Re-desiging a University Teaching and Learning Web Site for Effective Online Staff Development

Meg O'Reilly, Teaching and Learning Centre, Southern Cross Univeristy, PO Box 157, Lismore, NSW 2480, Australia, moreilly@scu.edu.au

Allan Ellis, School of Social and Workplace Development, Southern Cross University, PO Box 157, Lismore, NSW 2480, Australia, aellis@scu.edu.au

Diane Newton, School of Social and Workplace Development, Southern Cross University, PO Box 157, Lismore, NSW 2480, Australia, dnewton@scu.edu.au

Keywords

Staff development, Web site design, Teaching and learning, Universities

Abstract

Universities were early adopters of Web technology in the early 90s. By the mid 90s many departments and centres had at least a home page or pages. Five years later the challenge for the managers of these Web sites is to provide a resource that contains comprehensive information that is well laid out and easy to navigate. Increasingly a Web site is becoming the first point of contact or "front door" to an organisation. Increasingly the status of an organisation is being judged by its Web site and what it communicates.

O'Reilly, Ellis and Newton (in press), recommend various resources and activities that effectively support online teaching and learning on a staff development web site. The Director of the Southern Cross University, Teaching and Learning Centre accepted these recommendations with the suggestion of adding current information on sources of project/grant funding.

It is the aim of this poster to show a new impetus for utilising publicly accessible aspects of the Teaching and LearningWeb site to enable staff to work more efficiently and effectively and to support students in their experience of online education.