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They’re from Swinburne land
The tiger army might not have heard the news, what with all the roaring over Saturday’s win
Swinburne U is extending its partnership with Richmond for a second four-year term.
Club players and support staff study at the university and students are in placements at the club. The university keeps naming rights at Punt Road Oval and will sponsor Richmond next year in the AFL Women’s competition. Question is, does Richmond change club colours and song, from yellow, to red and black? O does Swinburne replace the red in its livery?
There’s more in the Mail
In Features this week Kelly Matthews (Uni Queensland) on engaging with students as partners. Another essay in Commissioning Editor Sally Kift’s series on what we need now in teaching and learning.
And tomorrow Tony Peacock (CRC Association) on the R&D tax incentive we don’t need
Deakin U wonders about Saturday school
The university is asking students what times suit
Deakin U management says students are bothered by “the congestion of campus learning spaces.” So, the university is surveying them about their “preferred learning hours,” including how late weeknight classes should run and whether they would show-up on Saturday. But not to worry Saturday classes would be opt-in for staff and students. “I would like to stress that at this stage, we are simply consulting,” DVC Elizabeth Johnson tells staff.” It’s any next stage that might be a worry.
Gillard to chair ANU Institute for women’s leadership
Former PM Julia Gillard will chair an Asia-Pacific Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at ANU
The institute is a spin-off of the GIWL at King’s College London, which Ms Gillard also chairs. The Institute conducts, “research, practice and advocacy to better understand and address the causes of women’s under-representation in leadership positions across sectors and countries.” What the ANU based institute will do awaits the appointment of a local director mid next year.
One more Ramsay protest at Uni Queensland
It’s on Thursday and will call on the University of Queensland Senate to reject management’s plan for Ramsay Western Civilisation Centre funded degrees
The deal was done last month and passage through Senate is assured, give the university’s peak body delegated negotiating power in February to the Chancellor Peter Varghese and VC Peter Hoj. But not all members of the Senate are happy and a protest may give them cause to make the case against the degrees once last time.
Uni Melbourne models new experience for undergrads
Uni Melbourne moves to update the student experience
The university is transforming teaching and learning with its long in-development flexible academic programme, including, student engagement in large classes, digital teaching technologies in live-lectures and student-centric services in class time-tabling. (CMM October 9 2017).
And now the university executive has presented staff with a new approach to assisting undergraduates make the most of student life.
What’s happening: New DVC Student Life, Kerri-Lee Krause, will lead the seven-component programme, rolling out 2020-21.
* commencement ceremonies: “assist to establish cultural expectations and norms for both study and engagement, and create a shared sense of identity and connection” starting 2020
* Melbourne ideas festival: using existing Orientation activities; “to enable students to sample and explore different intellectual offerings and see some of the university’s major researchers in action”
* discovery subjects: an “immersive experience” for new students in the first few weeks after orientation. “from which they emerge with an understanding of the norms and expectations of their new community and with strong connections to other students and to their discipline.”
* next generation capstones: “substantial increases in the quantity and diversity of experiential learning opportunities embedded in the third-year curriculum” to help students transition from student of a discipline to a practitioner, “prepared for what lies beyond graduation”
* advising and mentoring: all first and second year students to have, “structured, scheduled, and matched opportunities to connect with later-year students and with academic staff. These appointments will focus on issues relevant to a student’s study”
* co-curricular: “opportunities for students to build skills and experience in a range of different environments, become engaged and active citizens, give back to local, national and international communities, and explore their emerging ideas for careers and personal growth.” Students with eligible co-curricular achievements receive a transcript showing engagements and skills developed, “available to students throughout their enrolment, and beyond.”
* student life measurement framework: leading indicators to, “evaluate progress towards our goal of leading the sector in measures of the student experience”
Yes, there are concerns: This is a very big deal indeed and there are concerns on campus that the planning is not in place nor staffing lined-up for 2020-21 roll outs. Professor Krause will certainly have a big summer, when she starts at the university on December 2.
Brilliant, just brilliant: The demand driven system, including the excellent Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching, increased attention on student experience and outcomes, which has not gone away. Uni Melbourne scored just under the overall national average for the undergraduate experience in QILT ’18, 10 per cent below for student support.
The university needed to act – what it has done is typical of the institution’s culture, identifying issues and allocating resources not just to fix problems but to create a new culture. Another great Melbourne Model.
James Cook U to appeal Ridd judgement
The Federal Court has ordered James Cook U pay Peter Ridd $1m compensation for loss and $125 000 as a pecuniary penalty
The court found JCU breached its enterprise agreement when it sacked Dr Ridd, who had criticised the university over climate science research. It’s not over yet with JCU stating Friday, it will appeal, “as a litigant it is entitled to do so.”
Nailing citation manipulation
Journal-giant and research-data resource Elsevier promotes a new methodology, “to detect the unethical addition of citations to scientific research papers”
It’s a project with Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands to identify peer-reviewers adding irrelevant citations to authors or journals. The partners based their analysis on 500 000 reviewers and citations in Scopus and found 0.8 per cent of 69 000 researchers who reviewed five or more publications in Elsevier journals, “were associated with suspicious citation platforms.”
“Now that Elsevier can detect citation manipulation in published papers, the next step is to prevent it earlier and before publication.”
Not the biggest deal in itself but another Elsevier effort to reconfigure is business base away from being solely seen as the arch-enemy of open access.
Appointments, achievements
Bronwyn Evans is the new CEO of Engineers Australia. She is a recent head of the federal government’s medtech and pharma industry growth centre MTP connect.
Myles Young is health fund Bupa’s emerging health researcher for 2019. Dr Young works on weight loss programmes for men, at the University of Newcastle