Using a “flipped classroom” in an online PhD programme

Abstract

Many young college and university lecturers working in remote rural areas or working in foreign countries away from home are deprived of the opportunity of pursuing post graduate university degrees because of a number of logistical problems such as distance from a university offering a PhD degree or restrictions in their temporary country of residence. These problems are compounded if there are connectivity problems such as low bandwidth Internet. This paper describes a programme designed by Sudan University of Science and Technology which issued a call for PhD supervisors from around the world. One supervisor from South Africa took up the challenge and implemented a “flipped classroom” model which worked well in constrained environments with low connectivity.