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Contents > 1. Overview of Sector > 1.2 Educational developments
1.2 Educational developments
Curriculum
With a growing focus on employability of graduates, there have been competing pressures on the curriculum in terms of its coherence for student learning and the relevance of content. There remains a tension between an emphasis on generic graduate attributes and the need for employment related skills. On the one hand, professional associations are increasingly emphasising the importance of generic skills in professional practice and yet there are increasing numbers of badged degrees aimed at better preparing graduates for employment in specific industries, such as engineering or IT. The number of double degrees has grown considerably in response to emerging demands from industry and business for graduates with skills sets that cut across traditional disciplines and from students who seek to enhance their employment prospects. The number of double degree courses has grown from 1075 in 1998 to 1692 in 2000. The number of combined university/vocational education and training courses is also growing.
There are also pressures brought about by changing demand. Universities are continuing to experience difficulties in maintaining courses of low enrolment, particularly in some languages, humanities subjects such as History and in some traditional fields of Science, such as Physics. To address this, some institutions are collaborating with others to maintain such courses by rationalising and complementing each other’s offerings. Monash is now teaching Russian to University of Melbourne students and the University of Melbourne is teaching Ancient Greek and Latin to Monash students. Service teaching is also practised in some universities where low primary demand departments teach subjects supporting courses of other departments (for example, Physics taught in Engineering courses). There is further scope for such practices, such as Asian languages in Business Studies.
Bachelor degree in Tropical Marine ScienceAn innovative undergraduate degree in tropical marine science is being developed through the collaboration of The Great Barrier Reef Research Foundation, the University of Queensland, James Cook University, the University of Sydney and the Australian Museum. This collaboration offers great opportunities to students. Students will initially enrol in one of the three ‘home’ universities (James Cook University, University of Queensland or the University of Sydney) and then will undertake a selection of field studies that take advantage of the breadth of marine environments and teaching expertise offered by this collaboration. The course’s unique features include:
Planning is well underway. Curriculum profiles for all six subjects have been finalised. The Tropical Marine Network website is being constructed. Student recruitment is initially targeting all students entering their second year of a Bachelor of Science degree in 2002 in each of the participating institutions. The programme has also been promoted to Study Abroad students. Software is being tailored to allow students to maintain a personal profile of achievements throughout their participation in the course. |
Some institutions are exploring the sharing of curriculum development and content, especially at the undergraduate level. An increasing number of universities are introducing summer semesters or other timetabling arrangements to address the need for greater flexibility in their curriculum offerings.
Trends of actual student load by discipline group show that undergraduate studies in Humanities, Social Studies, Science, Visual and Performing Arts, Built Environment, and Agriculture and Renewable Resources have declined across Australia in the period 1998–2000 and that undergraduate studies in Education; Maths and Computing; Engineering and Processing; Health Sciences; Administration, Business and Economics; and Law have increased during this period. At the postgraduate level over the same period, Maths and Computing trended up and there was a slight positive trend in Engineering and Processing.
Pedagogy
With employers emphasising the need for greater portability of skills and the importance of generic skills, particularly communication skills and the ability to work in teams, there have been significant shifts in the approaches to teaching and learning. There is a growing use of problem-based learning where students develop a diverse range of skills through resolving set problems based on real situations. Many universities are also introducing practicums as integral course components to focus on the importance of skills necessary in professional practice and practicums are now being used in general Arts and Science degrees. Increasingly, students are required to present orally as part of their assessment in recognition of the importance of presentation and communication skills.
The focus on improved teaching and learning also underlines the importance of the teaching skills of the academic staff. A number of universities, such as Monash, now require newly appointed teaching staff to undertake teacher education courses. Some institutions have also established conditions of employment which reward good teaching. Central Queensland University has developed new classifications under its Enterprise Agreement to remunerate university teachers and accept that they do not have to engage in research. All universities have established awards to recognise good teaching across their campuses and these are often tailored to feed into the Commonwealth’s Australian Awards for University Teaching.
There is a pervasive growth in the application of new technologies in education brought about by many factors including:
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business and industry adopting new technologies for office and production systems;
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adoption of ICT to improve global businesses;
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higher levels of personal computer ownership;
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vendors pushing their technologies;
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graduates being expected to be technologically literate to participate in employment;
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the growing numbers of off-campus students requiring greater flexibility in participation in order to balance study, family and work commitments; and
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growing numbers of full-time students, who are also engaged in full-time work being supported by varying online delivery of material.
As a result, education providers are adopting technology based solutions to course delivery to seek improvements in efficiency and effectiveness. On the other hand some institutions believe they cannot afford to ignore the trends even though the business models are poorly developed. Most institutions believe that technology-based course delivery systems will enable them to compete globally.
Universities are investing heavily in IT infrastructure to address current demand and forecast needs. The refurbishment of capital stock, especially facilities for presentations, such as lecture theatres, often involves investment in presentation and delivery technologies in anticipation of need because of the view that it is likely to be cheaper to install at the time of construction rather than afterwards.
While the growth in infrastructure is evident, the nature of the growth in online delivery is not clear. The Department has undertaken a survey of the extent and nature of the delivery of online education in the higher education sector in Australia. Preliminary data from a recent survey of Australian universities by the Department, suggests that the number of fully online courses is still relatively small, at 207, but that about 54 per cent of the 63 468 undergraduate units and 30 378 postgraduate units offered at Australian universities are web-supported, at least in part. The results of this survey should be available in the first half of 2002.
