Australia

Most Australian universities developed substantial capability in distance learning in the 1980s and several have now migrated this to e-learning.

Perhaps the best known is the University of Southern Queensland.

There is a service provider called NextEd who operates globally and in particular supported the GUA.

Partners situated in Australia

None. However, a member of the Advisory Committee is based in Australia.

Higher education

Universities in Australia

Australia has 38 universities that are members of Universities Australia, the Australian analogue of Universities UK.

References

Australia is a country occupying a whole continent in the southern hemisphere of considerable relevance to UK policy in education.

Australia - general

Australia has a population of 20 million according to the CIA Factbook. It is a Commonwealth country with many links to the UK - many people and ideas in education flow to and fro between the countries, and this is true also in e-learning.

As it is a country much larger than any of the home nations of the UK other than England, it could be argued that the relevance of Australia is mainly to England, yet since it has a states structure as well the relevance is wider, in fact to all home nations.

Australia has six states, plus two major mainland territories and several minor territories including islands. The states are New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, and Western Australia. The two major mainland territories are the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory (ACT).

The population of the four largest states is as follows:

• New South Wales: 6,927 million
• Victoria: 5.2 million
• Queensland: 4.2 million
• South Australia: 1.5 million
• Western Australia: 2.1 million

(All other states and territories have populations each well under .5 million.)

Thus each of the smaller UK home nations can find useful analogues in that list.

Australia - benchmarking

There has been interest in benchmarking in Australia on two fronts:

• a long strand of development and piloting of the ACODE scheme
• an impending pilot of eMM by around six institutions

Although the ACODE scheme is a distinct scheme, it has several similarities with the Pick&Mix style of benchmarking - and in fact Professor Paul Bacsich was the external advisor to the scheme. There are interesting differences, including a stronger focus in ACODE on IT and the use in some cases of sub-criteria.

Regarding eMM use in Australia, the decision to do this was approved at the Business Meeting of the Australasian Council on Open, Distance and e-Learning (ACODE) held on Friday 4 May 2007 - see the Report of the Business Meeting which notes

ACODE Executive has agreed to fund a Research Proposal from Stephen Marshall and Geoff Mitchell. (E-learning Maturity Model

Stephen spoke briefly about the commencement of the project and has put out the call via an expression of interest for members to participate. Participation will require approximately one week’s worth of work over the time (which is not funded).

A more detailed message will go out to the people who expressed interest in order to formalise their participation so they can get support from their Manager, and establish relationships so members can participate and look forward. Members were encouraged to speak to Stephen during the workshop or get in touch on email.