An efficient strategy for development of flexible learning material

In recent times, there has been a proliferation of activity in the area of flexible learning for tertiary institutions. Some of the reasons for this interest are that: (1) students have more options as to when and how they will learn; (2) distance education is far more practical; (3) staff teaching time can be reduced substantially in the long term; and (4) the computer animation achievable through currently available multimedia tools can enable more effective learning of difficult concepts; etc. Despite the potential benefits, the percentage of academic staff actively pursuing development of flexible delivery units in their courses is small. The reason for this reluctance is the seemingly daunting amount of effort required to produce the necessary multimedia tools. The time required to become proficient in multimedia packages is in itself a major deterrent. This paper describes one methodology for surprisingly efficient development of flexible delivery materials. The key to the methodology is to perform the development in a sequence of stages. The stages are designed so that useful products are available at the completion of all stages, even the first one. The approach has been trialed at RMIT with very encouraging success-class contact time has been substantially reduced and students are happy about the changes.