The Australian Defence Industry Awards category for Academic Institution of the Year was given to Wodonga TAFE last week over Flinders University, University of Adelaide and the Australian Maritime College.

Chief executive Phil Paterson said results so far of a contract signed last May with the Army School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering was key to accolade.

"This contract with ASEME we've had in the past - this is our second go," he said.

"We transformed the way of delivering training out there, which means we've integrated that with our learning management system - instead of it being paper-based it's all electronically delivered or supported through the assessments - that's quite an innovation in terms of how it was being done previously.

"It's going really well.

"The fact the nature of the training had changed, you do need to give a decent amount of time for people to adjust and for the benefits to start flowing."

At Bandiana, Wodonga TAFE also delivers trades training with the Army School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, and medic courses with the Army School of Health.

"And down at Puckapunyal we have driver operations and for Navy we deliver forklift and licensing courses on a national basis," Mr Paterson said.

"We've been doing that now for 16 years.

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"We're starting to talk about ourselves now more as partners with Defence; we're well-positioned to do a lot more."

In the last year, Wodonga TAFE trained more than 5200 Defence personnel across 12 locations, including at Logic in Barnawartha.

"We are using our site at Logic to do a number of Defence training courses relating to crane operations and dogging," Mr Paterson said.

"What we're doing there is quite innovative.

"From my perspective, this award is recognition of the staff who deliver all our training day-in, day-out."