Offices and Services

Admissions Office

The Admissions Office is responsible for processing and reviewing students’ applications and related documents. This includes assessing applications according to BIHE eligibility criteria for each degree, organizing and filing received documentation, consulting with prospective students when requested, referring prospective students to specific programs for additional information as needed, processing student registration, communicating with applicants about their application status, and responding to information requests.

Office of Administration

The Office of Administration is responsible for overseeing the implementation of the Institute's educational and disciplinary regulations in all of its educational programs, as well as ensuring timely updates and revisions to these regulations. In addition, the office is responsible for carrying out the decisions of the BIHE President and faculty deans and reporting to them.

The Office of Administration registers students, maintains student academic records in all degrees , controls the duration of study, records student probation and discontinuation, keeps records of withdrawn students, verifies enrollment and graduation, issues course codes, registers instructors and teaching assistants, manages all registration site users, maintains records, and updates data in all the above-mentioned areas.

Local Administrative Assistants

Given the exceptional circumstances in which BIHE operates, a part of its administrative affairs has been decentralized. Local administrative assistants are located in the provinces where students reside. The number of assistants depends on the number of students in each province. Local administrative assistants are selected from among the community members in each locality.

Prior to students’ admission, the local administrative assistants identify and annually update the list of high school graduates from their locality and assure that the applicants are legitimate. Furthermore, they receive applicants' transcripts and verify and upload them on a designated website for admission. They also guide applicants in submitting their online applications and provide advisory services to students, inform local applicants of admission related matters, and encourage them to apply for admission to BIHE. Moreover, they also follow up on cases where candidates do not respond to or view the correspondence regarding their admission. Lastly, they assist in conducting and supervising the entrance examinations in their localities when needed and upload the exam answer sheets on the exam section of the admission website. After the student's admission, these assistants function as advisors, facilitate the new students’ registration, support local students in the administrative processes, and maintain the functioning of a local library.

The local administrative assistant of BIHE is also in charge of the execution of in-person midterm and final exams according to the standard schedule throughout the country. The examination process requires extensive coordination with the Office of Administration in obtaining the questions, supervising students and proctors, and uploading completed examination sheets to the BIHE exam website. The local assistant is also in charge of finding a home of a Baháʼí friend in which to hold the exams on specified days and times, as well as selecting and training proctors.

Office of Information Technology

The Office of Information Technology leads the planning, design, implementation, and support of the information technology infrastructure upon which BIHE depends in carrying out its mission. This includes learning management and administrative systems used by all faculty, staff, and students. The office leads a number of institution-wide IT awareness and training initiatives to improve the effective use of information technology.

Research Ethics Committee

The Research Ethics Committee is a newly established committee which operates under the supervision of the BIHE Graduate Council. The committee was established to guarantee that the research/studies adhere to scientific standards including privacy protection for identifiable human data, informed consent and ethical guidelines for studies involving people, human tissues, and cells, and humane use of animals in research.

Learning and Teaching Enhancement Center

The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Center tries to enhance the quality of the teaching-learning process in BIHE. Its activities fall into four categories: training, evaluation, feedback, and strategic planning. It addresses the needs of both students and faculty members, either directly or indirectly through other parts of the institute such as President (Currently, the Executive Committee), departments, offices, and desks. Faculty deans and departments are also encouraged to be in a learning mode and have an enhancement-oriented attitude to be able to identify and disseminate their own good practices within their jurisdiction which might be revealed in responses to review reports and course questionnaires.

A few of its initiatives are listed below.

• Teaching Enhancement Training Program
  The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Center offers a modular training program for instructors and teaching assistants to exchange best practices, grow their skills, and discover innovative teaching and learning strategies. This modular program includes four short term modules each of one month duration. The first module is on higher education, the vision and mission of BIHE, and the teacher’s code of conduct. The second one includes teaching methods and classroom management. The third module is about distance education and online teaching strategies and techniques. The fourth module explores assessment and evaluation issues in higher education. This program is mandatory for all teaching assistants and optional for instructors.
• Educational Consultation
  Departments and faculties discuss their educational ideas and questions with the LTE Center. One common consultation is around online teaching and learning and how to empower students in online environments. This area also includes applying educational technologies and distance learning methods. Other common areas of consultation are designing new courses, revising old courses, assessing the maximum or minimum number of activities in a specific course, and suggesting how to change activities to increase students' motivation.
  Knowledge production and application is another discussion topic among departments, faculties, and the LTE Center. This area of learning contains questions about the process of delivery and evaluation of final these and how to increase research motivation or improve research quality. The LTE Center tries to help departments refine their goals and objectives and assists in the design of vocational training programs.
• Compiling Documents
  The LTE Center collects and provides documents for students and faculty, including guidelines and frameworks, on topics like academic honesty, credit hours, diverse forms of assessment, educationally effective feedback, and strategies for online classes.
• Preparing Forms and Checklists
  The LTE Center prepares various practical forms for teachers and departments, such as the syllabus format, a course structure form, instructor-TA tasks and responsibilities checklist, teachers-TA code of conduct, and course evaluation questionnaires. These forms and checklists help teachers in course planning and departments in course evaluation.
• Sharing Best Practices
  The LTE Center shares best practices with the body of BIHE, by gathering and analyzing information and experiences from departments and instructors, identifying other higher education institutions’ experiences that might be useful within BIHE, and applying recent advances in the field of higher education.