Poster on the first thoughts and current situation of the Master of Statistics (http://www.uhasselt.be/Master-of-statistics), as presented at Onderwijsdag UHasselt "Teaching in a digital age" (2014-03-21)

1. Facts & Figures
• International Master (2 years; 120 ECTS)
• Four specializations:
• Biostatistics, Bioinformatics, Epidemiology and Public Health Methodology , and
International Course Programme Biostatistics
• Educational design:
• Lectures, compulsory readings & homeworks, practice sessions, PBL, projects
• Assessment:
• Written and oral exams, essays, projects, presentations, MA Thesis, Internship
Challenges
• Living in Belgium is very expensive for participants from
economically developing coutries
• Limited number of participants receive a scholarship
• Current educational design not optimal for working students
Blended and Distance Programme: Master of Statistics
Transition from a regular Face2Face Master to Blended Education.
Possible solution:
Offer the MA as
Blended Education:
Online delivery of content, online
interations with teachers and peers
and some F2F components in the
educational design.
1. Current situation
2. Scenario of the transition
3. Considerations
Educational design
• Macro level: educational concept
• Specific learning outcomes, consistency with UHasselt’s vision on teaching and learning
• Meso level: the curriculum as a whole
• Curriculummapping
• Micro level: each of the individual courses and their teachers
Every described step implies conducting research
• Scientific educational research: e.g. learning efficiency, educational development, educational
technologies,…
• Desk research: e.g. study guides UHasselt, comparison of educational tools,…
• Consulting teachers and staff at CenStat to gain insights in their (support) needs, to assess their
openness to innovation, their implicit ideas about their course and its innovations,…
• Assessment: different possible scenarios:
• Students move to Hasselt once or twice a year to do their exams?
• Satellite institutions (local universities?) conduct exams and send them to Hasselt?
• Online examination forms?
• Technology: bandwith connection in developing countries?
• Interaction:
• peer-to-peer: facilitate contact and group work with local Hasselt students? How to let
students feel part of the group?
• Teacher–student: how to facilitate this contact?
• Course setup: teacher centred? student centred? content and learning materials centred?
• Tryout of the blended program? Ethical issue: can’t mess with someone’s chance of success
• Motivation: how to avoid high dropout rates? (Currently big challenge in open and online
education)
CenStat/I-Biostat
Stephanie Verbeken; Prof. Dr. Marc Aerts
Contact
CenStat, Centre For Statistics
Agoralaan Building D, 3590 Diepenbeek, Belgium
stephanie.verbeken@uhasselt.be; +32 (0)11 26 8257
marc.aerts@uhasselt.be; +32 (0)11 26 8247