Australia’s distance education industry is undergoing a huge surge but some still question and compare the value of an online degree with one achieved on campus.

Organisations such as Open Universities of Australia have been experiencing unprecedented levels of growth, with enrolments showing significant year-on-year increases. CEO Stuart Hamilton says the growth can be attributed to a change in social attitudes and time pressures in modern society.

“We’ve grown very strongly for the last three years, ever since 2005, so that’s a massive growth and it’s been year on year,” Mr Hamilton says.

“And postgraduate numbers in particular are going up very strongly as well as our undergraduate numbers.

“I think generally the growth’s been underpinned by the recognition that, what a good idea it is to do your further education online, while you’re in a job, while you’re raising a family rather than have to take time off to get that higher level qualification or upgrade in a particular skills area or change direction.”

But with an online degree, how do you know what kind of education you’re getting?

OUA claims that its broker-style system, which uses material from its partner universities, ensures that students emerge with the same qualifications as an on-campus degree.

“We’re in fact a not-for-profit company owned by seven Australian universities,” Mr Hamilton says.

“We don’t provide the course materials ourselves or the assessment ourselves or the qualifications.

“They are qualifications that come from those partner universities and it’s the quality of that material and the learning experience the students have that is key to our success.

“The key message we’ve got that I think has been the success of our model is that students end up with qualifications from ordinary Australian universities, good quality universities that are known for their, if you like, mainstream, on-campus experience.”

So what are the issues with delivering online education in this country and abroad and what technologies can enhance these learning experiences?

“Broadband access across Australia’s probably the most important one and that’s still not adequate in many parts of Australia, of course, so that remains a constraint on online education generally,” Mr Hamilton says.

“But in terms of using web 2.0 technology and in terms of making use of the sorts of social networking spaces … whether it’s the widely-known ones such as Facebook, or ones that are more focussed on the academic experience using YouTube and all those other capacities that the net has.

“Embedding that in rich, learning experiences for students is part of what our universities are beginning to do and with our support; we provide support to them to develop in new areas, to use those technologies for better learning.”