Education

Australian students reject paying for ‘virtual’ lectures

By Amelia Kwok | 10 September 2008

A student petition at the University of Western Sydney (UWS) in Australia is demanding cuts in fees to match cuts in face-to-face teaching time as the university extends the virtual classroom.

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The university has been progressively using podcast lectures – downloadable audioclips – to substitute for traditional lecture hall time where students are able to interact with their teachers.

But Tammy Lawlor, a first-year arts student, is not impressed with the new podcast era at the UWS. “The isolated learning experience is not satisfying for me,” said Lawlor. Nor for many other UWS students, judging by the signatures on her petition.

Lawlor said that students learned only in the first week of semester that six of the 13 lectures in one key unit, ‘Texts and Traditions’, would come as podcasts. In other units, there is a rotating timetable of face-to-face lectures and podcasts.

Responding to Lawlor’s campaign, one student said in an email, “As a third-year student, I’ve seen my time in class and lectures diminish. I’m just catching the beginning of podcast lectures and I’ll be glad not to pay for it any longer, as I’ll be graduating this year.”

Wayne McKenna, the Arts dean, believed that ‘Texts and Traditions’ was the only unit in which podcasts replaced face-to-face lecturers.

“But, I suspect it could well be the shape of things to come,” said McKenna. He said there had been a sector-wide embrace of technology to cater to student demand, and studies by the university’s researchers showed today’s students often had “quite burdensome work obligations.”

He said it was a myth that podcasting saved universities money; lectures still had to be prepared and delivered, albeit to a machine, and the technology brought costs.

Lawlor said she welcomed podcasts as a complement to, but not as a substitute for, traditional scholarly interaction.

“I think a podcast is an inadequate replacement. A lecture is better for the atmosphere involved. I can ask the lecturers questions immediately after the lecture. The university is not properly equipped for distance education and that’s what they’re trying to do,” said Lawlor.

Acknowledging the petition, McKenna said, “It’s obviously a debate that we need to have.”