What is flexible learning? Flexible learning allows for the adoption of a range of learning strategies in a variety of learning environments to cater for differences in learning styles, learning interests and needs. SMI courses present learners with a wide range of resources, engaging learning activities, real-world assignments and personalised feedback on all assessment tasks. This teaching philosophy makes courses more attractive for students in full or part-time employment and enables them to apply their own knowledge and experiences to the material presented. Each program component has been designed and developed in consultation with industry, which puts students literally at the cutting edge of learning. SMI courses use the Blackboard learning environment accessible through a web browser, which provides the tools for managing and participating in our courses. All our courses contain the following learning resources. The Course Learning Guides present a pathway through the topics and learning outcomes and point learners to a range of other learning resources The Course Readers contain up-to-date and relevant journal articles, book chapters and government documents as a basis for discussion and assignments The Course Blackboard site provides a communications hub for the course, enabling interaction between students, lecturers and guest experts in a well-structured environment. The course sites also provide access to quizzes and other online resources Some courses in the Environment field also provide an interactive Virtual Reality Mine CD-ROM to enable students to work on assignments by exploring a virtual reality world on their computer To enable the sharing of ideas between students enrolled in all SMI courses we have created the SMI Program Hub. This Blackboard site is accessible to all students enrolled in an SMI online course, and has been developed to generate more interaction between students across courses and disciplines.