Announcing the ISSMGE VIRTUAL UNIVERSITY, an open-access global educational initiative

The International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE) is pleased to announce the launch of its Virtual University (VU) Platform, a new part of ISSMGE’s cyber-infrastructure. The Virtual University is the outcome of President Charles Ng’s major educational priorities announced at his inaugural address in September 2017.

The objective of the Virtual University is to provide open-source, high quality technical and educational content that can be used by engineers of practice and graduate students initially all around the world, and it will be extended to undergraduate students at a later stage. The VU is based on the current OpenEdX platform which was developed by the Innovation and Development Committee chaired by Dimitrios Zekkos, with oversight from the Board. The Virtual University includes, free courses, webinars, as well as short educational videos.

The content of the Virtual University will continue to be updated through various initiatives of ISSMGE, and with the support of its Technical Committees, conference organizers and Member Societies.

Users can view directly any content without enrolling. By registering, users can track their course attendance history, participate in course discussions and receive notification about important updates on each course they are enrolled.

ISSMGE is currently working on the second phase of the VU platform that can support the delivery of homeworks and examinations, a capability that is expected to become available by the end of 2020.

The platform is available at http://virtualuniversity.issmge.org/ as well as through the Education tab on the main ISSMGE navigation bar.