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Virtual Open House Proves a Big Hit
 Hits
came from Belgium, Russia, China, and quite surprisingly Iran, along
with the thousands from Israel. The occasion was the first virtual
open house for an Israeli university.
Conducted as a synchronous Website by the University this past
April, the open house allowed visitors to click on a virtual tour of
the campus, ask a department head a question and receive an answer
within a few minutes, chat in any of several forums devoted to
specific topics, and hear video talks by the University’s President,
Rector, and Dean of Students. The options available enabled the
virtual visitor to learn more about requirements and student life
than was possible during the physical open houses conducted in the
past.
The response was so good that the University has left the site on
the Web:
http://24hours.haifa.ac.il/
 “There
was feeling of doing something pioneering, so there was pride in
what we accomplished,” said Dr. Tamar Almog, Head of the
University’s Unit for E-Learning, who conceived of the innovative
open house and took part in its operation.
The accomplishments were both in the appeal and utility of the site,
which led to twice as many applicants to the University compared to
a regular day, and in the upgrading of the University's “virtual
look.” The University’s engineering-oriented sister institution down
the road, the Technion, even inquired about the workings of the
site. Yoram, a commercial international site, expressed enthusiasm,
as well as a desire for a link to the open-house site. The
University’s Computing Division was responsible for the successful
technology.
Deputy Rector Prof. David Farragi, a statistician, kept track of the
statistics. The most popular forum had to do with the general B.A.
degree. The forums, as Almog explained, were filtered, but no chat
was deleted so far as she knows. The questions and answers posted on
the various forums, she added, remain on the site, as they can be
assembled to serve as FAQ (frequently asked questions) for future
“visitors.”
The most active hour of the day for forums was between 7 p.m. and 8
p.m. The Faculties of Law and Social Sciences received the most
inquiries. The most visitors online at the same time numbered 155.
The forums for each unit, Almog said, “formed a kind of community.
Students and potential students even answered one another, not just
the deans, department heads, and administrative assistants.”
She evinced the same tone of satisfaction in defining the event as
“an internal happening,” explaining that “academic and
administrative staff members got to know one another” during
pre-open house training sessions on how to conduct a forum. Many
stayed answering questions until late at night on the day of the
open house itself; others sent replies from their home computers.
“Even if the University did not recruit a single student,” she
continued, “we profited by coming together.” In the event, thousands
of registration kits were mailed out in response to requests by
potential applicants.
Almog, who holds the professional rank of Senior Teacher in the
Education Faculty, conducts a kind of forum for her students in the
courses she teaches that combine education and technology. She
provides her students with a complete class list, so that they can
email one another, as well as her. She gives them the option of
printing out articles and presentations at home or in their dorm
room that have to be read for the course.
The educator noted that the University now offers some 2,000
computer-aided courses at one level or another of technology, from
course readings to relevant movies to a limited but growing number
of courses devised entirely as online offerings. The last replaces
frontal lectures and enables students to learn by themselves from
recorded talks and other, Internet-based audio-visual aids.
The time was ripe, she felt, to offer the public a virtual open
house of the University. Surfers and visitors gained an impression
not only of the University itself but also of a computer-based
courses. Although Almog admits that it is difficult to quantify the
success of this pilot venture, as she referred to it, there seems
little question of her own satisfaction with the outcome.
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In
This Issue:
President’s Focus - Battling Unjust
Resolutions
Prof. Azy Barak’s SAHAR Offers a Vital
Virtual Shoulder to Those with Nowhere Else to Turn
University Joins War on Drugs,
Campaign Is Integral to Interdisciplinary Clinical Center’s Service
Kidma Project Helps Students Face Their Identities
University Will Not Be Silent in Face of UK
Boycott
Anat Liberman Is New External Relations
Head
Prof. Majid Al-Haj to Be New Dean of Research
Prof. Sophia Menache – New Dean of
Graduate Studies
Prof. Menachem Mor—Dean of Humanities
Virtual Open House Proves a Big Hit
Students Have an Address for Complaints:
Professor Schatzker, Their Ombudsman
Computer Science and Occupational Therapy
Team Up for Virtual Reality Conference
Student Develops Innovative Technology to Deal with Post-Traumatic
Stress
Giora Lehavi: His Job Is to Check on
Quality Management, and Other Standards
University’s Sports Teams Prove a Winner in
More Ways than One
Student Publishes His Road to Wisdom
Honors and Awards
Mother and Son—in utero—Studied Hebrew at University’s Summer Ulpan
University’s China Connection Continues
Unique Algorithm Enables Better Mobile
Wireless Communication
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