Papers in PDF format

Open Net and the Australian On-Line Education Market
Dr. Clark N. Quinn
Open Net Pty Ltd
Australia
info@opennet.net.au
Open Net is part of the Open Learning Initiative of the Australian Government. This initiative provides seed
funding for three years after which the individual components are to be self-funding. Established in 1995 as
an outgrowth of an earlier project in 1994, Open Net was set up to serve as an Internet Service Provider for the
education sector.
Open Net established the only nation-wide local call Internet service in Australia. However, the
telecommunications fee structure in Australia was such that Open Net could not continue the service and was
redirected to the development and distribution of on-line educational content.
In Australia, as in most countries, education at all levels is heavily subsidised, and competing with these
institutions is difficult. However, the institutions also have unrealistic expectations both about their own
capabilities and about the financial returns possible. Thus, cooperating with these institutions is difficult.
To compound matters, the on-line market is still limited. While Australia has one of the highest per capita
Internet connection rates, the overall population of Australia is small. Of course, the Internet is not
geographically restricted, and the whole world is a potential market. The proximity to Asia and its burgeoning
education market is an obvious connection, but that is not a new idea. Consequently, there is considerable
competition.
In addition, the setting up of a web server has become a relatively straight-forward task, and many educational
institutions have their 'explorer' groups that are transferring their learning materials to World Wide Web
(WWW) pages and creating electronic mail support groups.
The above contraints have driven the business strategies for Open Net. We need to focus on a solid core of
highly desirable offerings that would not obviously compete with existing offerings. We needed to differentiate
ourselves on the basis of quality of product, flexibility of delivery, and the comprehensiveness of the solution.
And, we need to make a profit.
Our strategy is, in short, to target our offerings carefully, source accredited offerings in this area, support
conversion to on-line delivery, source the technological infrastructure, create a complete but lean
administration, and market in ways appropriate to the medium.
In the course of our planning, we have conducted a thorough survey of the software packages that can support
this enterprise, explored the on-line transaction capabilities available in Australia, contacted content providers
around the world, and assessed the technological environment that suits the education market.
In this presentation, Open Net's current solutions to the problem are presented. As this is a moving target,
what will be shown is a window on the environment as it has existed over the past year.