University of Australia Online: a vision for a better educated Australia

It's not just about enrolling overseas students online, as welcome as those export dollars will be.

It's about Australia leveraging its advantages in distance education and software design into a new high value industry.

Australia has several comparative advantages in designing and delivering online education:

• we are the world leader in distance education;
• we have a reputation for offering high quality education services;
• we have the advantage of speaking English;
• we have many citizens who speak other languages; and
• we have excellent skills at software and multimedia design.

A key part of the Content Development Program will be to encourage collaboration between universities and to encourage participation by private-sector companies in individual projects similar to the operation of Cooperative Research Centres.

The intellectual property created and the revenue earned will be shared. To gain access to the new Commonwealth funding, universities must agree to allow the UAO to offer the units they participate in developing to other eligible students – with royalties flowing back to the creators.

This will ensure the UAO will offer students a wide range of high-quality Australian online courses.

This approach will encourage both collaboration and competition between universities to develop high-quality units and courses and will ensure that there is always pressure to keep the online units up to date in both content and design.

The UAO will play a key role in improving access to the education and skills needed by Australians in the next decade and beyond, as well as helping to broaden educational opportunities for the social and cultural benefits they bring to individuals and the nation.