Increasing flexibility for staff development : modelling good practice at the University of Western Sydney

Crafting a quality online learning and teaching environment requires specialist skills and knowledge that can be achieved through well designed and engaging staff development activities. However, as many academic staff have busy workloads balancing the design of e-learning environments, teaching students, undertaking administrative tasks and pursuing research endeavours, engaging these staff in e-learning staff development activities is a challenge. Complexity is added to this scenario when academic staff are geographically dispersed across campuses and staff development programs are centrally provided. This paper describes the staff development approaches of a multi-campus university to engage academic staff in the development of their e-learning knowledge and skills.