AGILITY IN ONLINE PROGRAMME DESIGN: THE UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC EXPERIENCE

Time is a vital consideration in the educational management of any higher education institution. This is even more critical when higher education providers are faced with the dilemma of having to keep their programmes marketable and accessible thus ensuring more people have access to higher education qualifications. The University of the South Pacific (USP) is a regional university that is owned by twelve countries in the Oceania region and in its effort to address this dilemma within a reasonable time period, it has articulated a five year Strategic Plan from 2013-2018. Specifically, Priority Area 1 of this plan focusses on Learning and Teaching and one of its key initiatives is to undertake a large-scale conversion of USP courses for flexible delivery [1]. This paper provides a report on a new approach carried out by the University of the South Pacific in addressing this initiative through the flexible delivery conversion of two undergraduate programmes in the discipline of Teacher Education and Social Work. It will begin with a background on the design and development process at the USP followed by a discussion of the outcomes, challenges of this new approach including suggestions for improvement.