SUMMARY:
Rony Darazi (Professor, Faculty of Engineering - TICKET Lab.) and Talar Atéchian (Associate Professor, Faculty of Engineering - TICKET Lab.) from Antoine University have landed a new project entitled: Well-being e-Learning (WeBel). It intends to promote health and well-being during online teaching and learning by implementing therapeutic education. WeBel is an Inter-University Scientific Collaboration Project backed by the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF) for 24 months. Antonine University will be carrying this project in partnership with the University of Avignon - France, Caddi Ayyad University - Morocco, and the French University of Egypt - Egypt.

CONTACT: Rony Darazi, rony.darazi@ua.edu.lb Talar Atéchian talar.atechian@ua.edu.lb

E-learning is undoubtedly the new trend in the region, as it is everywhere around the world. This change in educational methods was unexpectedly imposed on learners and teachers. Hence, both parties are in urgent need of support so they can become more resilient and capable of adapting to all changes.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “health promotion is the process of enabling people to increase control over their health and its determinants, and thereby improve their health”.

Additionally, therapeutic education for patients, as defined by WHO, is “intended to help patients acquire or maintain the skills they need to optimally manage living with a chronic disease”.

Moreover, WHO confirms, “Therapeutic patient education is therefore a continuous process, integrated in health care. It includes organized awareness, information, self-care learning and psychosocial support regarding the disease, prescribed treatment, care, hospital and other health care settings, organizational information, and behavior related to health and illness. It is designed to help patients and their families understand the disease and the treatment, cooperate with health care providers, live healthily, and maintain or improve their quality of life”. (January 1999)

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are currently focusing on assisting students during the learning process. Not only is this limited to the development of academic skills, but it also involves the integral human development of students by offering them a multidimensional follow-up including physical, social, emotional, and health follow-ups to ensure their well-being.

Unforeseen circumstances such as pandemics or cases of force majeure can place students in an isolated environment that is often unpleasant, making it difficult for HEIs to accompany them in the process of their integral development.

Therefore, this project aims to integrate a new dimension in the Learning Management System (LMS) related to promoting health and well-being. It will also offer personalized support to the main parties in the learning experience (learners and teachers), through techniques and advice so they may regulate their emotions and develop of resilience, based on therapeutic education.

This project intends, first and foremost, to introduce the concept of promoting health through targeting the main parties of the learning experience to create a sense of collective responsibility that is measurable to individual responsibility. Several intervention methods (social, environmental, etc.) were designed to promote health and quality of life for individuals. Their objective is to reduce the principal causes of disorders through prevention, and do not focus solely on the learning process. These methods will allow teachers and learners to take care of themselves while being aware of all the issues surrounding them. This way, they will be able to adapt to their E-learning environments while strengthening their integral development.