Monday, May 16, 2022

Canberra Toolkit for International Student Promotions

The ACT Government provides a free online toolkit of materials for promoting Canberra. This includes for promoting international students to come to Canberra to study. As someone who writes a blog about education (highereducationwhisperer.com), I signed up for the toolkit. First thing I did was search for resources on "innovation". What came up were photos of Petr Adamek and Rachael Greaves from Canberra Innovation Network, and a couple of photos of the Mugga Lane Solar Farm. Those are relevant, but more pictures of students would be good, perhaps from CBRIN events.

But having found some images I am not sure what to do with them. I ticked a box below each image. I clicked on the basket item. But what happens next. Do I have to go to a checkout? Do I have to pay for them? I clicked anot basked icon further down the page and was at what looked like a checkout. This required me to describe what the photos were for and who the client was. The system, I assume, is designed for professional marketing companies.

This all seems a little old fashioned. In the modern era, you do a web search for materials, if the licence suits, you use them. You don't waste time explaining to some gatekeeper why you want to use them, or have to order and download them. You don't want to wait while your order is processed (why do stock photos have to be processed?)

It is useful to have attractive images, videos and test to show Canberra as an attractive place to come and study. However, university will need more than this to attract students, as they mostly study online now. In some ways this makes the city around the university more important, as the student will be spending very little time on campus (at least not in the classrooms). Also what will be important are employment opportunities in the region, during and after study.


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