A leader in the use of educational technologies, the University of Technology, Sydney is again at the forefront with the development of new postgraduate courses for practitioners in the developing field of e-learning.

A masters degree, graduate certificate and graduate diploma in e-learning will begin at UTS in March. The courses recognise the emergence of electronic technologies as a revolutionary force in education across the corporate, education and community sectors.

Program Director, Dr Lynette Schaverien of the Faculty of Education, said the UTS courses, developed collaboratively with the Institute for Interactive Media and Learning, were ground breaking in providing an "authentic problem-oriented approach" to the study of e-learning.

"There is an explicit focus in these courses on the educational principles that must underpin e-learning developments if they are to succeed," Dr Schaverien said.

"All sectors have been quick to adopt e-learning as a technique, but little attention has been paid to the nature and processes of e-learning. Our students will be cast wherever possible as active e-learners, e-designers and e-teachers, conceiving and examining potentially viable solutions in real-world educational scenarios."

Dr Schaverien said students would be drawing on the considerable UTS experience in developing and providing successful e-learning initiatives. In October last year UTS became the first Australian university to win a prestigious international EDUCAUSE Award, receiving an honourable mention for "Systemic Progress in Teaching and Learning".

Dr Schaverien said the courses were an important step towards generating new doctoral research on learning in electronically mediated environments. "Designers and teachers are operating in a field that rapidly changes around them. We need second generation systems that are demonstrably better, and we won’t get them until we have a clearer understanding of how people learn in these environments."