Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Modelling Blended Learning Environments: Designing An Academic Development Blog, Geraldine E. Lefoe, Wendy Meyers

Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) - Papers

A major challenge facing academic developers is meeting the development needs of both time poor academics and those staff in multi-location campuses, especially sessional tutors, who may start teaching several weeks before electronic access is enabled. Necessary restrictions placed on access to local intranet and Learning Management Systems meant rethinking how to meet the needs of all staff and in the process model good practice through the use of blended learning environments. One regional university, with seven national and one international campus, is currently redesigning their staff development program to incorporate the use of blogs and wikis to provide access …

Facilitating Uptake Of Online Role Play: Reusability, Learning Objects And Learning Designs , Sandra Wills, A. Mcdougall

Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) - Papers

This study tracks the uptake of online role play in Australia from 1990 to 2006 and the affordances to its uptake. It examines reusability, as one affordance, from the perspective of two often polarized constructs: Learning Object and Learning Design. The study treats “reuse” on two levels: reuse of an existing online role play and reuse of an online role play as the model for another role play. In keeping with terminology that has come into recent use, we propose that the first level implies the online role play is used as a Learning Object and the second level implies …

The University Of Wollongong Library Professional Cadetship Experience: Developing The Skills For A Career In Librarianship, Rebecca Daly

Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) - Papers

The recently established University of Wollongong Library Professional Cadetship is an opportunity for those interested in a future in librarianship to undertake combined fulltime employment and Postgraduate study in a Library and Information Science Degree. The Cadetship model also aims to partly address the problem of succession planning for the University Library which has a vested interest in securing an ongoing generation of information professionals. In September 2005 I became the first cadet to begin the three year fixed term program, beginning with placement in Lending Services, and followed by Journal Access Services, each for a six month period. Management …

Download Statistics - What Do They Tell Us? The Example Of Research Online, The Open Access Institutional Repository At The University Of Wollongong, Australia, Michael K. Organ

Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) - Papers

A study was undertaken of download and usage statistics for the institutional repository at the University of Wollongong, Australia, over the six-month period January-June 2006. The degree to which research output was made available, via open access, on Internet search engines was quantified. Google was identified as the primary access and referral point, generating 95.8% of the measurable full text downloads of repository content. Further long-term studies need to be carried out to more precisely identify factors affecting download rates of repository content. This data will assist institutions and faculty in measuring research impact and performance, as an adjunct to …

Heritage And Regional Development: An Indigenous Perspective, Robbie Collins, K. Mcmahon-Coleman

Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) - Papers

Heritage is important to regional development in terms of promoting a sense of place and a sense of identity for those in the region. Heritage is often expressed through culture and the arts as a means of manifesting a community’s sense of what the community or region is about. For Indigenous communities this is particularly relevant given the lack of social capital as a result of colonialism and displacement. In these communities the value of the Indigenous way of viewing things and sense of place has been subjugated by hegemonic norms. There is a need for Indigenous peoples to find …

Assessing The Service Needs And Expectations Of Customers – No Longer A Mystery, Margie H. Jantti

Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) - Papers

Over the past decade, UWL has made extensive use of customer surveys and customer feedback systems as a means of evaluating satisfaction with services and resources. These approaches have provided critical data and information on how clients rate their perceptions of the importance and performance of various service and resource elements. They have been an important mechanism for planned change and an improvement agenda. While surveys and feedback systems provide data and information on a range of service elements, they are limited in their capacity to provide information and insight into the perceived value gained by engaging with the library …

Blending On And Off Campus: A Tale Of Two Cities, Geraldine E. Lefoe, J. G. Hedberg

Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) - Papers

Increasingly online learning has become part of the normal educational experience of students. This chapter examines the changes faced by two universities in different countries as they move to blend traditional face-to-face learning activities with those online. In particular, it reviews lessons that can be drawn for others moving into blended learning environments for successful implementation.

