I met a man who works in the education faculty at Baghdad University, in the Department of Methodology, which is concerned with teaching methods and teacher training. They’re working on a project to film lectures from experts in given fields and archive the videos in the university libraries as an open educational resource.

So, for example, if a well known professor gives a lecture at Baghdad University, through the project it would also be available to students in Mustansariyah University and potentially others around the country.

Already there have been lectures from the US that were advertised in advance and streamed live on the internet so that students in Iraq could listen and also engage in discussion with the lecturer.

As well as participants, the project needs funding and help with technical equipment. Conceivably any subject could be involved – medicine, English literature, sciences, computing, at undergraduate or postgraduate level. Especially useful would be anything in which a lot of change has occurred in the last 13 years, during Iraq’s isolation.

If you’re interested and would like to participate in or help develop the project, please get in touch. If you’ve already contacted me about being part of the university twinning project then we could try and link the two.