How Curtin University is Building a Campus of the Future

Recently, we partnered with the BBC and Western Australia’s Curtin University to discuss taking education to the world and becoming a leading 24/7 tertiary institution.

Our multi-faceted partnership with Curtin University, which reaches across teaching, learning, research and innovation, is underpinned by the digital campus.

Five years ago, the university had no collaborative classrooms. Now it has 76 – all video-enabled with cameras that are able to transmit in and out. It has also just opened its first 180-seat classroom that is completely video conference-enabled.

Chief Operating Officer Ian Callahan is one of the people who has presided over the university’s transition to being a cutting-edge university that is now truly positioned as a global institution.

“We are continually experimenting with new ways to do things, failing in some, succeeding in others, moving on to the next piece,” Callahan says.

From Cisco’s perspective, the power of digitization offers three main areas of growth which fit into Curtin’s overall perspective: the power to change student experience, the power to transform the business model/marketplace and differentiate the university in an increasingly competitive global landscape, and the power to enable greater staff productivity and engagement.

Four years ago, Curtin Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Jill Downie started in the position with the idea of transforming learning. She visited several universities overseas and came back with a vision of Curtin being totally globally connected. Soon after, the idea of Curtin Converged was born.

Curtin Converged is the institution’s model for teaching and learning, a mix of traditional lectures, flipped classes, technology-enriched environments and distributed learning techniques – such as Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs), high-end video and 3D technologies that actively engage students whether they attend classes on campus or from elsewhere.

To learn more about Curtin Converged and the transformation this university has gone through, read the full article on the BBC.