Page 267 - Universitas Terbuka Center of Excellence In Asia 2010 and The World 2020 (A Journey Towards a Leading Open and Distance Education Institution 1984-2008)

UPBJJ. Changing into USB was previously done by decentralizing some of

academic administration processes, then followed by authorization to recruit
students , administer tutorials , building mini library. It was planned that in time

USB could be equipped with computers to be used by students.
UT had done some pioneering projects to find an ideal model of USB. One

of them was USB and Student's Learning Center (Pos Be/ajar Mahasiswa- PBM) .
This model was established in Bandung , Semarang, Denpasar, Pontianak,

Medan , Manado, and Jayapura. This project was partly financed by the
cooperation among UT, Open Learning Agency (OLA), and CIDA Canada . In early

1987, the centralized service was changed into decentralized service . It means
that the tasks that were previously carried out by UT's Head Office were shifted

to UPBJJ. At that time, UT Rector started to use the term USB for UPBJJ
(Setijadi , 1992). At the same time, the Senate also discussed and formulated a

draft of Ministerial Decree on Distance Education to be submitted to the Minister
of National Education . It was mentioned in one article that the term UPBJJ

should be changed into USB. The draft was then became the Decree of Minister
of National Education No. 0564/U/1991 on Distance Higher Education. According

to Prof. Setijadi (1992), changing UPBJJ to USB was based on the decree. UT's
statute was then formulated based on the decree. In UT's statute No.

0470/)/1992, it was stated that UT had academic implementation components in
regions , that is, Unit Sumber Be/ajar (USB) .

UT's next development showed that the term USB was only use for several
years, because in the Decree of Minister of National Education No. 0168/0/1995,

article 83 on UT's Organization and Work System , the term UPBJJ was still used
instead of USB. At that time, the concept of USB continued to develop even

though the term used was UPBJJ. In this case, the decentralization of
registration that authorized to UPBJJ could speed up the process of registration

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