Malaysia’s eLearning pioneer and advocate for online learning Prof Zoraini has died

SHAH ALAM - Malaysia eLearning pioneer and advocate, Professor Dr Zoraini Wati Abas has passed away at the age of 66, according to Centre for Academic Partnerships and Engagement (Cape)’s Facebook page.

"Remembering a great teacher: Like many who have taken to the noble -and often unrelenting- calling of education, Professor Dr Zoraini embodied passion for teaching and adapting to change.

"Her contributions to the education landscape in Malaysia and beyond are monumental, and it was a privilege for everyone at Cape to have worked with Professor Zoraini throughout the past years.

"May her soul rest in peace and our sincere condolences to her family and friends," the post said.

Dr Zoraini was a well-known online learning advocate and currently was a School of Distance Education Dean at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM).

Previously, she was an Academic and Education Technology deputy vice chancellor at Wawasan Open University in Penang.

During her time, Dr Zoraini had contributed many achievements to the nation's education system such as developing portals and also designed mobile learning projects in Open University Malaysia (OUM).

She trained a few hundred tutors and Self-Instructional Material (Sim) or module writers for OUM.

As for the learning portals, in 1996, Dr Zoraini came out with the School Online, Online Learning Interactive System (OLIS) in 1999 and also Virtual Education for Nursing Sciences (VeNUS) in 2002.

Prior to that, Dr Zoraini also was the consultant to the Malaysian Education Ministry, National Centre for e-Learning and Distance Education in Saudi Arabia and Telekom Malaysia.

Dr Zoraini was like no other to the media industry as she had about 800 articles published throughout her times as a columnist in The Star, New Straits Times and Utusan Malaysia.

In Southeast Asia, Dr Zoraini was like a gem as she was recognised as top two educators among 14 influential higher education leaders.

In 2014, the World Corporate Universities Congress even granted her the Education Leadership Award.