Page 239 - Universitas Terbuka Center of Excellence In Asia 2010 and The World 2020 (A Journey Towards a Leading Open and Distance Education Institution 1984-2008)

Offices, not from the students directly. To substitute this staff reduction from

Pus/aba, PELMA gets an additional academic staff. With this additional staff,
services through telephone, facsimile , and electronic mail are handled better.

All inquiries, consultation or cases received can be dealt with in the
same day. All cases unsolved by PELMA are to be handled by relevant units.

However, there is still lack of professional staff who are competent in giving
guidance in developing lesson plan and counseling at the beginning of

studies. Whereas, they should be assigned as well at PELMA and in every
Regional Office.

This service is effective to help students who have the time to deal with their
problems directly so that they can be taken care of quickly. This kind of

service is used by them to get their academic records. However, this service
is not effective to deal with the problems collectively because they vary and
take quite a long time to deal with , for collective cases, students are

suggested to use facilities such as electronic mails , telephones , facsimile , or

letters.
In dealing with the students' problems, PELMA works together under the
coordination of the Vice Rector of Student Affairs and the Bureau of Student

Academic Administration, Planning and Information System (so-called

BAAKRENSI) , which now becomes Bureau of Academic Administration ,
Planning and Monitoring (BAAPM) . Those units work together with relevant
units at UT, such as Examination Center, Learning Material Service Center,

Computer Center, and the Faculty and Post-Graduate Program. However, in

fact , there is a lot of time consumed to serve the students who come directly
so that the response sent by letter, facsimile , and telephones cannot be
handled well . For that reason , from 1999 a decision was made that letters

that relate to academic administration matters should be sent to BAAPM ,
while those related to academic matters are to be sent to relevant Faculties.

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