ICE Institute dan Coursera

On Wednesday morning I met Prof. Paulina Panen, an old friend, in the lobby of the Unesa Rectorate Building. Prof. Paulin is a lecturer at UT (Open University) who is known as an expert in online learning. She was once the Dean of FKIP UT, Dean of FKIP Sampurna University, and Expert Staff at KemristekDikti. She came to Unesa to introduce the ICE Institute (Indonesia Cyber Learning Institute) and invited Unesa to join. As is customary for old friends who meet, we chatted freely, although only for a short while. Prof. Paulin explained about the ICE Institute, what it contains and where its development is headed. Hearing that, I asked if it would be like Coursera and she answered “yes”. Coursera is originally from Indonesia, that’s what she said. I supported the idea by giving some suggestions.

What is Coursera? We can find complete information on its website. Simply put, Coursera is similar to Tokopedia, Bukalapak, Beli-beli, OLX, Shoppy and the like. The merchandise is courses or training. The providers of the “goods” are well-known universities in various countries and top course providers as well as large industrial circles. Students or the general public can take courses or training through Coursera. If completed, participants will receive a kind of certificate. If the person concerned is studying, the results of the course or training with evidence of the certificate can be submitted to obtain recognition from the university where the person is studying. As usual, using the credit transfer or RPL (recognition of prior learning) route. It is said that Coursera guarantees the quality of the lectures and courses offered. So it is very likely to be easily recognized by other universities.

So if the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology asks universities to implement MBKM and students take a number of credits from other universities or the world of work, then Coursera has been offering that for several years. Are only students taking Coursera? Apparently not. Many people who are already working take courses or courses at Coursera to support their work. My son took a course on Qualitative Research to support his work. There are also people who take part just to learn about something. One of my son’s friends, a retiree, took training at Coursera because he learned about how solar cell panels work. So it’s not for college and also not for work.

Why do I support the development of the ICE Institute which is similar to Coursera? Because in my opinion, such a lecture or course pattern will be a trend in the future. Seen from the perspective of student interests, in that way students can easily get lectures from the desired experts with guaranteed quality. From the perspective of university management, it is also more efficient, because universities do not need to provide lecturers for all the courses required by students. I once gave an example, if Unair or Unesa or ITS students want to take a “deep” Islamic course and the experts are only at UIN Sunan Ampel, they go through the ICE Institute. On the other hand, if UIN students want to deepen their Physics courses and the lecturers for that are only at ITS, students can take it through the ICE Institute.

What’s the difference with what has happened so far. Isn’t there already MBKM and universities are required to accept students from outside their universities. It is said that Coursera does not just accept if there are universities, training institutions and industries that want to offer through Coursera. Investigations or other methods are carried out to ensure that what is offered meets the minimum quality specified. I dream that ICE Institute will also do the same, so that students or ordinary people who take courses or lectures get good quality services. Until now, what Coursera offers is only online lectures and courses. In fact, not all courses and lectures that require skills can be carried out online. Hopefully, in time, ICE Institute can also provide courses or lectures that also have skills. Hopefully.

Muchlas Samani