CQUni embraces Distance Ed innovation
Published on 02 March, 2010
CQUniversity is engaging with the DE Hub, a consortium of distance education universities (University of New England, Charles Sturt University, University of Southern Queensland and CQUniversity).
The DE Hub reaches out to a range of research communities to support policies and structures that are more flexible and relevant to community development in all aspects.
CQUniversity's Associate Professor Bobby Harreveld (right) welcomes Professor Asha Kanwar
Supporting the democratisation of knowledge, the research hub has established a presence on wikieducator http://wikieducator.org/DEHub and a range of links on http://delicious.com/dehub in the spirit of sharing, constructing and disseminating research that is key to the field of distance education and the priority research themes of learning and teaching, research and evaluation and community and open education resources.
This week, CQUniversity's Learning and Teaching Education Research Centre (LTERC*) hosted DE Hub Director Professor Belinda Tynan and Project Manager Dr Nathan Wise, both of UNE, along with an international distinguished visitor, Professor Asha Kanwar, for presentations and networking with key academics.
Vancouver-based Professor Kanwar is Vice-President of the Commonwealth of Learning (COL), an intergovernmental organisation created by Commonwealth Heads of Government to encourage the development and sharing of open learning/distance education knowledge, resources and technologies.
COL is helping developing nations improve access to quality education and training and Professor Kanwar's presentation described how open and distance learning can support development.
Professor Kanwar, Dr Wise, Professor Tynan and Associate Professor Bobby Harreveld * LTERC is concerned with identifying the underpinning research required to drive the teaching and learning at CQUniversity. The kind and direction of the underpinning research is determined largely by the contextual conditions that characterise CQUniversity, namely: cultural diversity, multiple sites and multi-modal delivery techniques.