Page 205 - Open and Distance Education In Asia : Good Practice From AAOU Members

Asian Association of Open Universities (AAOU) 185

At present, the most interesting program study programs at UT, whereas the PRI-
from the ICE Institute is the scholarship from PTJJ, which was newly established in 2018,
Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, manages research specifically related to the
and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia field of open and distance learning and digital
with “Freedom Learning for All” tagline. This learning ecosystem.
scholarship enables students at universities
in Indonesia to choose and enrol in any free UT has a Research Master Plan (called RIP),
courses developed by well-known Indonesian which strategically guides the flagship
universities and other partner institutions. research topics for the next five years. With
RIP, it is expected that all research would
RESEARCH FINDINGS IN have direct and significant contributions to
THE LAST FIVE YEARS achieving UT’s vision. All research is fully
Like other universities in Indonesia, lecturers funded by either UT, the Ministry of Education,
at Universitas Terbuka are obliged to conduct Culture, Research, and Technology, or other
research. Research and Community Services financial sources through competitive-based
at UT is coordinated by UT’s Institute and assignment-based schemes. It is also
for Research and Community Service important to mention that several lecturers
(Lembaga Penelitian dan Pengabdian kepada also conduct research with personal funding.
Masyarakat, abbreviated as LPPM). This To illustrate UT’s commitment to research,
institution has two Research Centres: Centre every year UT allocates a significant research
of Scientific Research (Pusat Penelitian budget and for the past 5 years (2016-2020)
Keilmuan, or PPK), and Centre of Research and UT has allocated research budget of over
Innovation for Open and Distance Education IDR 80 billion. Table 4 presents the number
(Pusat Riset dan Inovasi Pendidikan Terbuka of research conducted by UT’s lecturers for
dan Jarak Jauh or PRI-PTJJ). The Centre of the past five years categorized by funding
Scientific Research manages research related resources, which shows that the number
to all fields of knowledge in all faculties and ranges from 250 to 430 titles.

Universitas Terbuka (UT)