Broadband use in the higher education sector

The higher education sector has considerably greater access to bandwidth than other education sub-sectors. The Australian Vice Chancellors' Committee (AVCC) plays a coordinating policy role across the sector in the implementation of ICT in higher education. This includes AVCC membership of the Australian Information and Communications Technology in Education Committee (AICTEC). The Australian Academic and Research Network (AARNet) provides the national network backbone, access to the national and international internet and access to the global advanced research and education networks. AARNet is represented on the International Committee of Internet2's Board, the Coordinating Committee for Intercontinental Research Networking and the International Task Force of the US Broadband Pricing Group. It also represents Australia's involvement in the Asia Pacific Advanced Network Consortium and on the Global Terabit Research Network.

The key issues for higher education are: adequate bandwidth for academics to perform collaborative research with colleagues in other institutions, including grid computing; provision of internet access for large numbers of students simultaneously; and the development and delivery of online or distance education.

The growing use of ICT is fundamentally changing the way research is conducted in the higher education sector. Researchers rely heavily on the internet to access research information and online journals, and to communicate with colleagues in Australia and overseas. There is growing use of modelling and data visualisation in research to better understand complex processes, especially in fields such as environmental science and biotechnology. Such research is dependent on the availability of high performance computing and advanced networks to facilitate the manipulation and exchange of very large data sets. Those universities that lack sufficient bandwidth will increasingly find that they are unable to participate in key fields of research. These institutions fear they will become marginalised in the global research community and unable to attract high quality researchers or research funding. Broadband requirements for research networks are the subject of a separate paper: this paper only mentions them in passing.

Access to broadband

The Commonwealth Government's Innovation Action Plan, Backing Australia's Ability recognises the need to improve ICT infrastructure in universities. Under the Systemic Infrastructure Initiative (SII), $30 million has been earmarked next year for higher education strategic priorities in information infrastructure and bandwidth supply.

The Building on IT Strengths (BITS) program has provided $14 million for the GrangeNet Advanced Networks Project. GrangeNet is available for use by research and educational organisations that pay a subscription fee. It provides a 10 Gbps backbone linking Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra with an additional 5 Gbps backbone to Brisbane. Universities in Australia's remaining capital cities connect to the internet using AARNet at bandwidths varying from 34 Mbps up to Gigabit Ethernet (1000 Mbps).

The BITS program has also provided funding for CSIRO's Centre for Networking Technologies for the Information Economy (CeNTIE). CENTIE is an experimental network designed to undertake research on broadband applications that can be used across the sector in the future if there is sufficient bandwidth. CeNTIE is working with virtual classroom facilities to explore the potential of tele-collaboration and distance education with extremely high bandwidth data transfer speeds (up to 10 Gbps). The planned facilities will allow researchers to share their results and will provide a rich virtual teaching environment with a focus on useability. CeNTIE expect that this project will reduce the need for travel and improve access to media-rich internet applications among participating institutions.

In addition to these projects, examples of systemic infrastructure development in the higher education sector include the fibre/ Gigabitethernet deployment in the ACT and the Sydney Basin Fibre project.

Broadband for regional universities

For universities outside capital cities, bandwidth is limited. Regional universities have reported difficulty attracting and retaining high calibre academics because of their limited capacity to engage in collaborative research. Regional universities are important employers, providing direct economic stimulus in their communities. They have the capacity to attract overseas fee paying students, which represents an important export market for Australia. Access to higher capacity networks should attract academics and students and improve employment prospects in these regional areas.

James Cook University (JCU) in Townsville, Queensland provides an example of the impact of these problems. While the GrangeNet backbone connecting Sydney and Brisbane has a capacity of 5 Gbps, the backbone that connects Brisbane and Townsville is only 22 Mbps. James Cook University has recently launched its AccessGrid which supports next generation video conferencing. This facility will have applications in research, health consulting and teaching. AccessGrid can run on as little as 5 Mbps but it requires up to100 Mbps to work to its potential. The cost of such capacities to Townsville from traditional carriers is prohibitively expensive.

Online learning and collaboration

Online learning is among the most compelling applications for broadband technology in the higher education sector. International education is a major export industry for Australia, with economic benefits estimated at more than $4.0 billion per year including fees paid to institutions and expenditure on goods and services.[41] This significant income comes predominantly from overseas students living and studying in Australia, but those accessing Australian educational institutions from overseas also contribute to Australia's export income. Data from the Department of Education, Science and Training indicate that "cross-border supply", that is distance education provided from Australia to students living overseas, amounted to $36.27 million in the calendar year 2000 for the higher education sector.[42]

International students accessing Australian education services represent a significant export opportunity. Growth across this sector has not been measured directly, but as an example the University of Southern Queensland reports a growth in the number of offshore students of 30 per cent between 2000 and 2001. This growth in online learning is supported and enabled by access to broadband. Australian universities must continue to develop their e-learning programs as Australia's competitors supplying English-based tertiary education to the Asian market are rapidly developing e-education courses with broadband technology.

Online applications have significant implications for distance education in regional Australia and internationally. The number of students globally who are qualified but unable to get a university place is expected to increase from 30 million in 1999 to 100 million in 2010. Most of these students are located in the Asia-Pacific region. Australia is in a unique position to take advantage of this situation, if we have the high broadband capacity needed to support this market.

One initiative in the online area is occurring under the auspices of Universitas 21, a global consortium whose members include the University of Melbourne and the University of New South Wales. U21's collaborative activities include increasing the portability of courses between universities so that universities can share electronic courseware. For example, over the last five years the University of Melbourne has spent approximately $5 million on interactive courseware for medical students to compensate for a shortage in cadavers. Other U21 member universities have developed similar courseware. Sufficient bandwidth in the higher education sector would facilitate the development of distributed software that would fulfil this and other curriculum needs, providing a considerable saving to all universities involved.

The University of Southern Queensland (USQ) in Toowoomba is investing heavily in the development of online learning. Building on its strong background in distance education, USQ has established a Distance Education Centre which designs and develops course materials that can be delivered to a student population that is on-campus, off-campus and online. In 2001, 72% of students enrolled at USQ were off-campus and they studied either using paper based materials or online learning. USQ Online is a completely online university for the purposes of enrolling, payments, study materials and communication with other students. USQ also uses sophisticated metadata modelling to implement an automated student support email system. This automated system provides students with timely and accurate responses to queries directed to their tutors and has the additional benefit that the variable costs for each additional student are close to zero.

Wireless broadband networks

USQ is pushing innovation in the use of broadband through an on-campus network. In April 2002, 30% of the campus had wireless internet coverage and it is anticipated that by the end of this year 90% will be covered. The goal is for online services to be available to students without needing access to a computer lab. The university is exploring ways to obtain cost-effective devices to access the wireless network including laptops and web slates. USQ has also provided data and voice connections into the residential colleges on campus using voice over IP (VoIP).