©Commonwealth of Australia 1998

ISBN 0 642 23782 4

This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without permission from AusInfo. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction and rights should be addressed to the Manager, Legislative Services, AusInfo, GPO Box 84, Canberra ACT 2601.

The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs.

Overview

The paper describes and analyses trends in the use of communications and information technologies and the impact these have on the education sector as a whole, but particularly the higher education sector. These technologies can be used to address the changing demands within the sector:

• for more flexible learning;
  
• for extension of university services to national and international markets; and
  
• for more cost-effective delivery of higher education in an increasingly competitive environment.

The growing use of communications and information technologies in education is part of a wider technological revolution, evidenced in:

• the increasing use of computers and the Internet in Australia;
  
• the growth of the on-line economy within Australia;
  
• increasing competition in communications services; and
  
• the broader public policy environment regarding the learning society and the use of educational technology.

An International Perspective

The use of communications and information technologies may help Australian universities achieve competitive advantage in international markets because:

• these technologies offer Australian universities the means by which they can continue to compete in increasingly competitive overseas markets, with consequent benefits for Australia’s trade balance and with increased private contribution to the funding of the higher education system; and
  
• the further use and development of communications and information technologies can enhance Australia’s world leadership status in terms of innovation in distance education and open learning at the university level.

Benefits and Challenges

The increasing use of information/communications technologies in universities:

1. can allow more flexible access to university study, reducing barriers of time and place of study;
   
2. can enhance choice for students;
   
3. has the potential to enhance the quality of university teaching and research; and
   
4. has significant implications for Australian universities as overseas universities begin to offer courses globally and compete with Australian universities both within Australia and in Australia’s overseas markets, particularly at the postgraduate level.

While acknowledging these potential benefits, there are financial implications:

5. the introduction of educational technologies requires universities to make a significant investment in the establishment and maintenance of information technologies to support teaching, research and administration. These high investment costs may have implications for public funding as the Federal Government provides around 59 per cent of funding for universities;
6. at the same time, the use of information technology can mean significant savings in resources with a shift from physical to virtual resources (lecture halls and libraries to on-line services) and with a shift in the relative allocation of resources for course development and for teaching. These shifts will have implications for Commonwealth support for capital and infrastructure outlays;
7. student access to computers, computer software and use of the Internet is becoming an expectation in many courses. Student ownership or access to computers, software and Internet services will become a significant component of course costs in an increasing on-line study environment. The increasing use of communications and information technologies requires the establishment of an infrastructure that can allow students access to university on-line resources and networks such as AARNet. Telecommunications costs become a significant issue for students who are remote from the university. Who should bear these costs: universities, students or government?; and
8. the increasing digitisation of library collections and the consequent move to electronic publishing has meant greater public benefit through easier access to these resources. This shift from printed to electronic copies has significant implications for copyright and universities are already facing significant administrative complexity and anticipate rising costs for access to and use of these information resources.

Organisational Change

The high growth in graduate and professional studies at universities is increasing the demand for flexible and innovative approaches to learning in which information technology can play a crucial role. There is increasing support for the creative use of educational technologies by university teaching staff as they realise the benefits that communications and information technologies can bring.

The greater use of educational technologies will bring broader cultural changes to universities in a number of ways, including:

• student contact with lecturers and tutors is changing with the use of e-mail and computer based communication such as computer conferencing, with implications for student learning and staff workloads;
  
• the use of communications and information technologies in university teaching and learning changes traditional teaching roles through a new focus on teaching and learning teams and instructional designers; and
  
• changes in the way information is published and resourced—information services within universities will become more and more important.

How Universities May Use Information Technology

The use of educational technologies will not mean that all universities become the same or that they will be absorbed into ‘virtual university’ consortia. As argued in Yetton (1997), the use of information technologies should allow universities to differentiate themselves from each other. We can already see a number of scenarios unfolding:

• distance education providers using communications and information technologies to improve the level and immediacy of communication between students and staff and more flexible access to university information resources;
  
• on-campus providers using communications and information technologies to support their students with enhanced interactivity and choice in learning through access to Internet based information and improved course materials;
  
• universities using communications and information technologies to support programmes overseas;
  
• regional universities using communications and information technologies to extend beyond their traditional regional and State markets with the provision of specialised courses nationally and internationally; and
  
• universities adding a ‘virtual’ element to their current operations, with on-line course materials in particular faculties in addition to face to face lectures and tutorials or through consortium arrangements with other university providers.

Appendix

A number of case studies have been chosen to illustrate significant developments in the use of information technology in tertiary education, including some examples from the vocational education and training sector and tertiary private providers. The case studies have been chosen to illustrate how information technology can benefit higher education.

[Return to top] [Download Full Report]