FOCUS Platform as an Attempt to Increase Online Learning Quality

Yogyakarta, April 26th 2022─Gadjah Mada University’s Faculty of Social and Political Science (Fisipol) held a “Discussion and Fast Breaking Together” for six days starting from 18 April to 26 April 2022. The event was held in Fisipol UGM Mandiri Auditorium Room and invited several lecturers and the deanship in the department with different schedules every day. Before entering the main event which is to break the fast together, a new learning platform named FOCUS is discussed.

Fisipol Online Courses (FOCUS) is an online learning media that was formed with the objective of providing class access for students with an output in the form of scoring students’ performance. Students can directly choose from the options of courses and follow a series of materials in their entirety. In the Spring Semester of 2022, several courses and other activities organized by departments and units at Fisipol UGM have been tested on the FOCUS platform.

“Students can then individually customize when they want to access the reading material, when they wanted to read, and when they want to repeat the material that has been delivered by the lecturer which means that their pace does not depend on the situation in the classroom,” said Poppy Sulistyaning Winanti, Deputy Dean for UGM Academic and Student Affairs.

However, the implementation of this platform also raises concerns about the quality of learning that is not as good as face-to-face learning, learning loss, and loss of social interaction. Responding to this, the Dean of the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences UGM, Wawan Mas’udi, said that quality assurance would still be guaranteed even though FOCUS is used as the learning medium. The first few weeks of lectures will also be done in a face-to-face setting before switching to online schemes.

“So, we manage the classes with online logic without eliminating elements of social interaction and so on, whose ultimate goal is to strengthen academic quality in various ways, including giving lecturers more time to do activities outside of teaching,” he said.

Furthermore, in addition to improving the online learning process, the FOCUS platform also responds to complaints from lecturers who have been teaching too much due to the pandemic situation. Hopefully, this platform can be a solution that will improve the welfare of lecturers by not adding to the burden. It is also possible to increase the student quota if the application of FOCUS can be carried out well.

“If the situation is normal, the campus must become an arena for strong academic interaction between students and lecturers, but not all interactions must t be carried out in class as what happened before the pandemic, students can still study, group, and discuss using FOCUS,” said Wawan Mas ‘udi. (/WP)