Changing Horses In Mid-Stream: A New Lms Plus Improved Teaching, Russ Pennell, Sandra Wills

Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) - Papers

The University of Wollongong's recent implementation of a new Learning Management System has been accompanied by a two year process of interviews and consultation with committees, deans, managers, academics, students and support staff. This has resulted in a Strategic Plan for eLearning & eTeaching and an eTeaching Business Plan. These plans for institutional change were based on earlier studies of IT introduction in Higher Education contexts. Project development was overseen by a widely-representative committee, with major effort given to training and support of academics and students. In 2004 over 800 subject websites were in use each year. The new software …

Strategic Planning For Blended Elearning, Sandra Wills

Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) - Papers

Although all Australian universities have University strategic plans and IT strategic plans, it is estimated that fewer than 20% have a separate plan for eLearning and eTeaching. The University of Wollongong has recently implemented a new Learner Management System however this technology ramp-up has been accompanied by a two year process of interviews and consultation with committees, deans, managers, academics, students and support staff to: • more clearly articulate from the educational and strategic perspectives why we use eLearning; • understand better how eLearning should be supported in a blended environment; and • inform decision-making about priorities for funding and …

Captain Westmacott's Drawing Book - A Colonial Oddity, Michael K. Organ

Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) - Papers

The annals of New Zealand art from the colonial period are scattered with unattributed works and those by artists about whom precious little in known. The unravelling of this jigsaw is left to art historians, working away quietly in archives, libraries and art museums. One as yet unsolved riddle concerns Captain Robert Marsh Westmacott. In 1929 art dealer and expatriate Kiwi Rex Nan Kivell purchased at auction from the Museum Book Store, London, a drawing book containing sixteen New Zealand topographic views and figure studies. Roughly dated at around 1840, they were part of the estate of the late Captain …

University Of Wollongong Library Preparing Recent Graduates For A Professional Career In Librarianship, Lynne Wright, Jo-Anne Lombardi

Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) - Papers

A strategic approach to succession planning, a commitment to the profession of librarianship and a genuine desire to provide authentic learning opportunities for students committed to postgraduate studies in librarianship, resulted in an innovative professional cadetship program being established at the University of Wollongong Library. The program development, overview and preliminary evaluations will be shared in this paper.

Dreaming An Identity Between Two Cultures: The Works Of Alootook Ipellie, Kimberley L. Mcmahon-Coleman

Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) - Papers

Alootook Ipellie argues that the harsh reality of life in the Arctic was the deciding factor in the development of Inuit literature. In his seminal work, "Arctic Dreams and Nightmares," his pen-and-ink drawings and short stories focus on the figure of the shaman as an entity powerful enough to mediate complex and conflicting worlds.

This paper examines how the circumstances of Arctic colonisation and the author's early life have influenced his stories. Through close critical analysis, it is suggested that Ipellie's shaman draws on the twin crises of extreme initation and colonisation in order to harness his magical powers. In …

Elearning For Campus-Based Universities: Engaging The Executive, Rob Ellis, Shirley Alexander, Eddie Gulc, Sandra Wills

Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) - Papers

eLearning advocates in campus-based universities in Britain and in Australia are having difficulty helping senior budget holders and strategic planners articulate a vision for eLearning in a campus-based experience. Too often sensible plans for embedding eLearning support and infrastructure in the learning and teaching systems of campus-based universities are put to one side because there is insufficient confidence by the executive of being able to justify why such investment is needed. This can be as simple a problem as being unable to talk about eLearning and its contribution to the whole student learning experience convincingly for non-specialists. Further adding to …

Cognitive Tools Of Classsim: Building Connections Between Theory And Practice, Lisa Carrington, Lisa K. Kervin, Brian Ferry

Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) - Papers

This paper reports on the incorporation of an embedded tool within a virtual classroom environment (ClassSim) and the use of this by pre-service teachers as they engage with the software. The classroom simulation reported on in this research was developed to provide pre-service teachers with a safe virtual environment in which they are able to explore ‘authentic’ and practical classroom scenarios. The embedded tool, referred to as the ‘Thinking Space’, was developed to support pre-service teachers in capturing their reflections about the complex role of a teacher as they move through the experience. Encouraging reflection has long been acknowledged as …