UniSAnetBruce
King www.unisanet.unisa.edu.au The University of South Australia has established an online presence in the areas of teaching and learning, known as UniSAnet. The UniSAnet facility, accessed via the World Wide Web, will provide a set of services to be phased in over time, in response to the different levels of academic staff and student needs. It will become the masthead of all online dimensions of the University’s teaching and learning programme, incorporating existing developments and providing for the progressive inclusion of a range of services for students, including:
UniSAnet accommodates innovative online teaching and learning resources already developed by individual academic staff. However, a standard set of authoring and communication tools will be adopted across the University and form the basis for putting further materials online. One benefit of the UniSAnet is the development of a Record of Achievement (ROA). A ROA is a personal online document that students can build to show detailed evidence of the knowledge and skills they have developed by the time they graduate from the University of South Australia. Students will be able to record not only professional knowledge, but also the range of general capabilities that are in high demand—in the job market, in studies and in life outside university. UniSA developed a new software programme – Transcript2 – for this ROA. Students can access Transcript2 in their own time and from anywhere where there is a web browser. This includes computer pools, at home or even overseas. Students will be able to continually upgrade and edit their entries so that they form the most comprehensive database of information on achievements. Transcript2 will guide the student through every part of preparing a job application package. In 2000 the ROA was trialled with volunteers from the School of International Business. By 2001 small groups of students will be using it in every Division. Eventually it is planned to go University-wide. |
Assessment
There has been increasing public debate about assessment standards in higher education institutions. The interest in assessment has been generated by the alleged soft marking of international students. There have been suggestions that academics have been asked to reassess and upgrade their assessments of some students’ work, especially those who are full fee paying students. Institutions have countered the allegations through vigorous checking mechanisms. Nevertheless, such assertions have provided an opportunity to widen the public debate to re-examine the purpose and role of Higher Education institutions.
The assessment debate is complex and a number of key issues have been identified. The first is the recognition of the transition to a mass system of higher education and the diversity of both students and courses that are now offered in universities. These changes mean that the concept of fitness for purpose and related relative standards should be applied to assessment of courses. The increased diversity of courses means that the same unit of study may be offered in a number of different courses, where each course has a different purpose. For example, a unit of study in Physics may be offered in a General Science course, an Astronomy course and in a Nursing course. In each case it may be appropriate to assess the Physics unit in a different way depending on the purpose of the unit within each course. The key issue is what standard is required by the particular curriculum, rather that the application of an absolute standard (Ewan, 2001).
The assessment debate has also broadened to include the relationship between the final results and the ongoing teaching and feedback received by the student. It has been argued that enrolment is a contract between the student and the university. Such a contract implies levels of service to be offered to the student of which assessment is one aspect of the required levels of service (Ewan, 2001).
The debate triggered by assessment questions has broadened into a healthy debate about the relationship between the university and its diverse students and the nature of teaching and learning.
Shared Electronic Services Delivery programmeGriffith University and Queensland University of Technology are already partway down the track of a Shared Electronic Services Delivery programme. These institutions are focussing on shared service delivery for information technology, library and teaching and learning support services. A programme coordinator was appointed in early 2001 to develop a formal programme management plan for the ‘roadmap’ of potential strategic shared services. Already, four projects have been completed, including establishing a purchasing consortium between Griffith, QUT and the University of Queensland for audio visual equipment purchasing and the decision to jointly employ a copyright officer for Griffith and QUT. Eleven projects are currently underway and a number of others are in the pre-commencement phase. The programme is still in the early stages, but already there are some clear conclusions to be drawn. The universities report that the project is building considerable capacity and goodwill between the relevant Divisions and that there has been a flow of suggestions from managers and staff about areas where further collaboration might be explored. It is also apparent that collaboration can be widened to include other universities and organisations. There is clear potential for significant service and cost improvement in more closely aligning IT and workforce structures between the institutions and divisions. |
Shared service delivery
Universities are beginning to explore sharing administrative delivery. For example, Flinders University and the University of South Australia commissioned a consultant to consider the feasibility of and issues associated with adopting and sharing different models for administrative service delivery. The study concluded that
‘... shared services arrangements present a new opportunity in this area, and a migration into an era of both working collaboratively and competing with the same organisation on a daily basis, may be regarded as a viable option in present circumstances. This appears to reflect an emerging trend evident in the public sector and the private sector’
(Deloitte Touche Thomastsu, 2001).
The changing nature of student attendance on campus is leading universities to examine the ways and extent to which they provide services and facilities to students. Campus attendance is influenced among other things by the increasing numbers of students who are in paid work for greater amounts of time. On average, full-time commencing students in Australian universities are working part-time around 13 hours per week. About half the students who are working are working more than 10 hours per week. Slightly more than a quarter of first-year students who are in paid employment are working 16 hours or more a week, and 10 per cent are working 21 hours a week or more. On one estimate, the average increase in time spent on paid employment over the last 10 years is close to 38 per cent (McInnes, 2001).
There are Field of Study differences that suggest that students in professional courses such as Agriculture and Architecture are taking on more part-time work, presumably related to their coursework. More students in the Arts, Business and Science fields are working in response to concerted efforts by faculties and schools to encourage students to find work that will enhance their generic employability skills (McInnes, 2001).
The growth of flexible approaches to teaching and learning at universities, especially the use of online teaching and learning, has also led to the changes in the campus experience for many Australian students, especially at the undergraduate level. One of the areas that has emerged for investigation is the meaning and value of the ‘on-campus experience’.
This issue is of importance to policy makers and university administrators alike as changing patterns of on-campus attendance have significant implications for future investments in infrastructure.
There is growing international interest in the response of universities to changing student expectations. The OECD programme on Institutional Management in Higher Education expects to publish the results of discussions following seminars in Brisbane in September 2001 and in Paris in December 2001. The discussions revolve around the pressure to improve services and become more responsive to student expectations at a time when universities are facing great challenges.