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Unisa scoops Nadeosa award
The National Association of Distance Education and Open Learning in South Africa (Nadeosa) has awarded Prof George Subotzky (Executive Director: Information & Strategic Analysis, DISA) and Dr Paul Prinsloo (Education Consultant: Directorate for Curriculum and Learning Development) with an Excellence Award for their development of a conceptual model for understanding and predicting student throughput and retention at Unisa.
The social-critical model developed by Prof Subotzky and Dr Prinsloo is the first such conceptual model in a distance education environment in a developing world context. The model and its implementation and refinement will considerably impact on enhancing the quality of teaching and learning at Unisa. As such, the model is an important and innovative initiative to define, inform, encourage, increase and sustain retention, throughput and active student participation.
The developed model is the result of a modelling task team which was formed to undertake the first step in the process. This team comprised Prof George Subotzky (DISA), Prof Chris Swanepoel (Department of Decision Sciences), Dr Paul Prinsloo (DCLD), Dr At van Schoor (Directorate for Counselling, Career & Academic Development) and Ms Hanneri Botha (Department of Information Communication Technology, ICT).
Since 2002, Nadeosa has promoted investment in the design and development of quality learning materials through a bi-annual Courseware Awards process. In recognition of the fact that in distance education and open learning quality courseware is only part of quality service, the new Nadeosa Executive Committee has decided to introduce a bi-annual Excellence Awards process that will offer recognition to both academics and administrative/management staff for their contribution to the development of systems and procedures that promote successful learning.
This year’s award was announced at a cocktail evening during the Nadeosa Conference on 17 and 18 August on the Sunnyside campus. | 
