In May 2000, NTU embarked on its most strategic initiative ever: campus-wide e-learning. The effort, known as edveNTUre, was spearheaded by the university's Centre for Educational Development (CED).

Industry Education Company Since 1955, Nanyang Technological University has enabled higher learning for Singaporean and overseas youth. It has a population of about 23,000 students, 1,300 professors and 3,000 non-academic staff. Employees Over 4,000 IT staff 68 Annual IT Budget S$3.5 million (US$2.2 million) for e-Learning services only

Within a span of four years, over 90 percent of NTU undergraduate courses were made available online. With Web page views typically surging to around 3.5 million hits per week during term time (as at July 2005), edveNTUre is a service that is heavily used by NTU students and professors.

NTU continued to refine and enhance the e-learning system over the last two years. In 2004, it rolled out an online project work management module, which provides a means to systematically document project work, both academic and non-academic--by undergraduate and postgraduate students. Documentation tools in the system also facilitate the management of intellectual property of the students, staff and community of intra-university and inter-university collaboration.

In February 2005, the university launched a mobile learning initiative called aNTUna Go Binder. The application is designed to emulate the physical file that students carry with them to classes, and allows teachers and students to be linked wirelessly anywhere in the world.

Similar to how data is synchronized to personal digital assistants, GoBinder enables students and professors to synchronize their course material in edveNTUre to their notebook or desktop computers, which they can then access even offline. The software also allows users to download course notes and add on their own, share notes with friends and search all available documents including tablet-PC handwritten notes.

The university has best practices when it comes to rolling out new IT initiatives. For IT project rollouts, a working committee of stakeholders will be tasked to develop the requirements, define system specifications, and perform testing. When the system has passed internal quality assurance, it is then launched to end users who are guided to use it through seminars and workshops.

"The process of due diligence in system specification, design and implementation is important and critical for success," said associate professor Daniel Tan, director of CED at NTU. "From experience, it is important that e-learning initiatives should be led by an academic staff familiar with IT, rather than an IT staff who might design systems and then expect professors to use it."

In line with NTU's lifelong learning vision, the institution also aims to go beyond connecting with those in school. It is currently working on a project that will make e-learning services available to its alumni members, as well as provide them an e-portfolio that includes archives of past project work.