QUT's Policy on Flexible Delivery

Background

QUT's Teaching and Learning Plan includes objectives which seek to provide learning opportunities and academic support for a diverse range of students, to provide courses of study which are flexible and consistent with best practice and which provide stimulating learning experiences making use of appropriate technology.

In the approval of courses QUT designates the approved mode of study for a course - whether full-time or part-time and whether internal or by distance or external mode. QUT only approves a course or units of a course for delivery in distance or external mode (that is for off-campus course delivery without regular physical attendance requirements) where that mode is appropriate to the course of study and it has institutional commitment of resource support.

Selecting the most appropriate learning environments for students in a unit or course is one of the most important functions of teaching. The planning of teaching methods requires congruence with course and unit aims and objectives, the promotion of desired approaches to learning by students and compatibility with the orientations and abilities of the individual academic and teaching teams.

Traditional teaching methods include lectures, staff led seminars and practical sessions in laboratories, individual study (often structured through work books), student peer mentor groups, and field trips.

Technological advances open up opportunities for adding newer and more innovative methods to the spoken lecture and the face-to-face seminar.

Students and potential students have increasingly high levels of expectation about the use of information technology in both delivery and their learning and greater diversity in the time and location of their learning experience. These can be facilitated by an increase in institutional initiatives in flexible delivery.

Definitions

Delivery modes refers to the means whereby teaching methods are implemented, focusing on the forms of communication used. In addition to the traditional delivery modes of lectures and seminars, delivery modes available through technology include audiovisual media (eg. print, audio- and video-tape), computer-based media (eg. hypertext, interactive multimedia and the internet) and teleconferencing media (eg. audioteleconferencing, audiographics).

Distance education mode refers to delivery off-campus where the student undertaking a program of study is not required to attend a QUT campus (or any other location) regularly. Distance education offerings must be accredited in accordance with existing procedures.

Flexible delivery refers to the use of a range of strategies and technologies to meet the diverse needs of students regarding the location and time of study. Flexible delivery is applicable to both internal and external students.

Issues affecting the consideration of Flexible Delivery Modes

• In unit and course design the inclusion of flexible delivery modes should depend on the approaches to learning which they support.

• Issues of student access and equity should be considered when contemplating changed modes of delivery.

• Flexible delivery options should seek to achieve student focused learning opportunities which add to existing traditional delivery methods.

• Technology supports rather than determines teaching methods.

• The inclusion of flexible delivery options demands good cooperative design processes.

• Staff development support is important in the expansion of the repertoire of delivery modes.

• The mix of delivery modes should be chosen according to available resources, including support from central support service areas.

• A consideration of flexible delivery modes does not attract distance education mode status to a course or unit and QUT does not seek major movement to distance education status for its undergraduate courses beyond those already accredited.

• A consideration of flexible delivery modes does not mean the abandonment of traditional delivery modes or provide an option for a student to elect to receive delivery via traditional methods or via alternate methods under flexible options.

• Teaching methods, including those covered by flexible delivery, should include a consideration of staff/student and student/student interaction.

• Consideration of flexible delivery should take account of the fact that it may not reduce expenditure on teaching and learning or reduce teaching loads.

Institutional support for and coordination of flexible delivery

QUT is committed to further development of flexible delivery to give effect to its Teaching and Learning objectives and encourages individual academics, teaching teams and course teams to continue the pursuit of suitable delivery methods in any consideration of unit and course teaching methods. QUT views this encouragement of flexible delivery as part of normal continuous improvement and evaluation which occurs at unit and course levels.

QUT seeks to add further support to these ongoing developments in flexible delivery through the inclusion of a more strategic and systematic approach to implementation and to that end will commit a dedicated resource allocation from existing teaching and learning resources at divisional, faculty and University levels to particular large scale initiatives which are proposed at Faculty level, have a capacity to impact favourably on large groups of students and which through evaluation and shared reflection allow for further enhancement in the future.