student handbook

TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

Our courses rely on you having regular access to a computer and the Internet. You’ll find it very difficult to study with us if you can’t access a computer and the Internet at least several times a week.

Getting used to any new system can be challenging even for the computer savvy. Here’s a quick guide to what you need to use our online Learning Centre.

You’ll need a good internet connection with adequate bandwidth to access our courses. You’ll have interactive presentations and videos to watch, as well as downloading and uploading your assessments.

If you have an NBN connection, you’ll be right. If you are on ADSL you should also be just fine. If you are remote with a satellite connection, you may find that depending on your plan, you may need to upgrade. Speeds can vary on satellite as well. 

Generally speaking, if you can stream videos like youtube online now, then your connection will suffice.

You must have access to a desktop or laptop computer to prepare your assessments. Mobile devices can be used to access the Learning Centre however there are limitations.

To perform your video assessments you’ll need access to a video recording device – most students just use their smartphone (eg iPhone).

We deliver our online course materials using a learning management system called ‘Moodle’. You’ll come to know it as the ‘Learning Centre’.

Moodle is generally pretty easy to navigate and works on most devices. That said, you will have the best experience on a standard laptop or desktop computer using one of the following internet browsers:

We do not recommend using Internet Explorer or Microsoft Edge as it does have some issues with displaying parts of our websites properly – in fact, many websites. If you are using Internet Explorer or Microsoft Edge and something is not working as it should, especially uploading documents, this is probably the problem. Swap browsers and you should be fine. We cannot offer any technical support for Internet Explorer or Microsoft Edge.

If you are accessing the Learning Centre on a mobile device and you have issues, please try the same task on a proper desktop or laptop computer before calling us for help. Limited support for mobile devices is available from Student Assist as there are too many combinations out there to try and test.

Many of your assessments will require you to type your answers or assignment into a word processor, such as Microsoft Word, Apple Pages, or Open Office.

When you go to submit for assessment, you will need to convert your document to PDF. All newer versions of these programs will do this for you (Use Save As and change the document type to PDF). If yours does not convert or save to PDF for you, there are plenty of free PDF converters online – just Google ‘free PDF converter’ to find several options.

If you are inserting pictures into your document, these can make the file too big to upload to the Learning Centre. Make sure you ‘compress images’ before converting to PDF and uploading. This will reduce your file size dramatically. Just resizing a picture in the document itself will not change the size saved, just the size displayed.

If you don’t know how to do this in your software, Google ‘compress images’ followed by the name of the software you are using for instructions.

You will also need to be able to open PDFs to view our feedback and many other files. Acrobat Reader is free and available on many platforms.

Many of our online course areas utilise a variety of videos and recorded presentations. You will need to have the latest Adobe Flash Player installed (Free) to be able to play some of the presentations. If you can use YouTube, then your computer will play our videos.

When accessing from many mobile devices, Flash is prohibited, so you will not be able to view our recorded presentations. You will need to access a standard computer or laptop with Flash installed to view the presentations.

Some assessments require you to listen to sound files. These are all MP3’s so any computer or device should play them with no issues.

Sometimes your computer may ask you to “enable plugin” for something to work, you will need to do this to use our content properly. You may need to adjust your computer's internet browsing security settings.

Sometimes things will just not display or work properly for you. This happens with all computers and we suggest you try the following first:

  • Get another tea or coffee, or something stronger.
  • Delete your browsing history and temporary files.
  • Delete your browsing cache.
  • Log back in and try again.

If you are unsure how to do this on your computer, Google ‘clear cache’ and your browser name for instructions.

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