Modules for teaching computer science and information technology developed at the UP-Ayala Technology Business Incubator (TBI) are now being used internationally.

“Currently, we have Portuguese and French translations, aside from English, and soon Bahasa. These modules are being adopted in the USA, Brazil, and France,” Prof. John Paul Petines said. Together with fellow Computer Science professor Rommel Feria, Petines leads the project to develop the modules. He is also a lecturer at the UP IT Training Center and faculty-in-charge of the UP Java Research Development Center (JRDC), which is located at the TBI.

Petines added that parties from Indonesia, Angola, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, and India have expressed interest in adopting the modules for teaching Java programming.

The modules are a result of the Java Education Development Initiative program, a collaborative project of Sun Microsystems Philippines, Sun USA, the UP JRDC, the Philippine Society of IT Educators (PSITE), and various groups from the industry sector. There are currently nine modules developed based on the requirements of the industry and standards set by Sun Microsystems USA and Philippines.

Petines said that Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy himself introduced the JEDI program during the JavaOne conference in the US in June 2005, making the program known among international organizations of Java developers.

The JEDI modules were officially launched in Brazil in October 2006, where they are now being used as part of a nationwide Java training program. The Brazilian Java development group is called DFJUG (www.dfjug.org), which reportedly has 10,300 members. In the Philippines, the JEDI modules were officially launched at the PSITE conference on February 24, 2005 in Cagayan de Oro.

“There’s still a strong demand for Java programmers locally and abroad and all we need to do is to produce enough to fill the demand. The Philippines used to just be among the ‘others’ that produced Java developers; now we’re in the top ten countries,” Petines said. The JEDI program started as a means to produce Java experts in the Philippines while meeting the programming requirements of local companies.

JEDI is a collaborative project that aims to make high-quality, industry-endorsed IT and Computer Science course material available for free to unversities and colleges in the Philippines. The course material is developed with input from the industry and conforms to international education standards and the requirements of the Commission on Higher Education. JEDI materials and resources are developed, used, and enhanced in a collaborative environment using java.net.
Petines reported that in the Philippines, the JEDI program has at least 160 partner schools, or 52,000 students, and 1,600 teachers utilizing the training modules.