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There’s more in the Mail
In Features this morning
Australian universities have 850 on-line courses they partner with private providers – which makes quality control a thing. Mahsood Shah (Swinburne U) and Fion Lim (UTS) on what needs be done.
plus Lydia Woodyatt on burnout and what leaders can do to help staff. No, “awkward cake” in the lunchroom isn’t part of it. A new contribution to Commissioning Editor Sally Kift’s celebrated series, Needed now in learning and teaching.
and Fion Lim (UTS) on the big markers for Australian trans-national education – India is not about to replace China.
with Merlin Crossley on how journal eLife picks up the pace on peer reviewing and why it matters, really matters.
Gift of the day
Uni Sydney receives $20m from the estate of Jenny Mackenzie. It is for medical research at the Charles Perkins Centre.
Elsevier to expand open access in Australia
Details were sparse yesterday but the alpha for-profit journal publisher has settled on three-year terms with the Council of Australian University Librarians
The deal appears similar in approach to the seven previous agreements CAUL has reached with publishers – with researchers at member institutions publishing free to read.
While payment is not mentioned, other arrangements are based on article processing charges being absorbed into subscription costs paid by institution libraries. As to the detail, CAUL director and Monash U Librarian Bob Gerrity calls the agreement, “an important first step,” “ we will continue to work with Elsevier to evolve this agreement to meet the needs of individual universities and their different research profiles.”
Whatever comes next this is a big win for CAUL. Elsevier has fiercely defended its immensely profitable patch, taking years to concede as little as possible in disputes with universities and funding bodies in the EU, UK and US. To get the publisher to the table was an achievement in itself.
With Elsevier, CAUL agreements now include four of the big five journal publishers, the others being Taylor and Francis, John Wiley and Springer. Sage is now the stand-out.
A natural selection at Charles Darwin U: depends who you ask
Management at CDU have made staff an offer the union says they should refuse
The proposed enterprise agreement includes 4 per cent pay rise on staff agreeing, followed by 2 per cent in October ’23 and then in’24, plus leave improvements and a signing bonus (max $500).
To which National Tertiary Education Union branch president Darius Pfitzner responds that management’s proposal means “staff at risk of continued redundancies … it’s pretty obvious why management only wants to talk about money with so many rights and conditions under attack.”
That the union does not want to lose this vote is also obvious – a repeat of its recent defeat at Southern Cross U, where the workforce narrowly voted for management’s prop, against NTEU opposition might encourage other management’s now negotiating (CMM November 7) to go it alone.
The union’s national president, Alison Barnes was in Darwin campaigning against the offer last week, (CMM November 8)
Claire Field on keeping up with creating work-ready grads
by CLAIRE FIELD
As tertiary institutions look at how best to prepare learners for the changing world of work, a few important shifts are becoming apparent
Firstly the Federal Government has announced funding for universities to develop microcredentials – if they are willing to hand over the IP in the courses to government. The government has also announced changes to the FEE-HELP loan scheme to allow, initially university students and subsequently students at other FEE-HELP approved higher education providers, to use the loans to pay for their microcredentials.
Andrew Norton has an excellent piece of analysis as to why this funding support is unlikely to be needed by most learners, as well as other concerns about the government’s proposal.
Meanwhile, the challenge to improve the work readiness of graduates (in higher education and VET) continues, especially in occupations and industries where change due to digital transformation is happening at pace.
At the EduTech Asia conference I attended in Singapore last week many institutions shared how they are responding to the changing world of work. I was particularly interested in Singapore Management University’s approach, whereby IT students do initial study with Google and then later spend six months at KPMG, as part of their undergraduate degree.
I was also impressed by the approach to immersive education being taken by Monash University Malaysia, as outlined by Arkendu Sen.
VET providers are also looking for ways to meet employers’ needs (and in some cases preferences for vendor certified, non-accredited training) as well as also meeting the interests of governments and students. Some institutions are offering multiple pathways into and through IT courses, including vendor-certified training and highly focussed bootcamps (helping existing IT workers update their skills) and diplomas and certificates supplemented by vendor certified training for people who are new to the industry.
It is against this backdrop of change in the sector that I am undertaking my PhD at RMIT University.
This week I will send a survey to senior leaders in universities, TAFEs and independent providers asking how your institution is responding to these changes. The aim is to identify and share good practice back to the sector, as well as to help inform government’s policy, funding, and regulatory decision making. If the survey lands in your email inbox I hope you will find the 10 minutes or so needed to complete it. You can also email me @ [email protected]
Claire Field is a PhD student and the host of the What now? What next? podcast. On the latest episode she speaks to Michael Hui, Managing Director at Arowana, about how they are responding to this changing landscape.
Start them up: how the tech network unis would set student entrepreneurs creating
The government is keen to encourage undergrads with big ideas. The Australian Technology Network universities are keen to help
The Commonwealth has 2000 HECS-style loans to fund a one year place for final year students in a university accelerator, to work on a project of their own and wants to know how the scheme can work.
To which ATN responds the first thing the feds should do is “support” its members (Uni Newcastle, UTS, RMIT, Deakin U, Uni SA, Curtin U) to “create and deliver” a micro-credential in entrepreneurship, based on an existing ATN product.
ATN also suggests giving the loan money to the students to spend on their project, rather “than funding their university to build its own capability and infrastructure.” And it proposes extra support for students from, “less financially well-off backgrounds.”
As to what should be started up, “social enterprise and impact should be at the heart of start up year.”
Appointments, achievements
Samar Aoun is WA’s Australian of the Year. Professor Aoun has a research chair in palliative care at UWA.
Australian Catholic U announces its Vice Chancellor’s Staff Excellence Awards, including; teaching: Amanda Gutierrez (Education) .medal for excellence: Emma Buntowe, Aaron Cornwall, Kelly Dann, Karen Desfontaines, Isabelle Lys, Janine Quine, Maria Valastro (Human Library project team). service: Vesna Stefanov (curriculum manager). community engagement: Anh Nguyen Austen, Michael Baker, Alda Balthrop-Lewis, Maddie Barton, Sebastian Gimenez, Martin Kelly, Wendy Ng, Jennifer Taylor, Julie Thorpe, David Tran, Heidi Wolfenden, Alexander Yeung (Bushfire Recovery Grants working group). student experience: Sarah Bakić, Radhika Gregory (ACU Life project team). research/research partnership: Geetanjali Basarkod, Theresa Dicke, Jiesi Guo, Timonthy Kent, Paul Kidson, HeeRa Ko, Herb Marsh, Philip Parker, Taren Sanders, Sioau-Mai See (Australian Principal Health and Wellbeing Research team). reconciliation: Ben Groth, Leanne Long (Indigenous Nationals 2022 project team). stewardship: Anita Drakulic, Kieran Flanagan, Jane McCormack, Kerry Ttofari Eecen (ACU Speech Pathology Speed Sessions team)
CSIRO chief executive Larry Marshall will complete his third term and leave in June.
H Deep Saini will be the next VC of McGill University in Canada, moving from Dalhousie U in Nova Scotia. Professor Saini was VC of Uni Canberra, 2016-19
Susan Scott (ANU) is awarded the Australian Institute of Physics’ Walter Boas Medal. Last month she received the European Academy of Sciences’ Blaise Pascal Medal for Physics.