Offering the only postgraduate-level education products available in the Australian education marketplace, the courses are assisting rail organisations to ‘fast-track’ the usefulness of their engineering and operations management personnel.
The company licenses education material to three universities – CQUniversity, University of Wollongong and Queensland University of Technology – in programs including Railway Signalling/Telecommunications, Operations Management, Railway Infrastructure (Track) and Rollingstock Engineering.
With Graduate Certificates, Graduate Diploma and Masters level courses available, the programs are a significant asset for the rail industry, and the company is working hard to ensure that rail organisations in Australia and internationally are fully aware of how the courses can become an integral part of their internal professional development programs.
RIA’s general manager Dr Anna Thomas said the company and its university partners had recently implemented new industry advisory committees on its courses so the rail industry could monitor the content and delivery of the courses to ensure it continued to meet their training needs.
“These courses were developed by industry personnel during the life of the first Rail Cooperative Research Centre, and now that RIA holds the license for the courses we want to ensure, in conjunction with our university partners, they continue to be a significant asset to the rail industry,” Dr Thomas said.
“The key advantage of the courses is they are offered via distance-mode, so students can be enrolled in any State in Australia – or any country internationally for that matter – and they have access to the material and the key benefits of networking and working interactively with other students wherever they are located.”
The courses have been rolled out since 2004, with the commencement of the Signalling program via CQUniversity that year – a program which has boasted record enrolments each year, and to date has graduated 65 signalling students since its inception.
In 2007, the Operations Management course commenced via CQUniversity, as did the Rollingstock Engineering program via University of Wollongong and in 2008, the final course of the suite of four, the Railway Infrastructure (Track) course at Queensland University of Technology commenced offering.
The enrolment registers of the courses has highlighted well that the railway industry is no longer the bastion of men.
For United Group Rail’s project engineer Cassandra Gash, the postgraduate Signalling course gave her a greater appreciation for all aspects of railway signalling.
“I have found the course material useful in my role as design, test and project engineer as it gave me a greater appreciation for the different principles and practices used in other states in Australia,” Gash said.
Brooke Markewicz, a consultant at Systemwide, chose to study the Operations Management degree via CQUniversity because it covered a wide range of contemporary rail issues and enhanced her understanding of the rail industry.
“As well as receiving a university qualification to further my career, the course has given me the opportunity to interact with other students from rail operators around Australia via online forums and gain a greater understanding of the national railway industry,” Markewicz said.
RIA and partnering universities will be displaying the educational programs at AusRAIL PLUS 2009.
For more information on 2010 enrolment deadlines visit: www.railinnovation.com.au
 
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