World Product Day

Greetings from the World Product Day in Canberra. This is the second time today I turned up to an event having no idea what it was. The first was a Zoom Eportfolios Australia "PARE" "Shut up and write" session. This one is about accessibility: "Embedding accessibility throughout product development". There is pizza and post it notes, so I feel at home. 

Simon Chan is first up, talking about their product having to meet Microsoft User Interface standards. 

Adam Cooper and Brigitta (Bri) Norton will then talk on the Digital Transformation Agency’s Digital Service Standard.

Work Integrated Learning in the Age of AI

Next week I have been asked to help run some sessions at a symposium on Work Integrated Learning (WIL) for students of computing and related fields. It is a good time for this, as I just spent a semester tutoring four teams of students working on projects for clients. Also I mentored two groups of interns, one group working for private enterprise on AI projects, and the other working for government agencies. 

While I had mentored interns previously, and also mentor now entrants to the computing profession for the Australian Computer Society), I had not tutored the project students for some years. The group computer project course at the Australian National University ("Techlauncher"), was revamped this year, so I decided to tuor, to help bed in the new format & learn more about the new approach being used.

At the same time the concern over AI use at universities, and the debate over practical skills for students have not died down. To add to this, vocational degrees were added to the Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) in February. This allows non-university educational institutions to offer degree level qualifications with more work integrated learning, or even entirely by WIL. Such a format is not new, and I learned computing only partly at a university, the Australian Bureau of Statistics hired trainers who came in and ran courses on site. I was paid to work downstairs part of the day, then go upstairs for training (on full pay).

As it happens I registered for an Eportfolios Australia "PARE" (Plan, act, reflect & eportfolio) session. I had assumed this was the usual webinar, but when it started, I discovered it was "Shut up and write" format. So I am writing. 

I am assisting with two sessions at the symposium: "Learning Systems: Canvas for WIL, Virtuous Loop", and "Accreditation requirements & Ungrading WIL". The "Virtuous Loop" is something some of my colleagues tell me they know about, so I will leave that to them.

Learning Systems: Canvas for WIL 

A few weeks ago I did the introductory training for the Canvas Learning Management System being introduced to ANU. Canvas seems very similar to Moodle, so should be suitable. My approach is to use the LMS as a place to provide the student with their instructions as to what to do, then collect the results. The actual learning happens elsewhere, outside the LMS. This approach works well with WIL, which clearly can't happen within the confines of the tools an LMS provides.

ePortfolios

This then raises the question of what other tools we can use to help the student with WIL. Given I am writing this during an ePortfolios Australia session, the most obvious is an ePortfolio. Canvas has an ePortfolio tool called "Folio". However, this is unlikely to have adequate versioning features to be usable. To be of use, we need to know when the student added what to their portfolio, including every edit,  for "show your work". Also we need to track the contributions of individual students in group projects, where they are assembling a jointly developed document. It is likely we will need to use tools like GitHub for this purpose. That will require training for non-computing students, unused to the concepts inherent in such tools.

Accreditation requirements & Ungrading WIL

Bodies such as the Australian Computer Society and Engineers Australia, accredit university courses. Common requirements of accreditation is for the student to have some group, work and project experience. I mentor interns who work individually at a real workplace and tutor group project students who work on a real project for a real client. In both cases there is scaffolding of the experience, to make it into a course. There are a few lectures, but the emphasis is on meeting with a mentor/tutor regularly. There are also assessed tasks to complete. These tasks are designed to be relevant to real world experience. Typically the students start by negotiating what they are going to do and submit a statement of work document, agreed with the client, for assessment. Also they typically end with a reflective work on what they did and learned from the experience. In between there are progress reports. In the case of internships, the assessor relies on reports from the client, as it is not feasible for them to assess the actual work the student does. In the case of group projects, the assessor may have more access to the work product, but even ... oops time is up ...

At this point, as per the PARE process, we stopped writing and had a few minutes discussion. I shared this document, up to this point. We discussed how to collect notes on what we had been doing for future use. This is very relevant to a discussion of how students document and provide evidence of, what they did in WIL. For assessment purposes we need that evidence, but it can't be too burdensome, for the student, their client, or the assessors. Ideally the evidence is captured as a byproduct of the WIL. This happens reasonably naturally for computer project students, who use online tools common in industry for software development. These tools timestamp every contribution by every team member, and provide statistics on their overall contribution. 

