Sejahtera Academic Framework (SAF)

108 107 Instructors are empowered to have their classes in other suitable venues befitting the learning activities of the day. The alternative venue is one that fits the need of the learning experience (e.g., a gardening class meets in the garden, a site visit for one of the class meetings for an architecture class, a factory visit for an engineering class, a shopping centre visit for a consumer behaviour topic, etc). Team teaching should also become easier when the relevant information systems are made flexible. But to truly fulfill the spirit of SAF, team teaching means exactly that - team teaching, and not just a roster of lecturers going into a certain course presenting their own topics, without relating the part to others and to the students’ learning experience. That method of team teaching should not be implemented. Instead, team teaching is chosen as a way to deliver a course because students will benefit from the presence of the various lecturers - who will together as a team continue to be available to the students throughout the running of the course. Collaboration is not worked out only at the lecturers’ level - but is seen and experienced by the students in that course. Again, when flexibility is adopted as a specific guiding principle, unless absolutely necessary, rigid study plans should be phased out. As programme owners, lecturers, students and other staffaremore familiar with the concept of flexibility, is it expected that more elements will become flexible from time to time, leading to the next specific guiding principle - innovation. INNOVATION The reason to empower the different parties and to provide a flexible structure is to encourage innovation, including social innovation. Innovation is a new idea, method, product, etc. for a better outcome. Empowering the relevant parties and providing a flexible structure should give rise to more innovation. The innovation may be at the programme level, course level or even topic level. In a transdisciplinary world, innovation may also mean coming up with new areas of transdisciplinary studies, or new transdisciplinary research projects. We may develop novel niche areas, making IIUM a dynamic centre of excellence, truly leading the way. The innovationmay also be to the pedagogy or the assessment, even to the ways of communicating. Innovative instructors will not simply apply the knowledge and skills they have acquired, but will also come up with new ideas, first befitting the needs of their own students and then expanding this others, perhaps leading towards the improvement of the higher education ecosystem. Regardless of the form, the idea of innovation is to provide new ways or new solutions for a better learning experience for all parties leading to a better outcome for the students, and a more satisfactory educational experience for both students and instructors. The COVID19 pandemic and its ensuing disruption is a case in point on how the decision to empower the lecturers to decide on their online platforms and the flexibility given to them led to innovations in the pedagogical and also assessment methods, and how these may also lead to some innovations by the students in their own learning pathway. Some lecturers explored various platforms so as to improve their online social presence, and some created their own social media channels that went beyond the content domain of their subjects, much to the benefit of their students, and others who followed them. Innovation will lead to better problem-solving skills, and the existence of more out-of the-box solutions. Particularly from the research-based programmes, the impact of innovation is not confined to the students’ growth or the attainment of research patents, but being innovative is to be solving real-world problems facing humanity, providing the community with workable solutions, fulfilling our aim to become Raḥmatan lil- ʿ Ā lamīn. ACCOUNTABILITY All the three principles mentioned previously will only be able to fulfill their intended goals when there is accountability. Accountability is being responsible and able to justify the decisions made as one is empowered to make those decisions. E.g. When lecturers choose to use a certain pedagogical tool, they must also be held accountable for the success or failure of that tool. When lecturers decide to have a site visit as a way to enable students to see a certain manufacturing process being done, they also have to consider the logistics and safety issues, and be accountable for this. Being empowered, having the flexibility and being innovative should not mean doing as one pleases – instead it means being able to provide a learning experience that one deems the most appropriate for the students when all relevant factors are considered. One then is expected to be able to defend that decision, and provide evidence that it is not only implemented accordingly, but the impact is as intended. Lecturers are accountable for how they run their courses, students are accountable for their own academic progress and their decisions to participate in the many experiences as students of IIUM, programme owners are