The concept of “flexible delivery” is one that has taken hold in many tertiary institutions and is having a major impact on the current directions of these institutions. Universities and other tertiary organisations are rushing to develop “flexible delivery” environments as a way of meeting the fast growing demands for education brought about by a rapidly globalising world. In many cases tertiary institutions also view flexible delivery as being cheaper than traditional teaching/learning approaches and thus a viable option in dealing with both decreasing funding levels and the increasing demand for educational services.

This paper presents the results of a meta-analysis of web-sourced information from selected Australian universities interpretations of the terms flexible, flexible delivery and flexible learning and university policy in this area.

A number of trends and commonalities emerged from this analysis. Generally, the use of the terms flexibility, flexible delivery and flexible learning were not well defined and accordingly these terms have been defined based on a synthesis of definitions of these terms used by universities. Furthermore, purpose built flexible learning campuses, retail campuses, online learning, the adoption of particular technological approaches and fast track courses have emerged as models for “flexible delivery”. Universities have tended to follow more or two models at most.