This Distance Learning Information and Support for Staff handbook is designed to help you to locate the resources available at the University of Otago to support distance course development, teaching and administration.

You may be developing a paper that has never been taught at a distance before, or maybe you are re-designing or maintaining a course that has been taught previously.

Which will I use?

Print material generally comprises a Course Administration Guide or Outline, providing details of how the paper is to be run, and often a set of readings.

Postgraduate courses often structure their teaching around mandatory or optional on-campus blocks or components, initially or subsequently supported by print, email, Blackboard, or other technologies.

The University provides videoconferencing services at the Dunedin, Christchurch, and Wellington campuses, and in the University of Otago Centre on Queen Street in Auckland.

Using audio conferencing for teaching and student support has a well-established history at Otago.

Online learning environments or Learning Management Systems (LMS) provide access to course materials, discussion forums, workshops, tests, surveys, simple blogs and wikis, and online assessment via the internet.

There is a range of options for hosting audio and video files for students to access.

The Otago Blogs and Otago Wikis services provide something a little more powerful than the simple Blackboard wikis and blogs.

ITS has eLearning consultants available to assist you!

As a distance educator, you are more likely to provide copies of materials for your students, since your students are less likely to be able to use library facilities on-site.

There are many web-based resources available to staff at Otago.

IT Training offers a number of excellent short courses.

In this section you’ll find resources and the names of some people who will help you as you start developing your course material and/or setting up or refining course administrative procedures.

The Higher Education Development Centre provides leadership in research, academic development and teaching.

Conducting assessment when your students are at a distance may pose a number of challenges.

Support is available in a range of areas.

The Distance Learning Office runs forums for academic/teaching staff and for administrative distance staff throughout the year. Sometimes we hold joint Forums rather than separate ones.

Across all Divisions and campuses, you will find colleagues with distance learning experience - much of it considerable!

Course/Programme administrators are responsible for the week-to-week support and management of distance students and papers.

As you are no doubt aware, the University of Otago has world-class libraries to support staff and students engaged in teaching, learning and research.

Services provided and/or supported by ITS are available to all staff.

eVision is the University’s Student Management System (SMS) and is supported by the Student Management Systems Support Office (SMSSO).

Marketing Services in the Division of External Engagement has overall responsibility for how and where the University promotes itself.

In the early days of distance education, after the hard work of course design and development, the start of a semester and the beginning of a course may have been an anti-climax.

The University offers a series of workshops for distance staff.

Distance supervision occurs when student and /or supervisors are separated, usually geographically, for any length of time.

There is a range of support services available to distance teaching staff.

In all regions of the world there are active professional associations of distance educators.

The Director of Distance Learning is always prepared to discuss potential research projects with interested staff.

What happens at Otago?

The Distance Learning Information and Support Handbook for Students - what is it?

There is an extensive body of literature related to theory, research, and practice in distance education.

According to Keegan (1996, p. 37), the terms “distance teaching” and “distance learning” are each only half of the process of distance education. When used in this handbook, the term “distance learning” refers to both the teaching and learning processes and is interchangeable with the term “distance education”.

The University has been active in the distance learning field since 1986, predominantly at postgraduate level.

To convert an existing campus-taught paper to a distance paper, your Department needs to submit a proposal to your Divisional Board.

Here are some terms that you may encounter as you read about distance learning.