, which is envisioned to be the lead Institution for web-based learning in Mindanao.
Chancellor Salazar promptly created a task force of fifteen faculty members and staff from different colleges of the Institute to work out the establishment of an online learning center in the Institute However, only five of them persevered to carry out the gargantuan task; these are Dr Fe I. Destura, Dr. Brigida A. Roscom, Dr Rhodora S.N. Englis, Professor Esmar N. Sedurifa and Professor Cenie V. Malabanan. The group came up with a comprehensive proposal for the creation of an Institute’s Center for On-line Learning (COL), which was consequently approved and implemented through a Special Order by the Office of the Chancellor.Being very much a work in progress conceptually, financially, and physically, the Center for On-line Learning was further improved and developed. One of the enhancements done is to rename the Center into the MSU-IIT Center for eLearning (MICeL), which was officially launched on October 25, 2006. The countless brainstorms and combined hard work of the task force of volunteers, coupled with the constant support of the Chancellor, paved the way for MICeL’s initial furbishing and for the actual conduct of a series of TOL trainings to both graduate and undergraduate faculty since 2004 despite the very limited resources. Results of interviews before and after the TOL trainings, however, reveal the dire demand for continuous and more comprehensive training for teaching online. There is also the need for constant tutoring and monitoring of, and support to the trained faculty so that they will be encouraged to create and produce elearning modules.