Grading WIL

Some WIL is not integrated. The student is required to undertake a set amount of work experience. A supervisor attests the student did the work. There is no detailed analysis of what they did, or how well. At the other extreme, a program like Techlauncher has assessors examining what each student does every week, and in more detail at checkpoints through the year. 

Typically in vocational education, students are assessed on a pass/fail (Competent/Not yet competent) basis. Even if there is a numerical grading, this is reduced to pass/fail at the end of the unit of study. The logic behind this is that the student is being assessed as being able to do a job. In some industries this is a legal requirement: no ticket, no job.  In contrast a university student is typically graded numerically on a 100 point scale, which is then reduced to a 4 to 7 level grade. The student's grades are aggregated to give a Grade Point Average  on a 4 or 7 point scale.

The course results and GPAs may be used internally as a requirement for students to progress in their program, or to apply for advanced study, but are of little or no value to outside employers. Given that WIL doesn't involve they type of learning of a typical academic course, they use of 100 point or even 7 point scale for assessment seem very artificial. The purpose of the exercise is not for the student to be excellent at working in a workplace, they can't be expected to achieve that ... opps time is up again. 

Conclusion

Having written about the topic stream of consciousness style, it is time to try to make some short, hopefully helpful, comments on WIL:

Learning Systems: Canvas for WIL 

LMS for Scaffolding

A learning management system is useful for providing structure for WIL. The unfamiliar and fragmented nature of WIL can be confusing for both students and staff. The LMS can provide a step by step checklist of who needs to do what, when, & a catalog of the tools and guides they need.  

Not Too Integrated

An LMS is not designed for WIL. A useful approach is to use the LMS to tell the student what they need to do, then have them go off and do it with specialised tools, but bring the evidence of what they did back to the LMS for assessment, and feedback. 

Most of the evidence of learning outcomes can achieved work products, rather than specially created academic artifacts. As an example, the client or supervisor can be asked to rate the student's performance. The work plans and output can be directly assessed. The tools used to record the student's work can be used to verify they were actually doing the work. As an example, tools such as GitHub record each time each team member contributed to the repository, timestamped. 

Accreditation requirements & Ungrading WIL

Accreditation authorities want to be assured the student achieved all skills and knowledge requirements at the set level. This can be difficult with WIL, as what the student does varies based on the client/supervisors' requirements. One way to meet the requirement is by adopting the approach of vocational education. Rather than assess how well the students achieved various tasks, and check they met an overall requirement, check they performed on each to the required level of competency. Numerical measures and scales can still be used, but what is important is the student achieved every requirement.

Best of EduTech Asia 2025

EduTech Asia 2025 is in Singapore 4 TO 6 November. The preliminary agenda is now out. Here are my selections from the Higher Education stream:

Pre-Conference Workshops: 4 November 2025

10:00 Revolutionise learning with competency-based design thinking

14:00 Blended learning 2.0! Designing a community of inquiry to enhance student learning

Conference Day 1: 5 November 2025

11:00 Panel: Can AI and data create a more personalised learning approach?

11:45 Fireside chat: The rise of the AI tutoring technology

14:10 Case study presentation: Enhancing teaching experiences through Nanyang Polytechnic’s competency-based learning approach

Redefining the Australian Degree

Greetings from the Professional Standards Board of the Australian Computer Society (ACS), meeting in Adelaide. I jokingly told some academic colleagues that I was at a meeting to redesign the Australian degree. This is a slight exaggeration. Professional bodies, such as ACS, set accreditation standards. Universities and other educational bodies can choose to be accredited, but to do so must meet the requirements. As a result what professional standards are set influences what is in degrees. A current, and ongoing issue, is the balance between practical skills for immediate use, and what will be needed over a career. Another is how to improve, and formally recognise, learning which takes place outside the institution. 

Some other issues are AI Adoption, and Digital Skills (such as DigComp 2.0). Also hanging over everything is cyber security.

ps: In terms of how moden meetings are run, while all the broad are physically present, we still have video conferencing running, for some staff giving presentations from offices in other cities. Even though I am in the room, I found it useful to join the video conference (with no sound), so I can see presentations up close on my laptop. 

AI Generated Instructions

Speaking at the Australian Computer Society Canberra Branch this evening, Harry Hoang from Tailored Accounts Trude, asked his staff to use two AI systems to write a step by step process to apply for a complicated government tax deduction. Both provided an accurate useful guide. He emphasized these systems did not need the back and forth of Chat GPT: one request gave a useful answer. Genspark and Felo AI were the AI tools mentioned.