Exile Academy in Germany for Refugee Schollars from the Middle East

Greetings from the Australian National University in Canberra, where Dr Kader Konuk, Chair of Turkish Studies, Universität Duisburg-Essen, is speaking on "Scholars at Risk: Populism, Islamism, and the Current Flight of Academics to Europe". Dr Konuk outlined the erosion of academic freedom in parts of the world. She pointed out restrictions on academics in the USA during  1950s McCarthyism and recent cuts to climate change research. Dr Konuk then went back further to the 1930s and academics in exile from Nazi Germany.

Moving to the centerpiece of her message, Dr Konuk  outlined the history of secular universities in Turkey, after the founding of the republic in 1923. Turkey has had multiple military coups from 1960 to 1980, but the failed coup in 2016 has been followed by even tighter regulation of universities. Dr Konuk pointed out that in 1933, 40 exiled scholars from Germany were hired by Istanbul University, but today academic exiles from Turkey need help in Germany.

Dr Konuk's description of the treatment of academics by the state reminded me of the "Authorized Systematic Harassment" depicted by the 1978 dystopian TV series "1990". In the episode "Ordeal by Small Brown Envelope", the state used bureaucratic processes to implement relentless harassment of opponents.

For someone at an Australian university, where we take academic freedom as a given, this was a sobering talk. Dr Konuk asked us to examine the relationship between universities and the nation state. She applied for funding to start a forum to discuss academic freedom and to provide facilities for scholars in exile to be able to continue their work.

Associations for International Distance and Open Learning

Demiray (2015), nominates three organizations important to distance and open learning internationally and nine regionally. The go on to announce "UDEEEWANA" (United Distance Education for Eastern Europe, Western Asia and Northern Africa) as a new regional association. This seems to be a genuine attempt to start a new organisation, but it does not seem to have received much support so far. Perhaps this is too large and disparate a "region" for an organization.

International organizations:

1. Commonwealth of Learning (COL)
2. International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE)
3. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO)

Regional organizations (some of these I could not find links to):

1. African Distance Learning Association (ADLA)
2. African Council of distance education (ACDE)
3. Asian Association of Open Universities (AAOU)
4. Canadian Association for Distance Education (CADE)
5. European Association of Distance Teaching Universities (EADTU)
6. Open and Distance Learning Association of Australia (ODLAA)
7. Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization Regional Open Learning Center (SEAMOLEC)
8. United States Distance Learning Association (USDLA)
9. Brazilian Association for Distance Education (ABED)

Also I found the "The Open Education Consortium". This has listed as an Australian member the "People's Open Access Education Initiative: Peoples-uni" which is odd, as it is UK based and does not appear to be registered as a University in Australia. Other members are more mainstream: University of Southern Queensland, Swinburne University of Technology, and Deakin Digital.

Reference

DEMIRAY, U. (2015). WITHIN WESTERNIZATION MOBILITY OF THE DISTANCE EDUCATION FOR A CASE OF UDEEEWANA: Adaptations, Challenges, Limitations and New Sustainable Innovations. Retrieved from http://i.glokalde.com/pdf/issues/2/Article1.pdf

Database of Computer Engineering Education in Turkey

Greetings from the 10th International Conference on Computer Science & Education (ICCSE 2015) at Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge (UK). Denix Dai from Ataturk University is demonstrating a database of computer engineering education in Turkey. The database has details of facility staff, as well as courses. This has Curriculum Review, Curriculum Statistics, Course Analysis, Course Statistics.