Stewart Adam, Senior Lecturer in Marketing, RMIT BUSINESS, Melbourne stewarta@rmit.edu.au
David Wilson, Senior Lecturer, Department of Information Systems, Monash University, Melbourne david.wilson@is.monash.edu.au
Information age, learning organisations, intelligent organisations, intelligent enterprise, occupational excellence, life-long learning, core competencies, teaching and learning innovation, hypermedia, world wide web, stakeholders, marketing, case study, focus groups, interactive, Open Learning Australia, services marketing, computer managed learning, intellectual property.
This paper seeks to contribute to the increasing body of knowledge concerning the use of hypermedia, notably the World Wide Web (W3), in on-campus and off-campus / open learning situations. It is argued that facing global competition, Australian educational institutions recognise they are learning organisations where the focus is on developing and using intellectual resources. At issue, arising from global competition, technological convergence and funding cutbacks, is how Australian educational institutions can be involved in life-long education but with less available resources. Hypermedia usage features in the strategies of many such organisations. Have educators the will to learn to use the available technologies, and will students be satisifed with such technological solutions? In providing a part answer to these questions, the paper firstly presents selected findings from a qualitative study exploring business students perceptions of their educational needs. Secondly, selected findings are presented from a longitudinal study carried out among academics at tertiary level education organisations (University, and TAFE / VET / Polytechnics) in Australia and New Zealand on hypermedia use and intended use. Lastly, some issues arising from development of the first Open Learning Australia study unit delivered entirely over the W3 are discussed.