23 November 2004
Open Learning Institute of TAFE and CAL join forces for digital future
Digital course material offers new business opportunities for Queensland education sector
The Open Learning Institute of TAFE Queensland (OLI) and Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) have signed an agreement to implement a partnership that will benefit OLI and its students, as well as CAL's members, authors, artists and publishers.
The agreement follows a successful trial of a ‘digital supply chain' which allowed OLI to access high quality learning resources for students in a practical and flexible way.
CAL and OLI will now expand the initiative by extending the range of content available for learning resources.
Queensland Department of Employment and Training deputy director-general Chris Robinson said, “The initiative will have a significant impact on the business processes of the Institute, the management of copyright, and the sale and use of learning materials.
“The initiative has enormous potential for improving education services in Queensland as well as providing market opportunities for Queensland 's education sector.
“More flexible management of copyright licensing in the education sector supports our goal of making Queensland the country's market leader in education exports,” said Mr Robinson.
Michael Fraser, CAL CEO, said, “The initiative offers OLI the opportunity to compile digital course materials by using different publishing sources. The approach allows for OLI and the publisher to have more flexibility with copyright licensing requirements.
“This opens up completely the range of content that can be used for learning resources,” said Michael Fraser.
The trial was successfully completed with content licensed and supplied by publisher, John Wiley & Sons Australia Ltd.
“The system is open to all publishers and CAL and OLI are speaking with a number of publishers to extend the range of content,” said Michael Fraser.
The Open Learning Institute is the first TAFE Institute in Australia to undertake this initiative.
How it works
The OLI and CAL Digital Course Material project uses the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) which is a system for identifying and facilitating the exchange of intellectual property in the digital environment.
DOI provides an identifier for content that allows anyone with an Internet connection to easily search and access information about the ‘object' or content.
Publishers can determine flexible licensing arrangements for individual content such as chapters of books or journal articles. OLI staff can then search and access the content to be compiled into digital course materials.
The DOI metadata records both the pricing and other terms of use of individual content and also the contents of each compilation of digital course materials under the scheme. This means all the reporting and accounting requirements institutions have to manage under the traditional approach are now streamlined.
As the copying and communication are not undertaken under the educational statutory licence, the price charged to students for the materials is not restricted to cost recovery, which opens up business opportunities for educational institutions.
The new licensing approach also gives educational institutions access to more content than currently available under the educational statutory licence.
The digital course materials can be printed and made available as a hard copy package printed in book quality or electronically.
A viable business opportunity for education
Chris Robinson said, “This is the first time a TAFE institute in Australia has provided digital course materials through this voluntary licence scheme. The project therefore needed to identify the implications for business processes involved in the development of learning resources.
“The project also worked through issues like security of digital files, aggregation and printing of books of readings, tracking usage and the process for payment to Copyright Agency Limited.
“OLI and CAL, with the assistance of publisher John Wiley & Sons Australia Ltd , have now shown the use of digital object identifiers provides a viable infrastructure for educational institutions,” said Chris Robinson.
Media contact:
Public Affairs Manager
Tel: 02 9394 7600
[news releases ] [what's new] [home]