An international association of Francophone or partially Francophone universities and a standard setter in international university cooperation, the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF) brings together more than 800 institutions in more than 100 countries on all continents. It works to support an area of scientific excellence that furthers the development of societies, and its ten regional offices direct its work in the field.
Bolstered by this international network and its regional roots, AUF’s Middle East Office (BMO) has defined four major action orientations for its 59 member institutions, spread across thirteen countries in the Middle East. These action orientations are to
- support the structural reform of university courses through pedagogical innovation
- support the necessary strengthening of universities’ research capabilities
- develop regional activities, especially through the support of university governance and the implementation of a quality approach
- consolidate its regional and international policy influence through its support for activities that develop Francophonie, while forcefully promoting the cultural and linguistic diversity specific to this region of the world.
The AUF’s Middle East Office – located in Beirut – supports regional AUF member universities in the cruicial modernisation process by promoting innovation, especially through courses and research. Pedagogical innovation through ICTs constitutes a major component of the BMO’s strategy. It has five Francophone digital campuses (CNF), which serve as the field relays for the Office’s projects in Alexandria, Damascus, Aleppo, Tripoli and Djibouti.
The CNFs form a vast network of more than 40 entities, all of which are privileged places for sharing and capitalising on experience. Consequently, this network is both a human-skills network and a physical network of facilities suited to their university setting, facilitating the structuring of the pedagogical and scientific offerings through the use of digital resources, exchanges, the implementation of inter-university projects, and support for innovative operational projects using the ICTEs. More information is available at the institutional website: www.auf.org
In order to further strengthen the university world’s appropriation of ICTEs, AUF signed an agreement in 2012 with the government of Tunisia to create the Institut de l’Ingénierie de la Connaissance et de la Formation à Distance (IFIC). IFIC adopted the following missions:
- help higher education institutions cope with the new challenges of education by helping them define their digital teaching policy
- offer universities a research space in the field of information and communication technologies in education (ICTE)
- organise an innovation space that favours the development and modernisation of education systems
- favour the integration of information systems in the university milieu
- encourage the development of a participatory approach to knowledge creation while respecting cultural and linguistic diversities
Relying on their solid expertise in ICTE, the BMO and IFIC are organising, in partnership with Senghor University, an international French-speaking university serving African development in Alexandria, a TedUX on innovative pedagogical practises on the occasion of the eleventh International Conference on ICTs applied to development, teaching and “E-Learning Africa” courses.
The TedUX taking place on May 26 at eLearning Africa 2016 will feature four participants who will address this theme from different points of view: the organisation of online communities, the contribution of robotics, and the impact of digital spaces and third-party locations on institutional support. The feedback as well as the conditions favouring the emergence of innovative pedagogical practises will constitute the common theme of the four presentations.
