Case Study 6: Distance Education - Technology and Lifelong Learning - Deakin University

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Deakin University was founded in 1974 in the Victorian rural city of Geelong, absorbing two colleges of advanced education in Geelong, the Gordon Institute of Technology and the State College of Victoria (Geelong). Deakin was reconstituted as the new Deakin University in 1992 following amalgamations with the Warrnambool Institute of Advanced Education and Victoria College.

In 1996, Deakin has a network of six campuses across Melbourne, capital city of the state of Victoria, and in the regional Victorian cities of Geelong and Warrnambool. It now has 25,000 students in the faculties of Arts, Education, Health and Behavioural Sciences, Management, and Science and Technology, plus a further 21,000 students in professional development programs offered by Deakin Australia in partnerships with government, industry and professional associations.

Deakin is committed to offering flexible study opportunities and courses are available on and off campus and through full and part time study or a combination of modes.

The University of Southern Queensland and Deakin University were selected as case study sites for the program strategy Distance Education. At Deakin, the focus was on use of technology in delivering distance education and on initiatives in lifelong learning undertaken by Deakin Australia in its partnerships, particularly with professional associations.

From its establishment in the 1970s, Deakin for its viability needed to become a substantial provider of distance education. It was university strategy to provide distance education with flexible delivery.

Deakin’s vision in 1996 is to be

a distinctive university acknowledged internationally for its imaginative, flexible and innovative approaches to working with its students, clients and communities in developing, sharing and applying knowledge and skills to create better educated and more just societies and a healthy and more sustainable world.

(Deakin University Strategic and Management Plans 1996, p. 1)

Technology

Deakin was recognised by the independently published Good Universities Guide as Australia’s University of the Year in 1995, on the basis of its use of new technologies, ‘turning the tools of the information age into tools of learning’, as a Press Release from Deakin University in 1995 described the award.

The Press Release continued:

The University of the Year award is recognition that Deakin has gone further than any other institution in promoting educational technology that is responsive to the needs of students. The authors of the Guide said this did not simply mean that Deakin had more or better computers than other universities. Rather, Deakin was the most imaginative and most responsive to all forms of learning technology including the telephone, fax, computer and modem, video-conference, courier, post and audio and video tape.

Deakin University Press Release 1995

Deakin’s good practice in this area is displayed in the software Deakin Interchange.

Deakin Interchange

Deakin Interchange uses computers, networks and point-and-click interfaces to get information to the hands of students and staff. It is a menu of software, automatically downloaded, providing graphical user interface tools, available to students with passwords, on or off campus, including students overseas.

Deakin students can use Deakin Interchange from campus terminals or from home or workplace with a modem. Around 7,000 students are linked through Deakin Interchange. It is a requirement in two programs in the Faculty of Management that students have access through Deakin Interchange.

Demand for remote access to Deakin Interchange is such that, in 1996, the University is grappling with physical capacity problems.

Students using Deakin Interchange can:

• communicate with lecturers to clarify issues, discuss progress and submit work;

• contact other students to communicate socially or academically, participate in small group discussion for learning purposes and find out about student activities;

• engage in academic discourse with others in Australia and elsewhere through newsgroups, academic discussion lists and electronic conference forums;

• search, retrieve and print from the library catalogues and online databases;

• place reserves on library books electronically; and

• search and retrieve resources from the Internet and World Wide Web.

Lifelong Learning

Deakin’s strategy from its earliest days in the 1970s has been to provide distance education with flexible delivery, offering continuing education, training and professional development to people already in the workforce.

Deakin Australia, the commercial subsidiary of Deakin University, designs, develops and delivers training programs for corporate, government and professional association clients, using academic staff from Deakin University and staff from other organisations. Programs are provided in the workplace or at home, in Australia or overseas. Deakin Australia has around 21,000 students each year, of whom around 7,000 are offshore.

