Revolutionary education: Dr Attaur Rahman launches Pakistan’s first video book

The organic chemistry text book will be available free-of-charge


Our Correspondent June 20, 2016
The organic chemistry text book will be available free-of-charge. PHOTO: FILE

KARACHI: Prof Dr Attaur Rahman, patron-in-chief of University of Karachi’s (KU) International Centre for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS), has compiled Pakistan’s first organic chemistry video book that is completely without text.

A senior ICCBS official said that Dr Rahman, along with his associate Syeda Sadia Khatoon, compiled the book titled ‘Basic Principles of Organic Chemistry: A Compendium of Video Lectures’, which is the first video book of its kind in the country.

He said that the video book is arranged in the form of a standard text book but instead of having text, it contains video links to approximately 300 lectures by leading authorities from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale University and University of California.

Commenting on his novel contribution, Dr Rahman explained that the single biggest challenge to providing high quality education, particularly in the developing world, is the lack of high quality and well qualified faculty. To address this problem, he, along with Khatoon, prepared this book that can be a truly powerful tool to impart high quality education, he added. “This is the first video book of its kind and we hope that it will lead to a new trend that will transform the manner in which education is imparted in classrooms of the future,” he said, adding that the video book will be distributed free-of-charge.

French Nobel Laureate Prof Jean-Marie Lehn, in his foreword in the video book, said what is particularly useful about this effort is that the materials have been carefully screened by the authors to ensure quality and then organised to cover a broad range of topics. He added that the arrangement of the material in the format of a standard book, with chapters and sections containing the video links within them, should make it particularly attractive to users.

This compendium of 300 lectures should be a useful source of learning for organic chemistry students and it also represents a very valuable effort in line with the evolution of teaching and knowledge transfer methodologies, he added.

KU vice-chancellor Prof Dr Muhammad Qaiser and ICCBS director Prof Dr Iqbal Choudhary also congratulated Dr Rahman on the launch of his book.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 21st, 2016.

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