The New Normality in the Academic Field | Through Dr. Vladimir Biruk's eyes

Dr. Vladimir Biruk has been kind enough to share his view of LIGS University. Read his personal experience with LIGS and his academic colleagues and students. This is how studying at an online university can look like. 

Recently, November 26, 2021, was Black Friday, the worldwide pre-holiday hustle and bustle momentum. Each of us had an eventful day. That is not a briefing, but I want to show how the Academic realm, using the example of the American Online LIGS University, where I have the honor to be a professor and a member of the Dissertation Defense Commission, works in the New Normal and also on this day.

The attached photos were taken as a screenshot just in case for my memory. Then the idea came to explain this picture publicly since this is quite typical for the modern system of traditional, online, and hybrid education.

The screen shows one of the slides of the defense process.

The second screen is the final congratulation of the newly minted doctoral student with an excellent result. 

Everything happened online; despite the covered 19 zones of the World Time Zone Map. 

• Student Ph.D. Alfred Bass Sesay ​​from Minneapolis, Minnesota, defended his research work. The local time for the beginning of his defense is 7:00 am.

• Its thesis supervisor, Assistant Professor Catherine Muthu, is currently based in the Philippines; her actual time was 10:00 pm.

• One opponent, Professor George W. Alexander, from Los Angeles. His time was 5:00 am, and he had to wake up earlier.

• The second opponent was Professor Vladimir Biruk from Minsk and his time was 4:00 pm. 

• Committee secretary and moderator Michaela Petrasova from Prague, and her time was 2:00 pm.

• University administration located in Honolulu, Hawaii, 3:00 am was there.

• The photo also shows the student's family, which was not involved in the defense but can observe in a particular waiting room. All students and those who wanted to see the protection process can also connect. Therefore, all procedures for conducting protection have been carefully followed by the participants.

I think many of you will be close to and understand this example. Perhaps it will be instructive, and someone will be interested in our work and LIGS University.

A great deal of technical potential is needed for the system to work simultaneously and accurately across the entire earth, even with the help of ZOOM, LMS, Moodle, and other modern capabilities. It is crucial to support university staff, faculty, and students in their fields and improve their academic qualifications for MBA, DBA, and Ph.D.

Today, the academic system of the world competes with changes in the traditional education system, with the construction of a modern online and hybrid model. That requires prioritizing correctly, where the student is an investor and a partner developing his intellectual values. The task of the teacher and student is to transform the knowledge and skills needed for tomorrow’s practice. 

After all, LIGS University's mission is based on modern and efficient methods of progressive education - to provide high-quality MBA, MSc, DBA, and Ph.D. programs in multiple languages, using innovative delivery technologies for diverse students all over the world.