Education online

Two institutions stand out in their online promotion of e-learning - the Auckland University of Technology and The Open Polytechnic.

AUTOnline has a list of about 30 courses, including economics, animal care, printing, pharmacology and freshwater ecology.

It explains the software used to deliver courses and students' comments on its effectiveness.

Best of all, there is a demo course in pharmacology that the curious can navigate to see how it all works.

There is a definite multimedia feel with .wav audio files for interviews, .mov movies, animated graphs, pdf documents, PowerPoint slideshows, quizzes and web links.

Open Mind Online is the online learning arm of The Open Polytechnic, which has more than 30,000 enrolments a year.

Open Mind Online uses an "off the shelf" software platform from Nexted. There is a demo of the generic product and a demo of a real paper called Economic Reasoning. A quick and easy registration is required to view them. This demo has more of a webpage feel than the AUTOnline offering.

There is a menu bar down the left-hand side of the page and bright, clear text broken up into blocks using different background colours. There are links to documents and other websites.

Both institutions' courses have information on assessment requirements, who the staff are and contacts for technical and content queries. In each there is a forum for students to discuss the subject with their fellows.

Of the two demo courses Open Mind Online shades AUTOnline for its web look and feel. Contentwise, pharmacology (AUTOnline) has information on Economic Reasoning, although that could reflect the choice of course used to demonstrate the technology.

Links

AUTOnline

Open Mind Online