Campus Wide Information Systems have just published 'Educational and Institutional Flexibility of Australian Educational Software', a viewpoint paper which I wrote with Barry O'Grady and Peter Mayall of Curtin Business School. The heart of the paper is the identification of these categories:
"Well-designed educational software can be a key enabler for flexible education, although embedding it at an institutional level brings its own demands for change management. Here
we define flexible educational software to mean applications that provide both educational and institutional flexibility. Educationally flexible software should enable educators to design and manage effective learning experiences and materials and provide an interface that is appropriate for educating. Meanwhile it should provide students with opportunities to learn at their convenience and provide an interface dedicated to learning. Institutionally flexible software should provide institutions and their developers with facilities to adapt and integrate the product with local administrative processes, IT platforms and teaching culture. It should also help universities to join effective federations and partnerships with other institutions, which requires adherence to open standards and tolerance of diverse coding languages and platforms, including those that are popular in other nations ... The three [Australian] educational software packages we introduce below each match our informal definitions of educationally and institutionally flexible educational software and provide solid support and training to domestic and international clients." (Shurville, O'Grady and Mayall, 2008, p 76-77).
The paper is part of a special issue on Australasian E-Learning which I co-edited with Professor Ken Fernstrom (University College of the Fraser Valley, British Columbia), Dr Michael Henderson (Monash) and Barry O’Grady (Curtin). The papers were sourced from ICICTE 2007.
Reference
"Searchin'.... for so long" - Change
Campus-Wide Information Systems is now indexed and abstracted in:
I am now program director of the business information management and the library and information management programs at the University of South Australia.The business information management suite of postgraduate programs have been developed to meet the needs of the 21st Century and are offered, together with associated applied research, to educate technically skilled:
The LIM program
Newly qualified librarians in the 21st century need to be familiar with standards and technologies for information management and also require mature capabilities to collaborate across allied professions, such as archives, information systems and records management, as well as the diverse cultures of business and public service. Ideally they will also bring experience from the workplace. Moreover, understandings of change and innovation management, human resource management, organizational learning and project management are becoming ‘table stakes’ for all knowledge workers. Hence, postgraduate education for librarians must augment the core curricula necessary for ALIA accreditation with key knowledge from multiple disciplines and also encourage networking and teamwork with fellow professionals. Further, due to the rate of change in processes and technologies, it should foster skills for lifelong learning and continuing professional development. The problem is that providing such a range of knowledge and experience is beyond the capability of a single institution. So, the collaborative capability that we seek to foster needs to be a fundamental part of designing, delivering and improving such educational offerings.
Collecting and managing information is increasingly vital in all areas of modern life: from small businesses and multinational organisations, to schools, universities, libraries and museums. Among the many professions that deal with information - record managers, archivists, librarians and information officers - the need for a new type of information manager has emerged!
The library and information management programs are designed to provide replacements for the current, Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA)-accredited programs currently offered by the School of Communication .
All courses will be available totally online, part-time or full-time depending on your circumstances. The choice is yours! To make the programs even more exciting some of the teaching staff are actual industry based lecturers who can bring real-world experiences to your studies.
The new programs provide a continuing path of learning from the Graduate Certificate in BIM (Library Management specialisation) through to a Graduate Diploma or Masters qualification in Library and Information Management.
There is an increase in interest for both the Business Information Management and the Library and Information Management programs from industry sectors. Employers and employees wanting to be retrained to meet industry requirements along with career minded employees.
Henk Eijkman and I are also running a symposium at the conference on the philosophy of educational technology. I hope to see lots of regulars at the conference and look forward to co-editing the Campus-Wide Information Systems special issue based upon it.
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* "Every night on sep'rate stars, before we go to sleep, we pray so breathlessly. Baby, please, don't take my hope away from me."
If you have not heard We Three sung by Patti Smith (or Bob Dylan), then do yourself a very big favour and buy Patti's Easter album then take out an hour or three to engage with a Rock N Roll poet at the top of her game. Finding the Dylan version takes a bit longer with a torrent search engine but as Stan Lee would say "it qualifies you as a true beliver".
