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Overview of Sydney eLearning

Sydney eLearning is located in the Office of the Pro Vice-Chancellor (Learning and Teaching). The key aspects of the Initiative are:

Governance: The eLearning Governance Group reports directly to the Vice-Chancellor. It is responsible for the strategic direction of the eLearning at the University which sits in the Office of the Pro Vice-Chancellor (Learning and Teaching).

Working parties of the Governance Group deal with the operational issues of coordinating eLearning activities across the Colleges. These groups include:

  • the Faculty eLearning Representative working group
  • the eLearning Technologies Coordination group (made up of Faculty and ICT specialists)
  • the eLearning cluster groups

The activities of Sydney eLearning are governed by all Academic Board learning and teaching policies, and in particular by Quality Assurance and Learning Management Systems policy (PDF 131k).

The eLearning Strategic (PDF 35k) 2008 has been endorsed by the eLearning Governance Group.

The manager of Sydney eLearning is Dr Rob Ellis, the University's Director of eLearning. The eLearning operations manager is Colin Lowe. The Sydney eLearning Team comprises of a project manager for each of the four areas, who manage a dozen educational designers between them, and administrative staff. They provide support to over 35,000 student users and over 2,000 staff users.

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Quality Assurance for Sydney eLearning is provided through the Helpdesk and systematic testing of Unit of Study (UoS) websites. A helpdesk is provided five days a week from 8.00am-6.00pm for all enquiries related to the University Learning Management System (LMS). The helpdesk handles queries from staff related to the setup of the UoS websites, and also from students and staff regarding any maintainability queries that occur over the lifespan of the site.

University policy requires that all UoS websites undergo a technical check before they are used by students. This technical check, referred to as an Application to Activate (A2A), checks each site for technical robustness, navigability, adherence to University learning and teaching policies and other issues that may affect the ability of the Helpdesk to provide sustainable support to students and staff.

Academic development includes workshops for eLearning and lunchtime sessions.

Representatives for clusters of faculties have been appointed to coordinate some of the academic administration of strategic eLearning projects; in the Cluster of Sciences and Technology, in the Cluster of Health Sciences, and Dr Fran Waugh in the Cluster of Humanities and Social Sciences. Each Faculty has appointed a faculty representative who meets monthly with the Project manager for their cluster to achieve a better understanding of how eLearning is supporting learning, teaching and assessment in their faculties.

Sydney eLearning provides an annual allocation of approximately 4,000 hours of specialist support to each cluster for strategic eLearning projects. This allocation is prioritised through a discussion amongst faculties and Sydney eLearning over a period of six months, the year before the work commences. Any allocation is endorsed by the Deputy Provost before it commences.

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To seek to maintain a world-class service for eLearning, Sydney eLearning engages in international and national benchmarking relationships with appropriate partners. Since 2001, the University has had benchmarking relationships and alliances with the Open University, United Kingdom, the Australian National University, the University of Melbourne, and University College London. Outcomes of these relationships have led to the establishment and operations of Sydney eLearning.

Current alliances include those with Imperial College London, University College London, and the United Nations University in Tokyo. These alliances involve an exchange of visits, documents and ideas towards the quality assurance and management of eLearning appropriate for a campus-based, research intensive university.

Outcomes of Sydney eLearning

  • Enhancing the student learning experience through an appropriate use of ICT, active learning, extending discussions and building learning communities
  • Empowering staff to develop knowledge of innovative teaching approaches and resources
  • Improving faculty-level understanding about what it takes to make elearning a ubiquitous and sustainable part of professionalism in teaching
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