Varsity opens door wide for online students

By RICHARD PAMATATAU

Auckland University will spend big on IT next year so it can offer students more over the internet.

Its online learning site had 2.4 million hits last year, up a million over 2001, says internet statistics monitor Hitwise.

Projections are for more than 3 million hits this year, making it one of the busiest websites in the country.

Wayne Mackintosh, director of the university's Centre for Distance and Flexible Learning, said it was using a range of technologies to distribute learning material "irrespective of time and space", but would not reveal budget details.

The plan was to offer the university's 27,000 students everything from lecture notes to reading over the web. Not all course material was available electronically, but would be eventually, he said.

The core of the online learning system is called Cecil, which was beefed up this year with X440 servers from IBM running Intel's Xeon chip. John Askew, the IT systems and services external relationship manager, said online services included authentication and lecture notes, email and chat.

The university itself had the fourth-largest network in the country, he said, and a lot of growth was expected in the online area.

Auckland University has just spent $1.4 million with Dell for about 500 PCs for its "information commons", which students will use to access the internet and online course material.