Case study:'AusEd Inc' AusEd Inc is a not-for-profit private education organisation. It provides online education in Information Technology and Business to students anywhere in the world. The majority of their students are from outback areas of Australia, Papua New Guinea and the South Pacific Islands. AusEd is committed to learning. It sees its role as enabling students to 'be what they want to be'. By providing education programs through online learning, AusEd gives students the flexibility to study a university degree without the need to visit a campus. AusEd wants to engage and work in partnership with communities, industries and businesses. It seeks to provide multiple learning experiences and opportunities so to enrich the learning journey of its students. These learning opportunities assist in the development of discipline-specific skills and generic skills relevant to life-long learning. AusEd prides itself on being an inclusive provider, offering higher education to people who might not otherwise have the opportunity to experience it. To this end many of its students have their fees paid partially or fully by the Australian or New Zealand governments or by a government of one of the South Pacific countries. 1. Organisation 1.1 Legal status AusEd is registered in Australia as a not-for-profit corporation. This means that it must comply with obligations specified by the Australian Corporations Act (2001), particularly those pertaining to corporate governance and financial reporting. It is also registered as a non self-accrediting higher education provider. This means that it must satisfy educational standards defined by the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act (2011) and must report on its performance to the relevant government-appointed authority. 1.2 Activities 1.2.1 Online education Distance education programs at AusEd can be studied from anywhere in the World but typically in outback areas of Australia, Papua New Guinea and the South Pacific islands. AusEd students pursue their study programs through a variety of means including the use of special study centres, online discussion forums, electronic library resources, direct communication with lecturers, and by receiving study materials online or by post. 1.2.2 Education Programs AusEd's undergraduate and postgraduate programs provide students with a generic foundation to begin a career in information technology or business. Within these programs students study a total of 24 Bachelor-level or 16 Masters-level units which provide them with broad understanding and knowledge across a wide range of areas. In the information technology programs, core units provide a solid grounding in what the Australian Computer Society (ACS) calls the Core Body of Knowledge (CBoK) and, in what AusEd calls its Professional Pathway units, students specialise in one or more of the following areas; Network Engineering, Application Development or Database Management.In the business programs there are also core and professional pathway units allowing students to specialise in Accounting, Supply Chain Management or Occupational Health & Safety. Some students study for an double degree in both information technology and business. This requires them to complete a total of 36 Bachelor-level units. 1.3 Organisational Structure AusEd is organised into three divisions: Sales, Course Delivery, and Operations. The Sales division manages sales and marketing operations. The division is also responsible for management of agents and course promotion. The Course Delivery division is responsible for the development of course materials, teaching and assessment, and education administration. The Operations division manages all the core operations including accounting, human resource management and information systems. 1.4 Staff and Locations AusEd has approximately 2,000 (full time equivalent) students and approximately 100 staff more than half of whom work on a casual, part-time basis. 1.4.1 Executive Management, Operations and Education Administration AusEd's administrative head office is located in Darwin. This is where executive management is located along with staff in the Operations division and education administrators (ie. staff in the Course Delivery division not directly involved in teaching). 1.4.2 Sales and Marketing Sales and marketing is conducted from offices in Alice Springs, Pt Moresby and Suva. 1.4.3 Teaching staff Lecturers and other teaching staff work from campuses or home offices in most states of Australia and New Zealand. 1.4.4 Special Study Centres In addition to its various offices, AusEd maintains special study centres in Darwin, Alice Springs, Pt Moresby and Suva. These are hubs where students can come if they require support. The Centres give students a place to meet face-to-face with staff and colleagues, to form study groups and to access resources and technology. The Special Study Centres offer facilities such as: • Student computers and work stations. • Support staff to assist with academic enquiries. • Photocopying, scanning and printing facilities. • Multimedia meeting areas with state-of-the-art video conferencing facilities. • Tutorial meeting rooms available for study groups. • Wireless networking to enable connection of student devices and laptops to the Internet and AusEd systems. • Student social areas to engage with other students and staff. • Presentation areas available for information sessions and meetings.2. Strategic plan There are two elements to AusEd's strategic plan. The first is to increase income by diversifying sources of funding (ie. beyond existing sources such as Australia's AusAid and New Zealand's NZAid). In tactical terms this means; first, extending educational services to areas with poor and/or unreliable Internet connections; and second, improving reliability of student assessments. The second element of AusEd's strategic plan is to minimise the cost of non-core activities, particularly support operations (eg. accounting, staff recruitment) and technology development. As part of meeting this objective AusEd hopes, wherever practical, to utilise and participate in the development of open source software. 3. Information systems and technologies 3.1 Existing Systems At its head-office in Darwin, AusEd technical staff maintain an accounting system running proprietary MYOB software, a customer relationship management system using open source SugarCRM software, and an email system based on Microsoft Exchange Server 2007. Maintained externally for AusEd by Pacific Systems Pty Ltd in Dunedin, New Zealand, is a learning management system based on the open source Moodle system and a proprietary student management system called Banner. 3.2 Technology plan Following are technological developments which AusEd believes will assist to achieve its strategic objectives; 3.2.1 Project "Off-line Moodle" Develop an add-on to Moodle such that students can maintain on personal computers (running any of MS Windows, Mac OS or Linux Ubuntu operating systems) local databases of Moodle discussion forums (ie. a local database is always updatable and synced with a centralised database when an Internet connection is available) 3.2.2 Project "Photo Exam" Develop an add-on to Moodle such that students can complete exams on personal computers (running any of MS Windows, Mac OS or Linux Ubuntu operating systems) and be photographed at regular intervals by the computer's on-board camera. The photographs must include a reliable timestamp and be kept securely until transferred to a central location whenever an Internet connection is established. 3.2.3 Project "Accounting System Replacement" Stage 1: Analyse AusEd's requirements for an accounting system and produce necessary documentation. Stage 2: Review open source accounting systems, short-list and assess 3 to 5 possibilities, and implement the chosen system (perhaps after significant modification if such is considered necessary). Review the relative benefits of running the system on an in-house server and externally maintained server.