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World class IT infrastructure aids implementing MUM degree programmes in South Africa and globally
by Global Good News staff writer

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3 March 2010

Under a recent agreement, students at Maharishi Invincibility Institute (MII) in Johannesburg, South Africa can enroll in degree programmes in Business Administration (BA and MBA) at Maharishi University of Management (MUM) in the US. The partnered universities will be utilizing a special IT infrastructure to 'package' the academic curriculum and facilitate administrative tasks.

Please also see previous Global Good News articles presenting an introduction to the collaboration between MII and MUM, and detailing the multi-phase degree programme being offered by the two universities.

University in a Box
By the end of 2010, the packaged curriculum for the BA and MBA at MII, called 'University in a Box', will include 10 courses written by MUM faculty and 10 written by MII with support from MUM faculty. 'In addition to these 20 courses, another 30 will be packaged by the end of next year,' reported Dr Taddy Blecher, Director of Education for the Global Country of World Peace in South Africa, on Maharishi Global Family Chat.* At that point, he said, all courses for the pre-university programme, BA, MBA, and electives will be fully packaged.

University Out of the Box
A second aspect of the IT infrastructure, called 'University Out of the Box', allows for the 'unpacking' of the MUM curriculum anywhere in the world. This can be done simply by shipping a hard drive with information on training faculty, running classes, timetables, student manuals, policies and procedures, and more.

World class IT support
Furthermore, the world class IT infrastructure will allow for all administrative and communication work at the university to be done electronically. It will contain a learning management system where students can register, write exams, participate in discussion forums, and check their grades. Also, the software will help run the campus in ways such as marketing, handling alumni inquiries, sending materials to students, managing finances, printing out transcripts for students, and high level analysis of students' performance rates. In terms of communication, the infrastructure will assign each student a lifelong email account with MUM and MII (or additional partner universities in the future), from which the students can receive bulk emails. The communication software can also send text messages to students' cell phones.

'This is a very exciting development for South Africa and the world—that this high quality IT support is facilitating the offering of MUM degree programmes,' said Dr Blecher. 'With this IT infrastructure, we can now implement MUM curriculum easily and systematically anywhere in the world, so that all students can benefit from Consciousness-Based Education.'

* Dr Blecher's report was featured on the 27 February 2010 Maharishi Global Family Chat, broadcast daily via Internet webcast on the Maharishi Channel, Channel 3. Podcasts of the daily Global Family Chat (audio track) are also now available for automatic download, via an RSS feed.

© Copyright 2010 Global Good News^®

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