Glossary
- Provider
The three providers are government owned tertiary education institutions based in the Wellington region.
- The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand - Based in Lower Hutt, The Open Polytechnic specialises in providing distance and online education throughout New Zealand and internationally.
- Wellington Institute of Technology - Based in Petone, has campuses in Wellington City, Petone, Auckland and Christchurch and delivers a mix of class based, distance and online courses.
- Whitireia Community Polytechnic - Based in Porirua, has campuses in Wellington City, Porirua and on the Kapiti Coast, and delivers a mix of class based, distance and online courses.
- Full-time or Part-time study
Some contact courses require full time attendance at class-based lessons. Others may be taken on a full-time basis but through distance learning. Part-time study means you can continue with work or other commitments while studying either by contact or distance.
- Mode of Delivery
Courses are delivered in variety of ways or a combination, the mode of delivery refers to:
- Class-based - a formal classroom setting
- Distance - delivered by distance learning, including online and correspondence.
- On-job - delivered at the your place of work
- Credit
A credit is a value that is attributed to courses and is a guide to the number of hours of learning for the course. Each credit is approximately equivalent to 10 hours of learning, i.e. if a course is 20 credits that means it is equivalent to approximately 200 hours of learning.
- Level
When you are selecting what you want to learn you need to consider the level of study. This is based on New Zealand's National Qualifications Framework. Level 1 is entry-level education and broadly compares with Year 11 at a New Zealand secondary school. Levels 8-10 offers more advanced learning and is comparable to postgraduate studies