Australian Society of Certified Practising Accountants - CPA Year

Deakin Australia has the contract to provide the CPA Year of professional development to members of the Australian Society of Certified Practising Accountants (ASCPA). At any time, 15,000 students are in the CPA Year.

Many accountants in Asia, particularly in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong, obtain their education qualifications in Australia. These students then need to undertake a program of professional development before obtaining full membership of their own professional associations. By arrangement with ASCPA, these accountants undertake the Australian CPA Year, and are admitted to membership of their own professional associations on the basis of their eligibility for CPA membership of ASCPA.

Deakin Australia delivers the CPA Year to 5,000 students in Asia, providing packages of course materials including print, audio and video tapes and computer disks for interactive learning and self assessment.

Strategy

Deakin University has a Vision, a Mission Statement, a Strategic Plan and a Teaching, Learning and Advanced Training Management Plan.

The Mission includes:

Deakin is committed to life-long education for all through innovative curricula and flexible learning strategies and to the continuing development of the professions in Australia and internationally; and

Its teaching and research are distinguished by its use of leading-edge technologies which promote intellectual inquiry and discourse in international academic networks.

Deakin University’s Strategic Plan 1995-97 includes an objective:

To provide innovative and flexible structures and curricula, course structures and delivery modes for all students of Deakin University and clients of Deakin Australia.

Strategies to support this objective include:

‘Internationalise’ all Deakin University course material; and

Structure the mode of delivery of course materials, teaching and student support so that students can undertake their chosen course through Deakin University regardless of their location.

The Strategic Plan includes a further objective:

To use cost-effective leading-edge technology wherever possible in the design, development and delivery of academic services for students and clients and for the general operation of the university.

Planning and Evaluation

Australia’s Committee for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (CQAHE) in its 1994 round focused on teaching and learning. Deakin was rated in the top band of Australia’s universities. CQAHE reported (1995, p. 74).

Following amalgamation and reorganisation, Deakin has emerged as a distance education university with a strong commitment to client service. It offers relevant content and flexible delivery in response to student needs. Effective quality assurance and improvement processes in teaching and learning are in place.

A strategic management and planning framework has been implemented in faculties and academic support units. This has emerged in the context of broad support among staff and students for the mission, structure and policy directions of the university.

(CQAHE 1995, p. 74)

In the Management Plan, the University reports (p. 27)

The traditional distinction between on-campus and off-campus teaching has been superseded by flexible course delivery. Deakin’s approach to flexible open-campus learning is one in which the place, time, modes and pace of study are determined as flexible responses to particular mixtures of the circumstances of the teacher and the learner, the subject matter and the learning context. University policy is that all new programs are to be developed in flexible delivery mode, not simply in either on-campus or off-campus modes. The new computer-based technologies and multimedia delivery techniques are being employed to ensure the quality, relevance and flexibility of all Deakin’s teaching programs. Already 65% of Deakin’s 46,000 students are studying in flexible learning modes and it is the University’s policy to extend this proportion.

In its submission in 1994 to CQAHE, Deakin said:

In 1994, 13% of units are available solely in on-campus mode, 54% are available in off-campus mode and 33% of units can be taken either in on-campus mode or off-campus mode with the same course material being provided to students irrespective of the delivery mode.

Benefits of the Strategy

Deakin’s use of new technologies, as displayed in the software Deakin Interchange:

• benefits both students and staff and the communication between the two;

• Deakin Interchange provides benefits in Australia and internationally by making Deakin’s distance education available and accessible; and

• Deakin Interchange is a model of good practice in the use of technology in delivering distance education that has wider application.

Deakin’s lifelong learning through Deakin Australia:

• benefits Deakin Australia’s partners in industry, government, professional associations and the professions by making continuing professional education available and accessible;

• benefits the workforce and the community in Australia and internationally through the availability and accessibility of continuing professional education;

• benefits workplace students in Australia through continuing professional education;

• benefits students internationally who have studied in Australia by facilitating the upgrading of their qualifications; and

• is a model of good practice internationally for the delivery of lifelong learning.

