Australian Catholic University

From Re.ViCa

Australian Catholic University or ACU is the only public catholic university in Australia. It was created in 1991. This university has more than 13,000 students, and 6 campuses located in three different regions over Australia. It is affiliated with the Association of Commonwealth Universities.

The university offers different kinds of courses, undergraduate, postgraduate, research higher degrees, and short training courses; but they only offer online programs (40) for undergraduate and postgraduate.

They have different tools to help the students; some of them can be used for online learning and blended learning, e.g. the Blackboard tool (WebCT) and online library.

ACU has a special department for the staff called the Learning and Teaching Centre, to acquire the skills to teach online. In this department they have a program to teach their workers. This program includes five modules:

• Quick module: These teach the minimum knowledge of how to use the computer and basic software.
• Learning to use Blackboard.
• Teaching part 1: The teachers should do this module before learning online; in the module they study needs of online learners, designing learning activities and dealing with common problems.
• Assessment: This module covers the fundamentals of assessment and some specific issues to do with online assessment.
• Teaching part 2: This is taught when the teachers teach online for one semester. This module asks you to reflect on your teaching experience and continue to develop your skills and knowledge.

This university seeks become a strong university in eLearning, as it has a special department to educate its teachers; but it could use more tools for fully online teaching.

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