Contacts:
Philip Hider
Head of School
School of Information Studies
Charles Sturt University
phider@csu.edu.au

 

Kathleen Schisa
WISE Director
iSchool at Syracuse University
kbschisa@syr.edu
www.wiseeducation.org

 

 The WISE Consortium is pleased to announce the addition of a 15th institutional member, Charles Sturt University, based in New South Wales, Australia.

 

The School of Information Studies at Charles Sturt University offers high quality programs in Library and Information Science (LIS) which have been recognized by the Australian Library and Information Association for over thirty years. For more than two decades, the school has specialized in distance delivery, and today all programs are offered in the distance mode. This focus has allowed the school to excel in online delivery of LIS education. One of the foremost goals of the school is to “become a leading global provider of quality and innovative online education for the information professions.” By joining WISE, Charles Sturt University will be able to expand their reach by hosting students from 14 unique institutions around the world in their online courses, helping them progress toward achieving this goal. The School will also provide their own students with access to courses offered at the other WISE institutions, increasing the diversity and breadth of their home curriculum.

 

The School of Information Studies is the largest provider of LIS education in Australia, serving over 1500 students at the undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral levels. In 2007 the school became the only school in Australia dedicated solely to library and information studies. With specializations including library leadership, community networking, records and archives management, and children’s librarianship, Charles Sturt University has a great deal to offer the consortium. The WISE schools are excited to begin this mutually beneficial collaboration, and would like to extend a warm welcome to our newest member!

 

Web-based Information Science Education (WISE) is a collaborative distance education model that increases the quality, access, and diversity of online education opportunities in LIS. The WISE consortium was developed to establish standards and metrics for online LIS education, to provide a collaborative marketplace for online LIS courses, and to provide support for online pedagogy.

 

Since 2004 over 465 courses have been shared through WISE, and over 725 students have enrolled through the consortium. WISE Pedagogy has served over 300 faculty from WISE schools and the greater LIS community through online and face-to-face workshops and on-demand web resources.