Authentic Learning In Crime Prevention Practice, Catherine Layton

Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) - Papers

Authentic learning activities closely approximate the interrelationships, differing perspectives in, as well as complexity and competing outcomes of, everyday life. In the online environment, collaborative studies can constitute authentic learning by offering opportunities for the personal construction of knowledge through dialogue and reflection. This paper outlines aspects of learning demonstrated by five crime prevention practitioners, mostly police, who undertook the online supported postgraduate subject ‘Partnerships in Crime Prevention’. Students were required to identify problems in their communities, and to work ‘in partnership’ with fellow students and the lecturer as they moved through an action research process in seeing how these …

Internationalising The Curriculum For Students From Singapore: A Field Study In The Australian Bush, Maureen Bell

Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) - Papers

This paper discusses a case study of a summer study abroad program for Singapore students at an Australian university. Issues raised by students and teaching staff are explored using a framework adapted from a Typology of Internationalised Curriculum (Bremer and Van Der Wende, 1995); Best Practice Guidelines for Internationalisation of the Curriculum (Whalley, 1997); and Strategies for Internationalisation (Leask, 2001). Some implications for the design and teaching of summer study abroad programs offered by Australian universities to offshore students are explored within a curriculum design framework. Significant issues include the selection of appropriate teaching staff, inclusion of host country students …

Lessons From Transdisciplinarity Studies In The Design And Evaluation Of Engineering Education Research, Anna L. Carew, Fern Wickson, David F. Radcliffe

Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) - Papers

Engineering education research in Australia is a burgeoning field. The literature and theory on transdisciplinary research presents some valuable ideas for justifying, designing and evaluating engineering education research. Engineering education research is a transdisciplinary endeavour in both a literal sense (in that it draws on knowledge from the disciplines of engineering and education), and in a formal theoretical sense, given that transdisciplinarity is defined as problem solving through ‘the context specific negotiation of knowledge’. In this paper, we describe three outcomes that transdisciplinary research aspires to (problem-solving, peer approval, and mutual learning) and a case study of their application in …

Moving Towards A University-Wide Implementation Of An Eportfolio Tool, Sarah R. Lambert, Linda E. Corrin

Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) - Papers

The University of Wollongong has been strategically exploring ePortfolios since 2002. Building on lessons learnt from student trials across two different disciplines in 2002/3 and 2006, the project team is on the verge of implementing a university-wide ePortfolio tool customisable for all students across all faculties. This paper describes the steps taken on the road thus far, including a description and justification of a new project structure and consultative framework developed to guide the implementation.

Developing Familiarity With Learning Design Tools Through Subject Analysis, Christine A. Brown

Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) - Papers

The application of quality processes to tertiary teaching can result in a more team-based approach to course curriculum planning, the instructional design of individual subjects or units, the learning support associated with subject implementation and subsequent evaluation. The "art" of teaching requires more explicit communication within and across different teams that may be involved in each stage. Learning designs provide tools for design teams to map out learning environment attributes such as resources, tasks, people and interactions. Experienced teaching academics, unfamiliar with such tools, require orientation to them to achieve their communication potential. One way to introduce learning design models …

Environments For Change In A Faculty Of Arts: The Impact Of Teaching Off Campus, Geraldine E. Lefoe, Rebecca Albury

Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) - Papers

For a university in regional Australia, a new degree program offered through a remote campus and access centres, provided a supportive environment for faculty to try out new teaching and learning methods, specifically making use of a learning management system (WebCT) for aspects of communication and content. This article examines the impact this had on the faculty, in particular at the increased usage of ICT in subjects offered on campus and also examines issues such as workload and curriculum redesign, which were identified as problematic by faculty as they embraced innovative methods of teaching and learning.