Search or browse for Framework resources - practical tools that support the delivery of e-learning

The Flexible Learning Business Planning Framework is a tool that allows training organisations to strategically plan, develop and deliver effective and sustainable flexible learning, including e-learning, business solutions.

Using flow chart and table formats, this tool can help people create an effective alignment between their organisations' strategic priorities and flexible learning and e-learning opportunities.

It also allows organisations to prepare a 'business case' to be used to gain support and justification for the resources needed to develop and deliver flexible learning and e-learning training programs.

The ability of teachers and trainers to rapidly copy and move documents and images is unprecedented. Therefore, in an effort to avoid potential litigation, they must also develop an understanding of copyright law and legal obligations.

The Copyright Kitchen online resource offers a user-friendly and individually tailored guide to the legal loopholes and pitfalls of copyright law.

Copyright Kitchen asks users to enter their role and organisation. The resource categorises users' details, as if they were ingredients in a recipe. Like plain or self-raising flour changes the 'outcome' of baking a cake, legal outcomes can be determined by whether the user is in a private or public registered training organisation.

Users can read about a number of common copyright and intellectual property issues including the length of time copyright lasts and the costs involved for using copyright material. Copyright Kitchen offers answers and advice and users can start their own personalised 'cookbook' of copyright issues which can be downloaded onto a personal computer.

The Designing e-learning online resource offers teachers, multimedia developers and trainers in the vocational education and training (VET) system, fast-track access to the latest tips on developing and delivering e-learning programs.

The resource offers simple guidelines to develop e-learning courses. It includes stories of successful e-learning programs and provides a detailed guide to online assessment.

The online resource is set out in four easy-to-use sections to show how e-learning can be used to engage learners, provide flexibility and improve the quality of learning within the VET system:

1. Gallery of Strategies: an A-Z showcase and guide to the full range of e-learning activities.
2. Learning Design: 'show and tell' stories of successful e-learning, plus guidelines.
3. Assessing Online: a comprehensive 'step-by-step' guide for VET professionals.
4. Further Information: useful links and resources.

The Assessing Online section provides a detailed practical guide with useful tips, tools and resources to develop effective assessment strategies that meet Australian Quality Training Framework (AQTF) standards. The assessment section can also be downloaded as a 'take-away' for easy printing.

Recurring barriers have prevented small to medium sized businesses from adopting e-learning into their training programs because of a lack of resources, skills and expertise.

In an effort to break down some of the barriers the interactive e-learning model EnAble was developed. EnAble aims to help businesses find out where to start, where to get support, who to work with and how to apply e-learning in teaching or training programs.

The development of EnAble involved working with small franchised businesses such as Bakers Delight and Wendy's. The work explored their training needs, ways they engaged their employees, the barriers to technology and how resources and skills could best be utilised and shared between the businesses.

The result is a four step hands-on approach for users to work through. EnAble contains a kit of practical tools and resources allowing users to build a business case that supports implementing e-learning into any small to medium sized organisation.

While the trend towards interoperability is global it has significant benefits for e-learning and flexible learning. The vocational education and training (VET) Interoperability Framework website brings together the recommended interoperability standards for VET e-learning content, repositories and associated functions. It identifies the standards used by major national Projects such as Flexible Learning Toolboxes and the VET Learning Object Repository Network and provides practical case studies showing how interoperability can enhance e-learning.

The Assessment Generator is a prototype web-based tool that assists registered training organisations ( RTOs ) which have the necessary technical requirements to construct, develop and store assessment plans and tools.

The Assessment Generator can be used as a tool to create and publish assessment information. This means that RTOs can create assessment materials 'to standard', as well as reusing and adapting existing assessment resources for specific training purposes and contexts.

The Assessment Generator is available at no cost, however it requires installation and configuration before it is able to be used. It is a prototype that requires the skills of an IT professional to install it within your organisation (installation and user guides are provided). To begin with you should explore the demonstration site (there is no need to install software but you do need a minimum of Internet Explorer 5.5).