Page 266 - Universitas Terbuka Center of Excellence In Asia 2010 and The World 2020 (A Journey Towards a Leading Open and Distance Education Institution 1984-2008)

services to remote areas in the country, even though these units were not
specified in the government regulation . Therefore, a gap should be found in the
regulation in order to establish units in regions. Eventually, it was agreed that

UT's regional units were equivalent to Technical Implementation Units (Unit

Pelaksana Teknis- UPT for short) .
Discussions were then directed toward the units' functions , their levels in
bureaucracy (echelon), and their proper name. It was agreed that the main task

of those units was to implement regulations and policies formulated by UT Head
Office .

The name of the units should be the same with the common name used for
UPT, that is, "unit". The term "center" or "institution" could not be used because

those terms were for higher level of bureaucracy. A Head of a center is echelon

2, and a Head of institution is echelon 1 b. The term "branch office" or
"representative" could not be used either because the term "branch" denotes part
of a university. So, the agreed name was Unit Program Be/ajar Jarak Jauh or

UPBJJ for short.
So, the term "UPBJJ" was decided according to bureaucratic organizational

structure, not according to UT's academic needs. In UT's academic concepts ,
UPBJJs should not be techn ical implementation units only, but also function as

Learning Resource Un its (Unit Sumber Be/ajar - USB). USB means more than
mere implementation of decisions. USB is center for academic and administrative

services which can help students solve their academic and adm inistrative
problems . Its academic domain should be wider because it is a students' learning

resource that provides library service, tutorial, counseling , internet, and of
course , academic administration services.

Changing the term UPBJJ into USB had never succeeded because it was
not accommodated in Government Regulation on Higher Education. But the

concept of USB continued to develop even though the name used was still

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