By Segun Olugbile (Punch)

The Osun State University, Osogbo [Nigeria], has launched a virtual library and OpenCourseware that will enable its students and faculty members to have access to the lecture videos, notes and audio lessons of lecturers at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States of America.

The virtual library provides the latest books, journals and other library resources in electronic formats that can be accessed by users anywhere in the world. The OpenCourseware is a resource that is made up of lecturers’ notes and video/audio lessons that students can access to supplement face-to-face classroom and laboratory interactions.

The facility, which is ICT-driven, will allow students to go over their lectures at their convenience. It will also enhance their understanding of topics that they found difficult during normal lecture sessions.

The Chairman, Implementation Committee of the institution, Prof. Peter Okebukola, who confirmed this explained that the action was informed by the determination of the university to breed globally competitive graduates.

“One of our visions is to produce a Nobel Laureate in the first 25 years of this institution. So, we are determined to ensure that this vision is realised in record time through the deployment of the full potential of ICT to train our students and to expose our faculty members,” he said.

According to him, the development of the UNIOSUN Virtual Library will continue to be given priority as more content will be added to the library on a weekly basis to boost its modest take-off collections.

At the launch of the facility last week, Okebukola had disclosed that the virtual library had over 40,000 electronic books and journals inclusive of materials from the MIT OpenCourseware. Okebukola, however, added that the UNIOSUN OpenCourseware would be launched in January, next year.

He added that in preparation for the launch, faculty members of the institution would be assisted in digitising lecture materials with supporting video and audio files. Okebukola also said that the university was also taking steps to put the full profiles and academic publications of its staff online.

This, he said, was to ensure that UNIOSUN, though young, emerged among the top universities in the 2008 Webometric rankings of world universities.

The deployment of the courseware will make UNIOSUN the first university in the country to mount an OpenCouseware.