Greetings from the ANU Learning and Teaching Innovation Showcase in Canberra. Staff are giving short talks on their teaching innovation, and there are three workshops: 1: Blended Learning - Small Changes, Big Impact, 2: Creating Accessible Digital Content, & 3: Teamwork & Transdisciplinary Community of Practice. I picked the third workshop as I teach students to work in teams.
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| Dr Andrew Carr |
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| Dr Penny Kyburz |
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Jonathan O'Donnell, the Research Whisperer, has published a thoughtful item on The economics of Australian universities. Firstly he points out that Australian universities are ‘liberal arts’ institutions, and only a few are private. Income is mostly from student fees (domestic ones subsidised by government), with little from government research grants or private endowments. What not mentioned is that Australia law requires universities to undertake research in multiple fields: an institution which specializes in education, or research in one field, cannot be accredited as a university in Australia.
Dr O'Donnell points to the "pernicious culture of over-work in universities". The solution to this, I suggest, is professional training. Academics who have been trained only in research are open to exploitation. Not given enough time to carry out teaching or administration, a culture which sees long unpaid hours as heroic can develop. Instead staff can be trained to use tools and techniques to get the job done in the time available.
I am not sure I agree with Dr O'Donnell's characterization of Australian universities as ‘liberal arts’. While there is a separate system of vocational institutions for trades training, Australian universities were established and continue to provide doctors, lawyers, engineers and other working professionals. Recent reforms by government might be seen as a way to reinforce this emphasis on professional education.
Of Australia's 42 universities, 38 are public (set up by governments), and 4 private. One of the private universities, Torrens, is for-profit, with the rest non-profit. Torrens, is an unusual institution and deserving of more study.
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| Stephen Dunkerley, Matsue Leadership & Consulting |
Greetings from the final TechLauncher workshop at the Australian National University. This is a chance for students to not only listen to potential employers but also talk to them. Of course many computer students already have jobs, as they have in demand skills. There are some extra requirements for computer people, such as a Github account to show they can code. The workshop is held in "The Hive" which is an open plan area set up to look like a typical shared office environment.
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| Bianca Sawyer, Quantum Brilliance |
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| Kevin Landale, Digital Atelier |
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| Jonathon Stapels, Overflow Solutions |
Last week, Professor Genevieve Bell, the Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University announced an ANU realignment: Renew ANU, to address budget pressures. Many Australian universities, and those in other countries, are experiencing similar pressures. This is to suggest some ways changes could be implemented to improve the education delivery by universities generally. This follows the broad approach I suggested in a submission to the Review of Higher Education. As with that submission, these suggestions are are my own, and may not represent the views of any organisation I am associated with.
Universities could reduce costs and improve the quality of learning by teaching students study, teamwork, writing, assessment techniques (of the type which ANU offers in professional practice courses, such as Responsible Innovation and Leadership; and Holistic Thinking and Communication. This could be enhanced to identify students with specific learning difficulties. Rather than wasting staff resources investigating cheating, student can learn techniques to avoid charges of plagiarism, which will also be useful in their career to protect their own intellectual property.
ANU plans for consolidation are more modest that those in South Australia, where two universities are merging: University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia (I dropped in to visit them a few weeks ago). The ANU has proposed to include the Fenner School of Environment and Society, the Mathematical Sciences Institute, and Centre for Public Awareness of Science in the ANU College of Engineering, Computing and Cybernetics to create the ANU College of Systems and Society. Such mergers creates the opportunity for new cross fertilization between academics. Universities, I suggest, could and should be offering courses on the technical and social aspects of the major challenges Australia and the world are facing, including global warming.
Courses on technology and society can be offered by universities as part of conventional degree programs, as well as for microcredentials, and in service professional development. The University of New South Wales is building a new Canberra campus with an emphasis on courses for Australian Public Service (APS) staff, including using stackable microcredentials. This could be done using the format of courses such as COMP7310 ICT Sustainability. The Australian Computer Society commissioned me to design this course for in service professional development, to be delivered online. I then modified the course for ANU computer science graduate students, then again with an on campus option (Worthington, 2012). The same approach was applied for delivery of part of the ANU Techlauncher program (Worthington, 2019). This blended/online option was fortuitously added a few months before COVID-19 struck, allowing a switch from campus based to online delivery, with no changes in content or assessment (and a switch back to on campus).
Such courses can set context, and pose questions for students to address, rather than provide large quantities of technical content, which require constant revision. These courses can also use small regular assessment items to keep students working between major project tasks.The ANU Centre for Public Awareness of Science is respected for its education of science communicators. Such centers at universities could help with the teaching of science and the use of technology in teaching and training. This could avoid duplicating programs offered in training in the vocational sector and university school teaching programs, addressing advanced requirements. This could be in cooperation with the centers most universities have for learning & teaching.
An example of the incorporation of an existing center in teaching is the way the ANU Careers & Employability unit teaches students about careers. Rather than wait for students to go to the unit for extra curricula advice, several schools of the ANU welcome the careers staff into the classroom to teach the students. Academic staff then set assessment to ensure students focus on the topic. This could be done with topic of teaching, which is part of many disciplines. This can be aligned with professional requirements for areas such as engineering and computing, using standards such as the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA).
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| Australia 4.0 - Energy & Digital Skills Roundtable |
After a welcome from the acting EA President, we had some statistics of the supply of engineers. Highlights were that Australia is dependent on importing trained engineers and it will take 70 years at the current rate to achieve parity between male and females. This is much the same as the computing profession. There is an obvious way to increase the number of domestically trained engineers: attract more females, but that will require changes to training and jobs. That could also solve another problem with technical training: the need to teach people skills. At the ANU I help teach computer students to work in teams in the Techlauncher program.
It took 30 minutes before AI got a mention in the presentations. This was a relief as for the last few years AI seemed to be in the title of every talk. ;-) The approach taken here was AI enhancing work.
Some of the good news was that engineering skills are transferable. This suggests that engineers could move to renewable industry from others, such as mining. The bad news is the reverse is also the case, with the mining industry in particular having a demand for staff and money to attract them. Also there are about 40% of qualified engineers working outside an engineering role who might be attracted back. Engineers Australia produced a Clean energy workforce capacity study submission (May 2023).
The roundtable switched to comedy with discussion of smart toasters talking to smart fridges. This had a serious side as a way to manage energy use and also as a potential privacy risk.
A topic I want to raise with the roundtable is the government's recent restrictions on international students: will this reduce the supply of engineers and computer professionals? What can we do to increase the domestic supply? Microcredentials were mentioned and I wonder if they will help people already qualified in engineering or computing to transition to renewable energy. Shortly after I typed the last few sentences the chair invited me to speak, so I said it.
The next speaker proposed an updated energy risk assessment. An example given was the vulnerability Australia has importing the components for building renewable energy systems. Also it was claimed that in a few years there will be no one in government qualified to conduct such a study.
* Way back in 2008, the Australian Computer Society commissioned me to write a course on Green Computing. The ACS and ANU first ran the course in 2009 and it is still offered by Athabasca University in Canada, 15 years later. The course is still on the books at ANU, perhaps it is time to revive it.
