Online Teaching
and Learning

Professor Paul Ramsden,
Pro Vice-Chancellor (Teaching & Learning)

Welcome to this edition of Synergy, which focuses on developments in teaching and learning using online learning technologies.

Scholarly innovation is a fundamental quality of teaching and learning at The University of Sydney. An evidence-based approach to the use of information and communications technologies (ICT) ensures that academic imperatives drive the use of technology in learning.

In order to assist faculty with ICT initiatives in teaching and learning, the University adopted a centrally-supported e-learning platform (WebCT) in late 2000. Since then, we have worked to coordinate faculty and central efforts in the rollout of this platform. The goal has been to provide all staff members with a stable and well-supported set of learning tools to support student learning.

While our experience since 2000 has been successful, it has also revealed areas in which we need to integrate more closely the different contributions of each part of the University. Only a coordinated approach will enable us to maintain an effective and efficient service that encourages excellent learning outcomes.

In addition to supporting the teaching and learning needs of our staff and campus-based students, the University is increasingly aware of its obligations to its alumni and other postgraduate students who seek professional and lifelong learning opportunities. Drawing on the foundation provided by the faculties and the central infrastructure, strategic initiatives such as the Innovation and Technology in Education Ventures project are assisting colleges and faculties to identify and develop award programs that are highly sought after for professional and lifelong learning. These initiatives present important commercial opportunities as well as educational ones and re-emphasise the need to guarantee excellence.

I encourage you to read about the work of our colleagues in this edition of Synergy. I am sure that they would welcome your thoughts and questions. Remembering that, as Diana Laurillard says, ‘A university is defined by the quality of its academic conversations, not by the technologies that service them’, we need to maintain a lively dialogue about initiatives such as those discussed here. We should work together, applying the best available evidence, to develop our understanding of what it takes to create the highest quality student learning experiences using ICT.

Copyright ©2002 Institute for Teaching and Learning