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6 February 2002, Singapore
To be an outstanding lecturer in a traditional classroom, you often have to manage the classroom well, stimulate classroom participation, and ensure that the students absorb the knowledge that you impart to them. If you think that this is an uphill task, imagine reproducing all these qualities in a virtual environment, where you never get to see your students face to face. One person who has done all this exceptionally well is Yvonne Ng, one of the winners of the "BEST Online Facilitator Award" in December on the PurpleTrain Award Ceremony. The "BEST Online Facilitator Award" is based on the feedback gathered from students and the measurement criteria includes interactivity, reliability, responsiveness to chat and discussion rooms, as well as compliance to e-learning governance and deadlines, amongst others. On her overwhelming popularity with the students, Yvonne shares her winning formula, "I broke up the class into small discussion units so that all students are actively engaged in the discussions. You have to respond to the students' queries promptly, so that they will not have to wait for a long time to clear their doubts. This is especially important in an online environment, as students will feel frustrated and discouraged when their queries are not attended to in time." Yvonne graduated with a BEng (Mech) from Nanyang Technological University and went on to pursue her MSc (Management of Technology) from National University of Singapore in 1998. Having worked in different organisations for the past 10 years, she has experience in Operations Research, Project Management, Knowledge Management, Technology Management, Business Information Systems and e-commerce. Yvonne has this to offer on her education philosophy: "The purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open one, which is all the more important since I'm facilitating the Master of Business Administration (MBA) by the University of Wales through e-learning with PurpleTrain.com. It is not the quantity but quality that counts." And her message to the students: "I would like to thank them for their active participation, encouragement and for being so great!" Alan Phua, Assistant Director, Academic at Informatics Global Higher Education, was delighted that Yvonne won the prestigious facilitator of the month award. He stressed the importance of the expanded role of academics in the traditional classroom mode of teaching and e-learning. "The private educational industry environment is increasingly competitive. To this end, academics are required to assist in more student counseling, as well as to adopt a more personalized approach in their roles as educationists, mentors, counselors, and role models with the intention to raise the level of academic service offered to students and in so doing assist the organization as a whole to reach a higher level of academic excellence," said Alan. "Yvonne's unwavering dedication to education is commendable and we will have no doubts in our mind that she is indeed a worthy winner of the award. We hoped that such encouragement by the Informatics and PurpleTrain management would spur greater ownership in the standards, performance, results and expanded roles of lecturers and facilitators. This will undoubtedly go a long way in providing students with a holistic educational experience." To find out more about MBA online, visit
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