Digital directions: widening the educational net for information professionals

Abstract

Facing changes to the funding base for higher education and threats of competition from outside the Library and Information Studies sector, staff in the Department of Information Management and Library Studies at RMIT sought not simply to redesign some of its core programs but also to reposition itself for participation in an increasingly commercial environment. It designed new programs in document man-agement at both graduate and under-graduate level. Embracing the fields of digital documents, workflow and knowledge management, two of these programs, the Graduate Diploma in Document Management and the Master of Business (Information Innovation), are delivered entirely on the World Wide Web. A third the Bachelor of Business (Document Management) is taught using both face-to-face and Intranet delivery methods. Major lessons learned from the exercise are that Web-based delivery is much more labour-intensive than traditional methods and that radical departures in curriculum development will inevitably result in cultural change and conflict.