The estimable National Centre for Vocational Education Research has an understated invitation for VET students to complete a survey

“Have your say about training” is the headline and the call to action is a share of $40 000 in gift cards.

In terms of the good the NCVER does in providing data that matters, really matters to VET, including for future students, the copy goes nowhere near making the case for participating.

No one is ever going to accuse the centre of overblown anything.

New in Features this morning

Merlin Crossley goes the full Benjamin Franklin, calling for sharing news and views to be ties that bind against the auld enemy of ignorance. As Dr Franklin put it (although he meant it literally), “let us hang together, lest we hang separately,” HERE

and Angela Carbone and Luana Spadafora (both Australian Awards for University Teaching) on why it’s time to elevate teaching in universities and how it can be done. New in Sally Kift’s celebrated series, Needed now in teaching and learning HERE

and Monday’s super-selection

Andrew Harvey (Griffith U) on how schools streaming students from Year 9 could defeat the great Accord ambition to expand HE participation. Another selection from the celebrated Sally HERE

plus Danny Kingsley (Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science) and Hero Macdonald (Deakin U) on how Australia can and why it should, “modernise and right-size its approach to research assessment,” HERE.

joined by Dirk Mulder on the international education market with huge potential that isn’t India HERE 

Final issue is June 16

After ten years the end is near for CMM – thank you all for reading and giving me a reason to report the always fascinating, endlessly entertaining and often inexplicable alternative universe of tertiary education.

So fascinating that I will stay engaged – as a writer for hire.

Reporting and writing, editing and presenting – got a comms project challenge? I will have a solution @ [email protected]

Those thumping surpluses come in handy

The university announces the Horizon programme  – 40 continuing FT/PT research positions paying $113 000 to nearly $160 000 (plus super) and “up to” $100 000 per annum in research funding.

The five-year fellowships are 80 per cent research for the first three with a “balanced” teaching and research load for the remainder.

They are for early career researchers, within ten years of completing PhDs, “with outstanding research track records on a rising trajectory.”

Fellowships are open to all , for research on climate change, health,(and a distinct subject) sustainability. “Programmes could include the development of novel technologies, biomedical, legal, business, design, policy and political instruments.”

DVC R Emma Johnston talks to Stephen Matchett about Horizons, HERE

by TIM WINKLER

With CMM gone there’s a new way to read what’s happening, and needs to, in tertiary education

Future Campus will  bring you news, analysis and fresh voices – from the sector, for the sector. Publishing weekly, plus regular updates, it will be a focus for voices that need to be heard more often – Indigenous thought leaders, young staff who hold the future of the sector in their hands,  innovative researchers and teachers, as well as professional staff, who are often overlooked in their contribution to shaping the sector.

Plus it will include regular print and video contributions from Stephen Matchett, who is keen to keep on reporting what’s going on.
In my 24 years in the sector 21 years, I have worked in 24 universities and about a dozen VET sector institutions, either in-house or as a consultant, and I know just how important it is to share insights and fresh perspectives.

Better understanding and better connection leads to better management decisions, better hires, and a bit more satisfaction that your daily labours have a chance of adding up to something meaningful.

Sign-up to Future Campus @ www.futurecampus.com.au.

Deakin U’s Stacey Walton tells staff enterprise bargaining is on again

While Mrs Walton does not mention it, bargaining with the National Tertiary Education Union was delayed when management put an offer to the university community that the union vehemently opposed and was rejected by 62 per cent of staff voting (CMM May 2).

Prior to the vote she warned, “a ‘no’ vote means there will be considerable delay before you have an opportunity to engage with any further agreement. There is also no guarantee that a revised agreement would maintain the significant level of proposed uplifts and increases,” (CMM April 28 2023).

But things do not seem so bleak now,  at least not for sessional staff hoping for some sort of employment security. Mrs Walton specifically mentions “exploring potential conversion opportunities.”

What she doesn’t raise is pay – the university’s last offer was three increases of three percent through to March 2025, which the union’s Piper Rodd called “grossly inadequate” (CMM April 17).

Mrs Walton also announces most staff will now not have to work on Monday’s holiday honouring His Britannic Majesty’s birthday – the day-off was part of management’s previous proposal but was pulled when staff voted no.

The focus on a long-weekend puzzles some academic staff – it falls in the mid-semester break when people are flat-out marking. “Given the lack of time to take a substantial block of leave, most people just want more money for what they do,” one says.

Celebrating 10 Years of H5P: Empowering TEL in Higher Education from The Edvisor

One of the best things that the Internet gives us in terms of Technology Enhanced Learning is the ability to create interactive and engagement multimedia learning resources. As technology has developed, this has become increasingly accessible to educators with even the most basic digital skills. H5P is a powerful free open source tool and Amelia Di Paolo (UTS) walks us through some of its most useful features in this handy primer for the TELedvisors Network blog.

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A Strategic Institutional Response to Micro-Credentials: Key Questions for Educational Leaders from Journal of Interactive Media in Education

Progress on integrating micro-credentials into tertiary education in a meaningful way has been frustratingly slow over the last 15 plus years, given the opportunities this modality offers to provide highly targeted qualifications supporting lifelong learning. Brown, McGreal and Peters provide a comprehensive summary of progress made in this space in Europe, North America and Australia and provide insights into the ways that a general lack of understanding of the model has hampered implementation at scale.

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Why do digital transformations fail? From Stephen Downes

Stephen Downes was one of the key players when MOOCs hit the scene, so he is worth listening to when it comes to big picture discussions about under and over-hyped education technologies that are meant to change the world. This 96 min presentation to this year’s Canadian Network for Innovation in Education event ranges across the Technology Acceptance Model, AI (of course), blockchain and metaverse.

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How to create livelier asynchronous discussions from Chronicle of Higher Education

Amid all the discussions of fancy education technologies, the humble discussion forum is probably the one that appears in the most LMS units and yet is often also the one that we struggle to generate engagement with. This brief post from Beckie Supiano provides five simple suggestions for sparking interaction, including requiring students to weave in researched evidence and share their thought processes.

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10 minutes chats – Generative AI from Monash Education Academy

These bite-sized discussions of core ideas in the Gen AI space hosted by Tim Fawns seem promising and I look forward to seeing the remainder in the series, releasing here weekly. In this episode he discusses how we need to reframe our thinking of GenAI with the Open University’s Mike Sharples.

And that it is for the penultimate edition of this column. CMM is closing up shop at the end of next week, so after the 16th you will be able to tune into my Ed Tech must reads at bit.ly/edtechmustreads (You can subscribe free there now)

Colin Simpson has worked in education technology, teaching, learning design and academic development in the tertiary sector since 2003 at CIT, ANU, Swinburne University and Monash University. He is also one of the leaders of the ASCILITE TELedvisors Network. For more from Colin, follow him on Twitter @gamerlearner (or @[email protected] on Mastodon)