Distance Education - Technology and Lifelong Learning

Deakin University

Deakin University was founded in 1974 in the Victorian rural city of Geelong, absorbing two colleges of advanced education in Geelong, the Gordon Institute of Technology and the State College of Victoria (Geelong). Deakin was reconstituted as the new Deakin University in 1992 following amalgamations with the Warrnambool Institute of Advanced Education and Victoria College.

In 1996, Deakin has a network of six campuses across Melbourne, capital city of the state of Victoria, and in the regional Victorian cities of Geelong and Warrnambool. It now has 25,000 students in the faculties of Arts, Education, Health and Behavioural Sciences, Management, and Science and Technology, plus a further 21,000 students in professional development programs offered by Deakin Australia in partnerships with government, industry and professional associations.

Deakin is committed to offering flexible study opportunities and courses are available on and off campus and through full and part time study or a combination of modes.

The University of Southern Queensland and Deakin University were selected as case study sites for the program strategy Distance Education. At Deakin, the focus was on use of technology in delivering distance education and on initiatives in lifelong learning undertaken by Deakin Australia in its partnerships, particularly with professional associations.

From its establishment in the 1970s, Deakin for its viability needed to become a substantial provider of distance education. It was university strategy to provide distance education with flexible delivery.

Deakin’s vision in 1996 is to be

a distinctive university acknowledged internationally for its imaginative, flexible and innovative approaches to working with its students, clients and communities in developing, sharing and applying knowledge and skills to create better educated and more just societies and a healthy and more sustainable world.

(Deakin University Strategic and Management Plans 1996, p. 1)

Technology

Deakin was recognised by the independently published Good Universities Guide as Australia’s University of the Year in 1995, on the basis of its use of new technologies, ‘turning the tools of the information age into tools of learning’, as a Press Release from Deakin University in 1995 described the award.

The Press Release continued:

The University of the Year award is recognition that Deakin has gone further than any other institution in promoting educational technology that is responsive to the needs of students. The authors of the Guide said this did not simply mean that Deakin had more or better computers than other universities. Rather, Deakin was the most imaginative and most responsive to all forms of learning technology including the telephone, fax, computer and modem, video-conference, courier, post and audio and video tape.

Deakin University Press Release 1995

Deakin’s good practice in this area is displayed in the software Deakin Interchange.

Deakin Interchange

Deakin Interchange uses computers, networks and point-and-click interfaces to get information to the hands of students and staff. It is a menu of software, automatically downloaded, providing graphical user interface tools, available to students with passwords, on or off campus, including students overseas.

Deakin students can use Deakin Interchange from campus terminals or from home or workplace with a modem. Around 7,000 students are linked through Deakin Interchange. It is a requirement in two programs in the Faculty of Management that students have access through Deakin Interchange.

Demand for remote access to Deakin Interchange is such that, in 1996, the University is grappling with physical capacity problems.

Students using Deakin Interchange can:

• communicate with lecturers to clarify issues, discuss progress and submit work;

• contact other students to communicate socially or academically, participate in small group discussion for learning purposes and find out about student activities;

• engage in academic discourse with others in Australia and elsewhere through newsgroups, academic discussion lists and electronic conference forums;

• search, retrieve and print from the library catalogues and online databases;

• place reserves on library books electronically; and

• search and retrieve resources from the Internet and World Wide Web.

Lifelong Learning

Deakin’s strategy from its earliest days in the 1970s has been to provide distance education with flexible delivery, offering continuing education, training and professional development to people already in the workforce.

Deakin Australia, the commercial subsidiary of Deakin University, designs, develops and delivers training programs for corporate, government and professional association clients, using academic staff from Deakin University and staff from other organisations. Programs are provided in the workplace or at home, in Australia or overseas. Deakin Australia has around 21,000 students each year, of whom around 7,000 are offshore.

