QUT joins online outsource strategy

Queensland University of Technology has joined the trend to outsource the delivery of online education.

Queensland University vice-chancellor Margaret Sheil

Queensland University of Technology has joined the trend to outsource the delivery of online education as it moves quickly to expand its range of online courses for the postgraduate market.

QUT has engaged OES — an Australian company majority-owned by Seek — to build, market and deliver online courses in health management, project management, public health, financial planning and education.

The first courses will be ready to enrol students next January, with more being rolled out during the year.

They will include graduate certificates, diplomas and masters degrees.

QUT vice-chancellor Margaret Sheil said the advantage of using an online program manager (commonly abbreviated to OPM in the education industry) was the time saved in creating new courses. She said that the online courses were not being outsourced to save money.

“It’s speed to market and sourcing of expertise,” she said.

“An OPM is a quicker route to get online faster, with more capability. You wouldn’t necessarily do it to save money.”

Under the agreement, OES offers a so-called “white-labelled solution” in which it provides the courses to students, but the courses are branded as QUT’s.

While academics from QUT control the curriculum and determine the content of the courses, OES will use its learning designers to create them. It will handle marketing of the new courses and deliver them from its platform. OES will also initially supply the tutors to offer learning support to students.

OPMs were pioneered in the US but are becoming more popular in Australia.

Earlier this year the University of NSW signed up with US firm Keypath Education to provide 10 to 15 of its online courses, joining four other Australian universities which were already Keypath partners.

OES also provides online courses for Swinburne University (which is its minority shareholder) and Western Sydney University.

The new online postgraduate courses represent a major expansion into new markets for QUT.

Professor Sheil said there were 20,000 students in Queensland who had enrolled in online courses in other states in the past 12 months, and they were an opportunity for QUT.

She said research had shown that online students had a preference for a university in their geographical area: “There’s a place-based element to studying online.”

She said that online education worked well for postgraduate students.

“For undergraduates fresh out of school, the on-campus or blended (learning) experience is more important,” Professor Sheil said.

“But as you get more time-poor, and you’ve already acquired those social and working with others type skills, then online becomes more viable.”

The university has created a new position for a pro vice-chancellor (digital learning) who will lead its digital learning and teaching area.