Exploring Flexible e-Learning Options in a Postgraduate Project Management Course

An e-learning development project has recently been piloted in a taught postgraduate course in the Faculty of Engineering at The University of Auckland, New Zealand. This paper describes the first stage of course design, the collaborative development approach, and early results of the project from the perspectives of the teaching team and the learning designers. We interpret these results using dimensions of "teaching presence" derived from the Community of Inquiry (Col) framework. This yields a rich portrayal of the educational change processes involved when integrating e-learning in tertiary teaching. The main finding was that the process of innovating, and the introduction of flexible learning opportunities, led to increased student engagement, sometimes in unexpected ways but with positive learning outcomes. These results inform current planning and development of further e-learning initiatives for this and other courses in the Master of Engineering Studies programme. The findings may be generalised to similar postgraduate courses in professional, applied disciplines (such as Business) where flexible or distance learning supports the up-skilling of professionals in industry.