Australian Society of Certified Practising Accountants - CPA Year

Deakin Australia has the contract to provide the CPA Year of professional development to members of the Australian Society of Certified Practising Accountants (ASCPA). At any time, 15,000 students are in the CPA Year.

Many accountants in Asia, particularly in Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong, obtain their education qualifications in Australia. These students then need to undertake a program of professional development before obtaining full membership of their own professional associations. By arrangement with ASCPA, these accountants undertake the Australian CPA Year, and are admitted to membership of their own professional associations on the basis of their eligibility for CPA membership of ASCPA.

Deakin Australia delivers the CPA Year to 5,000 students in Asia, providing packages of course materials including print, audio and video tapes and computer disks for interactive learning and self assessment.

Strategy

Deakin University has a Vision, a Mission Statement, a Strategic Plan and a Teaching, Learning and Advanced Training Management Plan.

The Mission includes:

Deakin is committed to life-long education for all through innovative curricula and flexible learning strategies and to the continuing development of the professions in Australia and internationally; and

Its teaching and research are distinguished by its use of leading-edge technologies which promote intellectual inquiry and discourse in international academic networks.

Deakin University’s Strategic Plan 1995-97 includes an objective:

To provide innovative and flexible structures and curricula, course structures and delivery modes for all students of Deakin University and clients of Deakin Australia.

Strategies to support this objective include:

‘Internationalise’ all Deakin University course material; and

Structure the mode of delivery of course materials, teaching and student support so that students can undertake their chosen course through Deakin University regardless of their location.

The Strategic Plan includes a further objective:

To use cost-effective leading-edge technology wherever possible in the design, development and delivery of academic services for students and clients and for the general operation of the university.

Planning and Evaluation

Australia’s Committee for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (CQAHE) in its 1994 round focused on teaching and learning. Deakin was rated in the top band of Australia’s universities. CQAHE reported (1995, p. 74).

Following amalgamation and reorganisation, Deakin has emerged as a distance education university with a strong commitment to client service. It offers relevant content and flexible delivery in response to student needs. Effective quality assurance and improvement processes in teaching and learning are in place.

A strategic management and planning framework has been implemented in faculties and academic support units. This has emerged in the context of broad support among staff and students for the mission, structure and policy directions of the university.

CQAHE (1995, p. 74)

In the Management Plan, the University reports (p. 27)

The traditional distinction between on-campus and off-campus teaching has been superseded by flexible course delivery. Deakin’s approach to flexible open-campus learning is one in which the place, time, modes and pace of study are determined as flexible responses to particular mixtures of the circumstances of the teacher and the learner, the subject matter and the learning context. University policy is that all new programs are to be developed in flexible delivery mode, not simply in either on-campus or off-campus modes. The new computer-based technologies and multimedia delivery techniques are being employed to ensure the quality, relevance and flexibility of all Deakin’s teaching programs. Already 65% of Deakin’s 46,000 students are studying in flexible learning modes and it is the University’s policy to extend this proportion.

In its submission in 1994 to CQAHE, Deakin said:

In 1994, 13% of units are available solely in on-campus mode, 54% are available in off-campus mode and 33% of units can be taken either in on-campus mode or off-campus mode with the same course material being provided to students irrespective of the delivery mode.

Benefits of the Strategy

Deakin’s use of new technologies, as displayed in the software Deakin Interchange:

• benefits both students and staff and the communication between the two;

• Deakin Interchange provides benefits in Australia and internationally by making Deakin’s distance education available and accessible; and

• Deakin Interchange is a model of good practice in the use of technology in delivering distance education that has wider application.

Deakin’s lifelong learning through Deakin Australia:

• benefits Deakin Australia’s partners in industry, government, professional associations and the professions by making continuing professional education available and accessible;

• benefits the workforce and the community in Australia and internationally through the availability and accessibility of continuing professional education;

• benefits workplace students in Australia through continuing professional education;

• benefits students internationally who have studied in Australia by facilitating the upgrading of their qualifications; and

• is a model of good practice internationally for the delivery of lifelong learning.